Lemon Curd & Ginger Biscuits
Two recipes that are well and truly tried and tested in our house.
Growing up in a farming family and in the 60s meant that everything was home spun, from hand made clothes to foraged berries for jams. One thing that I always looked forward to was lemon curd, whether in cakes and tarts of spread onto a butty. I think my mums recipes came from Marguerite Pattern or more probably WI books or even freebies from BeRo… actually look up the recipe for Melting Moment biscuit recipe, another delicious one that I still bake.
The Women’s Institute lemon curd recipe has changed over the years and has become far more decadent with more egg and lemons.. I’ve simplified the process by whacking the mix in the microwave.. here it is, you can add an extra egg yolk if you wanna be decadent!:
LEMON CURD
zest and juice of 4 lemons
200g sugar
100g butter
3 eggs
Mix butter, lemon and sugar together and melt, instead of mixing over a double boiler, stick in the microwave until just melted. Whisk the eggs lightly in a separate bowl and add to the mix.
Microwave for a minute at a time maximum and stir/whisk and repeat until the mixture thickens. If you leave in the microwave too long you’ll cook the egg and it’ll scramble, just keep checking and mixing until it’s smooth and feels heavy on the whisk.
GINGER BISCUITS
A few years ago we had terrible floods across the country and the biscuit factory at Carlisle was flooded leading to a national shortage of biscuits, shelves were bare, biscuits particularly affected were ginger nuts. Me and husband love a ginger nut so John started to make his own. After following several recipes we found that none were particularly gingery, so John devised his own.. they’re not a snappable ginger nut but they’re definitely full on ginger biscuit!
340g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp ground ginger
100g butter
160g light brown sugar
100g golden syrup
1 egg
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
200g glace ginger
Mix all ingredients together. Roll out on a floured surface and cut with fancy cutters.
Bake 180ºC for 7 min
Pepparkakor
I’ve come to love the Swedish Christmas biscuit after years of working for Ikea, trips to Sweden at this time of year are never the same without a spicy biscuit. So, if you want a Christmas biscuit like a Swedish Pepparkakor leave out the grated and glaze ginger and add:
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cardamon
1/2 tsp ground black pepper.
Sue Pryke