So it’s back to work for me today. Can’t complain really – it’s in distinct contrast to the days when I was a shop-girl and had to work the busiest day of the year on Christmas Eve, with it all happening again on Boxing Day.
This year it’s been wall-to-wall truckles of brie, salted caramel cream liqueur, marshmallow snowmen and bubble and squeak, and so perhaps it’s time for a more austere diet to kick in. As the recipe below says (before giving the instructions in one, long sentence) “After the surfeit of the festival season it is often a relief to see something that is not garnished with clotted cream or chocolate icing. Wholemeal biscuits seem an eminently suitable change…”
It’s a kind of digestive biscuit which was, as evident in its name, was considered an aid to the digestive system due to the presence of bicarbonate of soda. Notwithstanding the fact that most of it decomposes into sodium carbonate during the cooking process and so having little actual effect, this particular recipe only calls for a pinch of the stuff anyway.
Nb. This is the first time I have come across the concept of a “saltspoon” as a means of measurement. Apparently 1 saltspoon equals 1/4 of a teaspoon so this would mean 1/8 teaspoon of salt in the recipe below.
After-Christmas Recipe
Wholemeal Biscuits
After the surfeit of the festival season it is often a relief to see something that is not garnished with clotted cream or chocolate icing. Wholemeal biscuits seem an eminently suitable change. Here is a good recipe for them:-
Ingredients:
1/2lb wholemeal flour
1/4 pint milk (about)
1oz caster sugar
1oz butter
1/2 saltspoonsful salt (1/8 tsp)
A pinch of carbonate of soda
Dissolve the butter and soda in the milk by warming, mix the flour, sugar and salt together, add the milk, mix the whole into a stiff paste, roll out thinly, cut in rounds, pierce all over with a fork, place on a greased tin and bake 25 minutes.