Arguably the difference between the cake and the biscuit were served to the general public due to the publicity surrounding the high profile trial between McVities and HM Revenue and Customs over whether the humble Jaffa Cake deserved its tax-free status: under EU legislation chocolate-covered biscuits are taxed while cakes are exempt from VAT. McVities made a 30cm Jaffa Cake to illustrate the fact that it hardens as it becomes stale (like all cakes!) as opposed to absorbing moisture and losing its snap like a biscuit. Given that this blog was supposedly dedicated to my sweat-toothed passion for the cake I seem to have forgotten this distinction because I have branched out into its taxable cousin! I’m a firm believer in what the poet William Cowper expressed so adeptly with his expression ‘Variety is the spicy of life’. So I’m waging war on the monotony and boredom! You may wonder what has inspired such a noble and high minded pursuit – turns out that getting a set of biscuit cutters as a present and realizing that many biscuits are super quick and easy to make can play a big factor! The biscuits that I decided to use to mix up my baking routine were vanilla cassettes and camera biscuits.
So to the useful stuff – the recipe!
(Serves 12)
- 250g unsalted butter
- 125g caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 300g plain flour
- Icing pens
- Dark chocolate chips
- Pinch of salt
- 1 egg yolk
To complete the first step down my biscuit journey I added the butter, caster sugar and the vanilla extract to a mixing bowl. I used a wooden spoon to get in some caker-exercise while beating the mixture into a smooth and fluffy texture. I then added the egg yolk before doing another set of cake-ercise to beat the egg into the mixture. Finally I added the plain flour and integrated it into the mixture using my fingertips. I pressed the dough into a ball before dividing it in half and wrapping it in cling film. I popped the dough ball in the fridge for about an hour – this is vital to ensure that your biscuits form nice shapes when you employ the biscuit cutters.
I took out one half of the dough from the fridge and rolled it out on to a flour sprinkled work surface so that it had the approximate thickness of a pound coin. I had lent my rolling pin to a friend so I improvised by using a heavily floured long cylinder shaped glass.
I dipped the biscuit cutters into the plain flour before cutting into the dough and putting the separated shapes on to a greased baking tray. I repeated this process until I had used all the dough and added a final flourish to the cassettes and cameras using a few dark chocolate chips.
I added the baking trays into a preheated oven at 180°C for ~10 minutes until they had a light golden hue. When the biscuits were cooled I added my improvised cassette and camera edible decorations using the icing pens.
And that is how the cassette and camera biscuit crumbles …
runningforcakedotme 