I made this recipe up because the recipe I had for five-spice ginger biscuits required overnight standing and I wanted biscuits *now*. So I got a gingernut recipe from the Women’s Weekly and played havoc with it, and the results are rather good. Nice and spicy, and just with that hint of weird that you get from biting into a gingernut and getting five-spice flavour too.
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90g butter 75g brown sugar 60g golden syrup (not corn syrup. I don’t know what it is called in the US, but it is quite a different colour and tastes very different. More brown sugarish) 60g treacle (molasses would be nice too)200g plain flour 2 1/2 tsp Chinese five spice mix (this is a mix of ground fennel, aniseed, ginger, licorice, cinnamon and cloves) 1 1/2 tbsp ginger – or 2 tbsp, if you are feeling daring! 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Now what will you do with it?
Preheat the oven to 180°C, and line two trays with baking paper.
Melt the butter with the treacle, golden syrup and brown sugar. Remove from the heat and allow to cool very slightly, because you want biscuits now!
If you are feeling particularly kitchen goddessy, you could sift the other ingredients together before adding to the butter mixture. I don’t, because I’m lazy.
Mix it all together well, and roll into little balls about the size of a nut. Any nut – you choose. I never know how to describe this size thing. Maybe a teaspoon or two? Don’t make them too big, anyway. They spread a bit, so give them some space on the tray.
Bake for 9-12 minutes, then cool on their trays for a minute or two before transferring to a wire rack.
They really are spicy, and if you get them just right, they will be a bit chewy, too.
Variation
Mayhem could make these cookies vegan. If she liked you enough.
These are very easy to veganise. My cat could make these vegan! And she probably would, too, because then she could have all the butter, which would be a win-win situation, as far as Mayhem is concerned. Just substitute the butter for a good vegan margarine, and you’re done.
These biscuits would hold up really well with your gluten-free flour of choice, too – they are really spicy and if your preferred gluten free flour contains quinoa or besan flour, I think the nuttiness would be a very nice mix.
Also, feel free to adjust the spices – both in terms of proportion (I feel they could probably use more five spice and less ginger than I tried this time), or in terms of amounts. I really used a *lot* of ginger, and I can still feel the burn in my throat. It’s a nice burn, though…
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