Boo and I watch The Great British Bake Off

This is the first in a series of regular posts I’m planning under the ‘Baking with Boo’ category. Each weekend I’ll post a little something about our adventures in the kitchen. With piccies and recipes.

We started our little baking on Sunday ritual after getting hooked on the Great British Bake-Off, which — here in Aus — screens on a Sunday evening. If you, like us, are totally addicted to this program, you’ll know that you just have to have something scrumptious to nibble on while you squeal, groan and cheer at the contestants every week.

This week, we’re kicking off with some classic and delicious biscuits. Melting moments are superbly easy to bake, and look and taste delicious! This recipe makes about a dozen good-sized melting moments.

Ingredients

• for the biscuits
  • 125 g butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup plain flour
  • 1/4 cup icing sugar mixture
  • 1/3 cup custard powder
• for the butter cream filling
  • 60 grams butter
  • 2/3 cup icing sugar mixture
  • 2 teaspoons lemon rind (as finely grated as you can manage)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

• Be prepared! All good girl scouts know you should be prepared. So preheat your oven to 160°C, and line your oven trays with baking paper. We only have one baking tray (I know!), so we bake the cookies in batches.

• Beat the butter until it’s pale and creamy.

• Add the flour, icing sugar mixture and custard powder to the whipped butter, and use a wooden spoon to combine.

• Use your hands to roll generous teaspoonfuls of the dough into balls. Place the balls on the lined trays (they don’t rise/spread too much, so you can pack them quite tightly). Use a fork to gently flatten the biscuits by rolling the blades over the rolled balls while applying light pressure.

• Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15 minutes. They’ll look golden-yellow, but not brown. Remove from oven and cool on a cooling rack.

Fresh out of the oven …

• Make the butter cream filling: Beat the butter and icing sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy (best to use a mixer if you have one, or take turns with your baking buddy so that you don’t suffer baking exhaustion). Add the lemon rind and juice, and beat until combined (a good old wooden spoon will do for this bit).

Adding the zest and rind to your butter cream. See below for some super-simple alternatives to the classic lemon flavours.

• Assemble the biscuits: Spread the butter cream over the flat side of half the biscuits and sandwich together with the remaining biscuits. You can pipe the filling on if you’re aiming for a little bit of a fancy-pants viewing from the side, but it isn’t necessary. A good glop of butter cream applied with a butter knife will look just as scrumptious. I find it works well to slightly twist the top biscuit as I squish them together. Some people like to dust the finished biscuits with icing sugar (using a sifter or a tea strainer).

Assemble the minions! Err … biscuits.

Note: The recipe makes quite a generous amount of filling. You can keep it in the fridge for a few days and make another half-batch of cookies for mid-week munchies.

Variations

• 

  Classic Lemon Melting Moments

  Citrus fiesta! For a subtly surprising and sexy twist on the classic lemon flavour, substitute the lemon zest and juice in the butter cream for lime, mandarin, blood orange, cumquat or any other citrus you have handy. Kaffir lime, even!

• Passionate moments:  Add the pulp of one passionfruit (strained to remove the seeds) to the biscuit mixture, and replace the rind and juice in the butter cream with a tablespoon of pulp as well.
• Chocolate: Add 35 grams of good quality cocoa to the biscuit mixture, and replace the custard powder with cornflour. Substitute a good teaspoon of cocoa for the lemon rind and zest in the butter cream.
• Mocha magic: Add 35 grams of good quality cocoa to the biscuit mixture and replace the custard powder with cornflour. Substitute a generous teaspoon of instant coffee for the lemon rind and zest in the butter cream.
• Raspberry ripple: Add a little splash of vanilla essence and half-a-dozen fresh raspberries to the butter cream instead of lemon rind and zest. The raspberries will slur their way through the butter cream, colouring and flavouring it with intense berry goodness.