These cookies are thin and chewy, so if you like that kind of cookie, you'll really love these. They are good for making vanilla ice cream cookie sandwiches, or you can frost them with buttercream. They have an interesting soft sugary crystalline texture because the sugar doesn't get creamed with the butter. If you can't have dairy, the butter can be replaced with margarine or Crisco and the recipe will still work, and then you could use 7-minute frosting to ice them.
Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 rounded teaspoon ginger
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 sticks of soft butter
1/3 cup mild molasses
1 egg
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the flour, sugars, spices and baking soda in you mixer first, then add the butter, molasses and egg. If you butter the measuring cup with one of the wrappers, the molasses will come out of the it easier. Mix the ingredients for a few minutes on medium speed until it looks combined. The dough will look and feel a little bit like wet sand.
Using a heaping teaspoon of dough at a time, roll each lump of dough into a ball, then squash it flat into a round cookie shape. Place them on the cookie pan, spaced about an inch apart since they will spread out a little. Bake for ten minutes, then let the cookies rest on the pan for another two-four minutes or so, until they stiffen up enough to remove them with a spatula without messing them up. Because they are thin, they don't tell long to cool, so you can frost them after they sit on a cooling rack for about 15 minutes.
Kentish Huffkins originate in Kent county, UK, as you might imagine, and are lovely little bread rolls, sometimes seen with little depressions in the middle. They remind me somewhat of biscuit-like dinner rolls and you can slice them in half and use them for sandwiches or hamburgers because of the shape. I first read about them in Jane Grigson's British Cookery book, and I've been a big fan of them since.
Today I've decided to change the traditional recipe a bit and add in some herbs and cheese.
Now the traditional recipe goes something like this:
1 1/2 lbs. flour
2 teaspoons yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 oz butter
2 oz lard
1 pint warm water
Mix the dry ingredients (including the yeast), then distribute the fat into it with a large fork or pastry cutter until it is all well mixed in and looks fine and crumbly. Add the pint of warm water and mix until you have a soft sticky dough, but there's no need to knead. Let dough rise for thirty minutes, then roll the dough out on a floured board to about 1 1/2 inches thick, and use a large biscuit cutter to make the rolls. Actually, you don't even have to use the rolling pin, this dough is so soft, you can just kind of flour it and spread it out flat with your hands! IF you use a 4 inch biscuit cutter, you'll get about 10 huffkins.
Let the rolls rise another thirty minutes, then poke a dent in the center of each one and bake for about 15-20 minutes at 425 degrees.
Now to make the herbed version, change out the lard for more butter (so four ounces, or one stick, of butter,) plus add 1 teaspoon each of the following dried herbs and spices to the dry ingredients: thyme, dill, summer savory, extra salt and black pepper, plus 1/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom. If you don't care for dill or don't have it, substitute dried mint or parsley.
After you poke the depressions in your rolls, and right before you pop them in the oven, place a cube of good quality sharp cheddar into each depression.
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| Before Baking |
A last note about rising times: I am in an old house in California with no air conditioning (yet) so it's quite warm and things are rising very quickly. If your house is cold, you may want to put your oven on it's lowest setting and let them rise in the oven with the door cracked, or just let them rise a bit longer than the thirty minutes.
They are good for breakfast with butter and scrambled eggs. Also, the dill makes it good with salmon, I had one with some lox, mashed avocado with garlic salt, sliced onion, olive oil and lemon juice and it was really good.
There are times when I just have to have bread. Thick and chewy, toasted and buttery, a slice of this blackstrap molasses bread with anise will be yummy to my carb-craving tummy.
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose white flour
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons anise seed, plus extra for sprinkling
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses, I like Aunt Patty's
2 tablespoons melted butter or vegetable oil
2 cups warm water
1 packet, or two teaspoons instant yeast
Mix the water, yeast, molasses and oil or butter. Add the flour, anise, cocoa powder and salt and mix well. Knead for one minute, then place in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise at least a half hour, up to one hour. Knead the dough another minute or two, then form into a nice round loaf and sprinkle with more anise seed. Place on a baking pan and put in a warm place until it rises to double it's size. My house is always freezing, so I put it in my oven on the very lowest "warm" setting to rise. Bake at 375 for 50 minutes. Let the bread cool completely before slicing.
Serve this toasted with butter and jam for breakfast with Earl Gray tea, or toasted with good egg salad and a cup of frothy Guinness stout for lunch.
Quick Egg Salad: 6 hard boiled eggs, chopped, 2 heaping tablespoons Best Foods or Hellman's mayonnaise, 1/4 teaspoon white pepper, 1/4 teaspoon celery salt, 2 dashes Tabasco, 1 dash nutmeg, 1 tablespoon grated or finely chopped onion or 1/2 teaspoon onion powder, and a dash of paprika.
