Boy the Elder has been away at Scout Camp this weekend – rather him than me – it’s freezing. So Boy the Younger and I decided to do some baking to welcome him home and make the most of the oven which was on for the Sunday Roast. We never put the oven on just for one thing!
A year and a half ago I experienced a loss. I had a small, yellow notebook in which I wrote down and perfected my own recipes and which I had been writing for about five years. It was full up and I was a quarter of the way through a second volume, again handwritten, and I never bothered to commit the recipes to memory because they were written down; I kept meaning to type them up but never quite got round to it.
You know what’s coming don’t you? In the last but one house move the book went missing. Volume 2 made the journey but Volume 1 has never surfaced. I keep hoping it will turn up, hidden inside another book, or stuffed at the bottom of a box, but I don’t hold out much hope. It is irreplaceable and I can’t even remember what half the recipes were. Compound swearing doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I had a great craving for these soft cookies today, so BTY and I did a bit of experimenting and came up with these. They also make a very welcome present, in nice box or tin lined with tissue paper. Hope you like them.
THE WARTIME HOUSEWIFE’S LUXURIOUS COOKIES – makes about 30
Utensils:
1 large mixing bowl
1 x electric food mixer
3 x large baking trays – greased and floured
2 x wire cooling racks
Ingredients:
6oz / 180g butter
2 large or 3 small eggs
4oz / 120g dark brown sugar
6oz / 180g white sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
12oz / 360g self raising flour
12oz / 360g whatever you want to put in – I used:-
4oz chopped marzipan
4oz chopped dark chocolate
4oz quartered glace cherries
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180 / 360 / 4
Beat the butter, eggs, sugars and vanilla with the mixer until creamy thoroughly mixed
Beat in the flour to form a stiff dough.
Stir in all the remaining ingredients until they are evenly distributed throughout the dough
Form the mixture into balls (about the size of a golf ball) and place on the baking sheets, leaving plenty of space for them to spread – a 12″ tray should accommodate 8 or 9
Bake for 12-15 minutes until pale golden
Leave on the tray to ‘set’ for 1-2 minutes
Transfer to a wire rack to cool