Mrs. Hudson's Biscuits

I was warned that the results of the strange recipe given to me were equally strange. Two “strange”s in this limited vocabulary turns from “intriguing” to “bad.” So I tried making the much tastier-sounding (and looking) “Mrs. Hudson’s Biscuits” instead.

125 g. butter

125 g icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar or 2 tsp sugar with 2-3 drops of vanilla extract

1 egg

1 pinch of salt

juice and grated peel of 1/2 lemon

125 g. flour

125 g. cornflour
1 knife tip baking powder

butter to grease pan

Glaze
100 g. icing sugar
2 tbsps lemon juice

Whip the butter until it is fluffy, then slowly add the icing sugar;
Add the vanilla sugar, egg, salt, lemon juice and peel;
Add the flour, baking powder and cornflour slowly and mix well;
Grease a baking tray with butter;
Fill a pastry bag with the dough and press small biscuits onto the baking tray;
Bake in a preheated 400F oven for 10-15 minutes
Make the glaze by mixing the icing sugar and lemon juice. Brush biscuits with it, and let it dry.
Makes about 70 biscuits.

Measuring flour.

Some of the quantities are in grams. The postage scale I use doesn’t have grams. Here are the quantities (roughly) in ounces:

4 1/2 oz butter (about one stick and another tablespoon)

4 1/2 oz icing sugar (somewhat more than a cup)
2 tsp vanilla sugar or 2 tsp sugar with 2-3 drops of vanilla extract

1 egg

1 pinch of salt
juice and grated peel of 1/2 lemon (I used the entire lemon’s zest)

4 1/2 oz flour (a little more than a cup)
4 1/2 oz cornflour (about a cup)

1 knife tip baking powder
butter to grease pan

Glaze
3 1/2 oz icing sugar

2 tbsps lemon juice (I just used all the juice from the other half)

The sad fate of my hand-folded pastry bag.

Two oopses flopped down as too-late realizations (I suppose that’s what an oops is) throughout the execution of this recipe. One, in my enthusiasm for not having to go to the store, I used course corn meal instead of corn flour. That there was a difference didn’t even occur to me until I crunched down on a bit of the dough. Two, I preheated the oven to 350 F instead of 400 F. The first batch was baked at 350 F for the first five minutes. There’s not quite a third--a mistake, but not an oops: I tried to make a pastry bag to create the neat little shapes pictured along with this recipe that sort of resemble breasts, but as you can see from the photo, it, well, broke. I used a spoon and my fingers instead. Oh well.

Melted butter and icing sugar.

And one other, that may not have mattered at all in the end: the recipe said to “whip the butter until it is fluffy.” Not quite knowing how to whip cold butter, I melted it. Mixing icing sugar into this makes for a somewhat disgusting-looking, greasy mess. But as long as the butter has chance to cool a bit before the dough is baked, I don’t think it makes a difference.

They may not be the most perfect replicas, but they’re quite nice. The lemon flavor is pleasingly strong. My descriptors are very reserved.

Principles of Economy

A friend of mine found this strange recipe in The Sherlock Holmes cookbook: Or, Mrs. Hudson's storeside campanion formed upon principles of economy and adapted to the use of private families:

3 tbsp Butter
3/4 lb flour
6 oz sugar
1 grated lemon rind and lemon juice
2 eggs

Rub the butter into the flour; stir in the sugar and the lemon peel. When these ingredients are mixed, add the eggs and lemon juice. Beat the mixture well for a few minutes, then drop from a spoon onto a buttered baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake the biscuits from 15-20 minutes in a moderate (350F) oven, until they lightly brown.

Who measures sugar by weight?  To me 6 oz seems like it isn't much at all.  The small amount of butter and sugar makes me want to classify these as a tea biscuit--something fairly bland but somewhat sweet.  But then there are the two eggs.  Two, for this little batch of dough?  They're bound to come out like dry, dense cakes (no rising agent here).  Who knows.

I doubt they'll look like these.

They appear to be a sorrier version of these very appetizing-looking "Mrs. Hudson's Biscuits."

Bored, and intrigued by the possibility that making these "biscuits" might surprise me, I think I'll make them tomorrow.  I'm tempted to take the literal approach and actually rub the butter with my fingers into the flour (something i've never done), rather than cut it in with a fork or a pastry blender.

Sweet Potato Pie II: Look look, pictures!

In reverse chronological order:

The second pie baked and fallen.

Just out of the oven, puffed.

Excess crust cut off with a knife.

Notice the spatula marks--the filling is thicker this time because I used more sweet potato but left the rest of the recipe unaltered from the first pie.

Lots of extra crust.

First pie baked.

Unbaked.  See?  This filling is much more liquid.

Prebaked crust.  I removed the weight for the last five minutes of baking.

Using not quite fully cooked sweet potato pieces as a weight to keep the crust from  becoming a balloon in the oven.

Boiling sweet potatoes.