Grrrrr ! Man biscuits, well sort of ... ...

I'm not ashamed to admit I like to dabble in the kitchen, I cook the Sunday roast (although not as well as my wife) we have recently been foraging for stuff, and have made blackberry jam, and I'm in the process of making blackberry wine (should be fun)

So when the weather is bad and the kids are driving you nuts (as mine frequently do) why not venture into the kitchen and do some baking, go on it's okay, men are allowed to do kitchen stuff :-)

I'm not talking about large scale baking, massive cakes and such like, I'm talking biscuits, they are great, and easy to make, the kids will love them, and you can feel pleased that you made them from scratch, and that they aren't full of preservatives and such like, believe me if your kids like this kind of thing you don't need preservatives, the biscuits won't last long enough to go mouldy.

So to the biscuit making, I use a recipe that my wife showed me, it's easy to do, and you can use it as a base for loads of different types of biscuit.

The ingredients.

Baking marge (the stork stuff is good)

Sugar, you can use caster sugar, but I tend to go for muscovado sugar, it adds a nice flavour to the biscuits.

Self raising flour.

A tablespoon of golden syrup (this helps keep the biscuits moist)

What ever you want as a flavouring, chocolate chips,coconut, raisins, peanuts.

Grease proof paper and a couple of flat baking trays.

I will give you amounts of stuff to make about 20 or so biscuits, depending on how big you want them.

100grams of baking marge

100 grams of sugar

150 grams of self raising flour

As for the flavouring, then this is up to you, but around 50 grams of what ever is a good start.

To make the biscuits.

First clean your hands and the kids if they are helping.

Add your sugar and marge together in a bowl and mix them together well, you want a creamy paste.

You can add the syrup here.

Next add the flour and mix again, until it's all mixed together.

Then you can add your choice of flavouring and mix again.

Once it's all mixed together you then need to get 2 flat trays and either grease them or cut a couple of sheets of grease proof paper.

Then grab small amounts and roll into a small ball and flatten out and then place on the tray, you should get about 12 or so on each tray, leave space around each one for them to expand.

Chuck them in the oven, you want to cook them for around 6 - 8 minutes on about 200°C keep checking them as they cook, when they are a golden brown colour take them out and let them sit for a few minutes, it's easier to get them off the trays once they have cooled a little, then you can put them onto a cooling rack.

When they are cool enough to eat..... eat them (always the best bit)

Here's some pictures of some I made the other day -

White chocolate and coconut.

And these - 

Peanut cookies.

These I made today, coconut with smarties (I know sweets aren't that good for kids, but there's only a couple on each cookie) as decoration, I found sticking the smarties on while the biscuits/cookies are hot helps them stick. 

With sweets.

And there you go, man biscuits, well sort of, but who cares they taste great, and when it's raining outside this will easily kill and hour or two of time, and kids love doing this sort of thing.

Thanks for reading.