As promised, Belinda Jeffery’s ginger, honey and almond lace biscuits…

Belinda suggested that these biscuits would go perfectly with the honey pots de crème that were featured in my previous post so I thought I would give them a try.

I served the biscuits with the honey pots and they did, in fact, go very well but I have since been eating them with a cup of coffee and they are perfect that way, too.

Belinda notes that really good glacé orange peel (not mixed peel) makes all the difference to the flavour of the biscuits.  I still have piles of peel I made which I wanted to use (I am not sure whether Belinda would classify it as really good) but, if you are buying peel, you may wish to take heed of this note.

Belinda calls these biscuits “Deliciously chewy ginger, honey and almond lace biscuits”  but, in the recipe, she notes that they need to be a good deep colour or they won’t be crisp.  I am not sure whether they are supposed to be chewy or crisp.  Mine were a good deep colour and chewy (not crisp).

Belinda also suggested moulding them into different shapes  – “delicate, curved tuiles or tiny baskets – to cradle ice cream or fruit”.  I tried rolling them but they didn’t stay put so I gave up and flattened them.

The glacé fruit needs to be chopped very, very finely.  I allocated that job to Maus.  It took her one hour to chop 120g of glacé fruit.  I think the biscuits are worth the hour she spent (I haven’t asked Maus’ opinion.  Not that she would know because I ate most of them.)

Ingredients:

• 135g almond flakes
• 30g glacé orange peel, very, very finely chopped
• 30g glacé apricots, very, very finely chopped
• 60g glacé ginger, very finely chopped
• 35g plain flour
• 40g unsalted butter
• 90g caster sugar
• 100mls cream
• 100mls clear honey
• ¼ tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C.
2. Line your baking trays with baking paper.
3. Finely chop 75g of the almond flakes.
4. Tip them into a bowl and add the chopped glacé fruit and remaining almond flakes.
5. Sprinkle the flour into the bowl and coat all the fruit and nuts in the flour.  Make sure each piece is separated. Set the bowl aside.
6. Put the butter, sugar, cream and honey into a saucepan over low heat.  Bring to the boil, stirring constantly.
7. Let it boil for one minute then remove it from the heat and stir in the vanilla.
8. Tip the almond mixture into the cream mixture and gently stir together until well combined.  Set the bowl aside for 12-15 minutes to cool.  (It will thicken slightly as it cools).
9. Scoop heaped teaspoons of the mixture onto the prepared baking trays.  Leave plenty of space between each one as they spread quite a bit.  Use the back of the spoon to flatten the mixture slightly and shape it into a rough circle.
10. Cook the biscuits in the pre-heated oven for 12-14 minutes or until they’re deep golden brown all over and slightly bubbly.  I found that not all the biscuits on each tray browned uniformly.  If this happens, take the tray out of the oven when the first ones are deep golden brown.  Leave them for a few minutes to cool then transfer the browned ones to a rack.  Return the tray to the oven with the remaining biscuits.  They are very forgiving.