Cooking: Chocolate Chip Biscuits

The one thing that scared me silly when I joined the Country Women's Association was the scones. CWA is renowned for beautiful scones. Feather light and delicious.

Mine aren't. My scones are rocks. Hard, crunchy and tasteless. Needless to say that worried me a lot. Would I have to make scones? And be drummed out because I can't cook them to save myself?

Thankfully the wonderful ladies of Harcourt CWA told me I could bake biscuits instead of scones. Naturally having a child the biscuits I make the most are Chocolate Chip ones. But that is a modification of my basic recipe. I can't remember where I found it, I think it was originally from my sister, but I don't know where she found it either.

The basic recipe is simple. HUGE, but simple.It's my go to recipe for fundraising events for school, for CWA and just simply for eating at home. Of course when I use it for at home eating I tend to split and freeze some. Because this recipe freezes so very well.

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
500g of softened butter. (Yes that's half a kilogram)
1 can sweetened condensed milk (325g tin I think they are. Standard size in Australia)
5 cups of Self Raising Flour (White, Wholemeal or Gluten Free options, your choice)

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar together. Depending on the sugar is how pale this is. Beat until fluffy and the sugar is mostly dissolved.
Add whole can of sweetened condensed milk. Scrape it out. Beat the ever loving hell out of it some more.
Add flour. Beat until it's a nice, soft dough.
Add flavourings of choice in here.
Roll into balls about the size of a golf ball.
Bake at 180 degrees centigrade for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden.

Makes approximately 120.

No you didn't read that wrong. That does say 120 biscuits. That would be why it's my go to recipe for fundraising. 10 dozen biscuits and the ability to make multiple flavours and only having to make one base? Best possible recipe for fundraising.

You'll note that there's no actual chocolate chips in that recipe. That's what the green line is for.

I turn it into dozens of different flavour biscuits.

Use brown sugar instead of caster in the base and you get a slight caramel taste and extra chewiness

Add 2 tablespoons of cocoa to half of the base, refridgerate for an hour then you can roll with a rolling pin. roll it out then roll both colours up on top of each other to make spiral biscuits

Add 500g of chocolate chips to make the yummiest biscuits ever.

My Dad thinks the ginger ones I made are fantastic as well. I don't actually like ginger biscuits so I'll have to take his word for it. 2 tablespoons of ginger into half the mix apparently makes yummy ginger snaps.

Don't be scared of the amount that the recipe makes. It divides and freezes brilliantly. And if you flavour it before rolling into cylinders of mix in glad wrap then when you need more biscuits you just pull out a roll and slice it up then cook as usual.

Knitting: Blankets for Kiddlings

My mother bought a magazine in early 2009 I think it was that had a pattern for a throw blanket in it. Fairly simple pattern and she decided that she wanted one - but this is the woman who started knitting herself a jumper when I was pregnant... My son is 13 years old now and her jumper was only finished last year. So if Mum was to get her blanket it meant that someone else was going to need to knit it for her.

So I did. And she loves it. It's big enough that it covers her up completely when she lies down on the couch, it matches most of her decor and for all that it was knitted out of *gasp* acrylic - it's warm enough that she doesn't need to have the fire burning 24/7 so she doesn't freeze when watching TV in winter.

Of course there was a drawback. I finished hers in time for her birthday which is in September and that Christmas I had "orders" put in - for each of the kids. That's my Smurfling, my cousin who is 2 weeks older than Smurf, my brother's daughter and FIVE of my sister's kids. They wanted them for Christmas. That year.

Now Mum's throw took me 4 months to knit and fringe. I admit I knitted one for myself out of scrap wool while I was knitting Mum's one, but they're not a fast knit - because of the sheer size. It's just garter stitch so it's not terribly complex.

But really.

So I told them they were getting them for Christmas. In 2013. In order to give me time to spread them out a little bit since there was 8 of them to do. Smurf got his early - and a car sized one as well from different scraps. And I also did a full sized one in purple and black for myself that is a tad larger.

I was down to 2 months per blanket before my back deteriorated, it's gone back up again because I can't lie down and knit these, they're too big. And the kids didn't get them for Christmas that year. Maybe next year.

2 months for a blanket you say?

Here's the pattern.

On 9mm size needles (Straight or circular depending on your preference, it's knitted back and forth) cast on 154 stiches.

Knit until length is 160cm (5' roughly)

Cast off.

Make tassle fringes.

See, it's not complicated. Knitting 5 feet however gets rather heavy. And I injured my back and shoulder in July 2010 so can't sit up for huge stretches of knitting time anymore. I did get two more finished since the promised date, but that was all. I need to double check that the rest of the kids still want them and haven't changed their minds about the colours that they want.