Melting Moments

One of the biggest fans of my baking is my friend Ruth, who was very disappointed when I didn't bring anything in on Monday. When I asked her what she would like me to make, Ruth without hesitation suggested biscuits.

Hmmm - well, biscuits covers a huge spectrum, so I flicked through my books looking for a recipe that took my fancy. As Ruth is from New Zealand, I chose a recipe from one of my New Zealand books, Gran's Kitchen - Recipes from the Notebooks of Dulcie May Booker. I decided on Dulcie's Melting Moments, which was evidently an inspired choice, as I learned that Ruth loves shortbread.

I am not sure whether my biscuits turned out as they should have - I used teaspoonfuls of mixture for the biscuits and expected them to spread, when in fact they barely spread at all. Consequently, I flattened the tops a little with a spoon halfway through baking and ended up with dainty button-like biscuits. Maybe I should have used tablespoonsful of mixture, as Dulcie's biscuits looked much bigger. (Unfortunately, the recipe did not specify.)

Regardless, these biscuits tasted delicious! As mentioned above, they are a light, buttery shortbread, and I sandwiched the biscuits together with lemon curd flavoured icing. They were a hit with Ruth and Israel, which is all that counts.

To make your own melting moments, you will need:

1 tablespoon icing sugar
110g plain flour
115g softened butter

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Sift the icing sugar and flour together, then add the butter and stir to combine. (I found using my hands was the most effective.)

Spoon "small quantities" (teaspoonsful make button size cookies) onto a baking tray lined with baking paper or a silicone mat (and flatten slightly with the back of a spoon), and bake the biscuits for around 15 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool on the trays.

To assemble, sandwich pairs of the biscuits together with your choice of icing. (I used water icing flavoured with a tablespoon of lemon curd.) Buttercream will not really work for these as it does not set hard; however, royal icing would probably work just as well as water icing.

The recipe does not make a big batch of biscuits; even with only teaspoonsful of mixture, I only made 22 biscuits (11 once assembled.) Accordingly, if you are feeding a crowd, you will need to multiply the mixture to suit.