A productive afternoon...

It rained non-stop this afternoon, so I spent most of it in the kitchen. As well as cooking dinner (roast chicken, homemade stuffing, veg and gravy) and producing enough bolognese sauce for 4 meals, I decided to rustle up a batch of my Grandma's ginger biscuits, which brought back some great childhood memories.

Lunch at Grandma's was always good - and my brother and I always looked forward to the ceremonial after-lunch opening of the biscuit barrel, which typically contained two sorts of homemade biscuits: ginger biscuits and Canadian cookies. My brother, my grandfather and I were allowed one of each, each. Both were absolutely delicious; next time I bake I shall make the Canadian cookies.

Grandma's Ginger Biscuits

Take a saucepan, and put in it:
170g golden syrup,
85g granulated sugar
110g butter (Grandma used to use margarine, but I thought I would try butter)
and set over a gentle heat to melt.
Weigh out 250g plain flour, and add 2-3 level tsp ground ginger, 1/4 level tsp salt, and 1 level tsp baking powder. Mix together well.
In a ramekin (or similar small bowl) mix together 1 tbsp milk and 1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda.

Once the contents of the pan have melted together, stir, then tip in the flour/ginger mixture and pour in the milk and bicarb mixture. Combine well with a wooden spoon.
Now you have two options - you can either chill the mixture, form it into a sausage shape, wrap it in cling film and keep it in the fridge, cutting slices off whenever you fancy baking some biscuits, or you can bake it straight away, which is what I did.

Line the base of a couple of baking trays with baking parchment (this makes it so much easier to detach the biscuits from the trays when they come out of the oven) and put 6 blobs of biscuit mixture, each the size of a large-ish marble (about a 2 to 2.5cm sphere), on each. You can either get bits of the biscuit mix out of the pan with your fingers, or else use two teaspoons to put the blobs on the tray.
Squish the blobs down so that they are about 5mm thick and roughly circular, then put in the oven (190degC). They will spread out a bit more, and puff up a bit, and go brown. When they are a lovely golden brown all over, take them out, let them sit on the tray for a couple of minutes to firm up a bit, then carefully transfer them to a cooling rack. (Makes about 40).

Fend off hordes of ravening boys who are lured into the kitchen by the wonderful biscuit smell, then hide the biscuits (once cool) in a tin. They keep for at least a week, I am told, but I can't see them lasting that long.