The Efx3 Recipe Collection

We don’t have US-style biscuits in the UK; closest thing is savoury scones. I made soup a few days back, veggies with barley and lentils, and had some left over and decided I’d like to make American biscuits to go with it. Found a promising recipe, tried it, and they came out fantastic.

Ingredients:

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

2.5tsp baking powder

0.5tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup milk

1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 205C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Method:

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. I used self-raising flour so only added 2 level teaspoons of baking powder.

Cut or rub in the butter (I used salted, either works) until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. The butter has to be very cold for this, and if you’re rubbing it in, your hands must be cold too.

Add the milk and the beaten egg and stir either with a metal spoon or a knife until the mix is sticky, moist and lumpy.

Knead the mixture only enough to bind it. If you knead it too much the biscuits won’t rise as well.

Roll it out to around half an inch thick and cut with a cup/glass/cookie-cutter into circles. Try not to twist the cutter – this pinches the edges together and you’ll get flatter biscuits.

Brush the tops with a little milk and pop them in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until the tops are golden and a toothpick comes out  clean.

Nom!

I wanted to make oat biscuits and perused a few recipes before I found this one. It’s absolutely amazing – I demand that as soon as you finish reading this recipe you scurry off to the kitchen to make a batch.

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup oats

1tsb honey or golden syrup

4pz salted butter

3oz brown sugar (I used caramel sugar, I imagine any light brown sugar will be good)

1/2 tsp baking powder

4oz self-raising flour

Vanilla essence

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar until soft and well mixed. Add the honey/syrup (melt in 1tsp water if it’s very thick) and a couple of drops of vanilla essence.

Slice in the flour, baking powder and oats until well mixed.

Gather walnut-sized balls of the mix in your hands, press together until the mix holds firm and place on a greased or lined baking tray. Makes ~10 depending on the size of your balls. *cough* You can squish them flatter if you like thin biscuits, but they do spread out when cooked.

Cook at around 160C for 15 minutes.

This recipe is for very yummy pumpkin and spice drop cookies, they are very easy to make and taste quite good, they might be too “spicy” for younger children but they are a hit around my house. This cookie is very soft and moist, almost like pumpkin bread or muffin in bite size form(and easier to make) they look like brown blobs but they taste like harvest time. It’s the cookie on the right

1 cup shorting(I used part butter for flavor)

2 cups packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 cups Pumpkin Puree

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups flour

1/2 cup whole wheat/graham flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon EACH Nutmeg, Cinnamon, and Clove

Cream together the sugar, shortning and egg.

Add in the pumpkin and vanilla extract.

Sift together the flours, baking soda and spices.

Gradually add the flour/spice mix to the wet ingredients.

Chill for at least 1 hour

Drop by rounded teaspoon full onto lightly greased baking sheets.

Bake at 400f for 8 to 10 minutes (I found 10 to be just right)

Makes about 6 Dozen cookies.

These are very tasty pumpkins and spice cookies that you can roll out and cut into cute fall shapes then decorate as you like, I did fall leaves and acorns here but last week I made some that were Jack-O-Lanterns. This cookie is firm almost like thick sweet pie crust(but moister) they have a good flavor to them and don’t really need the frosting if you wish to leave that off.

1 cup butter(it is safe to use half shorting if you want them to have a longer shelf life)

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 Tablespoon Orange Zest OR 1 Teaspoon Orange Extract

1/2 cup packed pumpkin puree

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2  1/4 cups regular flour

1/4 cup whole wheat/graham flour

1/2 teaspoon each Ginger, Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Clove

Prep time: 1 hour

First Cream together the butter, sugar and orange zest/extract.

Then add the pumpkin, egg yolk and vanilla.

Sift together the flours and the spices.

Carefully mix the flour/spice into the wet ingredients.

Chill the dough for 30 Minutes.

Roll out on a well floured surface and cut into desired shapes, place slightly apart on lightly greased baking sheets.

Bake at 375f  for 10 minutes. Makes about 2  1/2 dozen cookies.

Let them cool, and frost with Simple Icing. (1 cup confectioners sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla and 1Tblsp milk)

I make this sauce to spread over my chocolate cake. It sets on the cake so it stays in place, and if you microwave a slice of cake with the sauce on, it melts and gets nice and gooey
Ingredients:

200g bar of milk chocolate
100g bar of dark chocolate (adjust the ratios if you really like dark chocolate!)
1 tbsp honey
100ml pouring cream (single or double works)
1 tbsp butter (doesn’t have to be exact)

Preparation time: a few minutes to break up the chocolate
Cooking time: about 15-20 minutes

Method:

1) Break the chocolate into squares

2) Heat about an inch of water in a small pan – keep it hot enough to steam but don’t let it boil. Rest a glass pyrex bowl over the pan, making sure that the bottom of the dish isn’t touching the water.

3) Place the butter in the bowl. When it’s melted, add the chocolate and stir with a spoon while it melts. Keep stirring so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the dish and burn.

4) Add the cream and honey and stir until well mixed.

5) Remove the bowl from the pan. If you’re using the sauce for cake, spread some of the sauce onto one half of your cake, for the middle filling. Place the other half of the cake on top, and then starting from the middle, spread the remainder of the sauce over the cake until the top of the cake is covered. I usually have enough sauce to cover the sides of the cake too.