There was a time when I baked biscuits and cakes every week and they were eaten very quickly by my hungry family. I also used to have a cake or two in the freezer for unexpected visitors etc. But these days Andrew and I eat very little sugar and even less cake. But I still enjoy baking and am pleased to have a reason to do some. So when we were invited out to lunch a few weeks ago I decided to make something special. I chose these Spritz Biscuits. Strange name I know and I have no idea of its origin. All I know is that this recipe from Mum’s Recipe Book was for ‘forced’ biscuits and mum always made them in an ‘S’ shape.

Do you know what ‘forced biscuits’ are? The dough is placed inside a biscuit forcer and a plunger is used to ‘force’ the dough out through a ‘die’, resulting in a beautifully shaped biscuit. I believe the forcer is called a cookie press these days but in mum’s day we talked about the biscuit forcer. She had a metal press with a range of ‘dies’ that meant that we could make lots of shapes. We used the forcer at Christmas time to make different biscuits. Of course it is nearly that time and so my biscuit forcer will come out again soon to make a few more of mum’s recipes!!

So back to the Spritz biscuit recipe. There are a few tricks to making these biscuits successfully.

1. Always use an un-greased tray. If you grease the tray the biscuit will not shape properly as it will not stick to the surface of the tray.
2. These biscuits must be crisp but not brown so do not over cook them. They will be ready when they are just starting to brown on the bottom.
3. When you remove them from the oven, use a very thin knife to loosen the biscuits from the tray but DO NOT MOVE THEM FROM THE TRAY UNTIL THEY HAVE COOLED FOR 4-5 MINUTES. This is the key to crisp biscuits that are not brown or burned!!!

So here is the recipe from Mum’s Recipe Book

 

What you will need:

225 grams butter

3/4 cup castor sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg yolk

2 1/2 cups Plain Flour

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

Pinch salt

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar together then beat in the egg yolk.

Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt.

Use the biscuit forcer to make different shaped biscuits. 

Bake at 170-180 C for 8-10 minutes. I usually cook for about 6 mins then 1 minute at a time until ready. 

This recipe makes about 6 -7 dozen biscuits. 

 

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Until next time,

Gillian (and Andrew)