It may have been freezing outside recently but the heat in the Domestic Executive kitchen has been turned up high today.  Maybe a little too high but we don’t let a little heat come between us and domesticity at it’s cosiest.

Whether it’s hot or cold the bassets are always around when there is stuff going on in the kitchen.  You can’t blame them for hanging around in anticipation that something tasty might fall their way.  It does however require intense concentration and when the flurry of excitement is over it’s essential for them to slope off for long snooze to recover from their kitchen supervision efforts.

Snoozing is not an option for me as I’ve got some serious domestic planning to do after today’s baking adventure.

It’s important at this point to make a complete disclaimer.  I believe that there are few truly new ideas in the world and where possible you should copy and steal all the good ones that come your way and make them your own. So today I’m copying my father in law’s signature dish and will be stealing a suggestion he made that will get me out of a creative hole for my client Christmas gifts this year.

Bob (that’s my father-in-law) has in recent months perfected the art of baking crystallised ginger biscuits.  These biscuits have become so popular with family and friends that he’s now making almost industrial quantities to keep everyone’s biscuit tins stocked.  I can vouch for these biscuits – they are truly delicious.  I sampled one or two, or maybe a few more, when I was back in the UK a few weeks back. He is a generous soul and has sent me the recipe he’s been using causing high excitement at the post office when I went to collect the mail this week.

It was quite a shock to see the list of ingredients required.  But on reflection probably not unsurprising since the recipe came from a spice retailer.

Now not that I’m competitive or anything but I hear that Bob’s biscuits don’t include ground cardamon as suggested in the recipe.  As you can see I managed to track that down and also Molasses which I remember my mother-in-law bemoaning the fact she couldn’t find in the shops.  When I laid out these ingredients all I could think was crikey no wonder these biscuits have some heat in them with all these edgy spices.

It’s a simple recipe though so I set to.  It was only when I got to the sifting flour and spices together I realised I didn’t after all have all the ingredients as I didn’t have any self raising flour.  You’d think I’d learn from last time about how important it is to read the recipe in full.  I did however take this variation in my stride and settled on plain flour with some baking powder and soda instead.

I can tell you the smells were delicious I could feel a cookie dough scoffing moment coming on.  To avoid me eating the dough I had to concentrate really hard and roll up the dough for chilling as quick as I could.  Mason decided he liked the few titbits that fell on the floor.

It is of course right now I know that Bob will be reading this post and critiqueing my technique.  Before you ask, no I did not roll the dough sufficiently small enough to yield the 48 biscuits suggested by the recipe.  I need to work on my biscuit dough preparation technique.  For a first effort I was quite pleased. A little rounder next time I think!

But hey, these biscuits turned out fine.  Well almost.  The darn oven got me again.  14 minutes was just too long by about 2/3 minutes I think or maybe just drop my oven temperature a degree or two.

Luckily I have another roll of dough to bake up tomorrow for MT to take them into the office for morning tea. Or maybe we’ll just keep them at home for the bassets and I to enjoy.

I am however determined to get these perfected so I can start up a cottage industry for Christmas and with a bit of fancy packaging they’ll do nicely for giving to my clients for Christmas.  After giving away fresh eggs last year (which I have to say was pretty well received) I’m sure people will be relieved I’m not turning up with excess cauliflowers which was one of the other options I’d been considering.

Anyway, I reckon Bob is safe for the moment to be the biscuit baking king.  I still need to get my head around the fact these are biscuits and not cookies so have a crisp bite rather than chewy. Unless of course they are suposed to be chewy and the over baking makes them crispier than they should be.  I don’t mind which they are as they are hot and spicy biscuits which go just as well as tea as any Victoria Sponge cake does.  Which is a relief as I’m so over baking cakes that don’t turn out right!