An all-round good dodge

We don’t really buy biscuits. In fact, I can’t remember the last time we did. In no way am I averse to biscuits. In fact, a chocolate Hobnob or any in the range of Digestives is most welcome with my cup of tea. Nevertheless, biscuits are just not items that grace our shopping baskets.

If we fancy some biscuits, I generally knock up a batch of ginger nuts from a 1990s Cranks recipe. They are generous, crunchy-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside cookies and are a particular favourite of the delectable Mr M. However, a bit of variety is always good, and I have been looking for a good alternative recipe for a while.

I tried making this lemon biscuit recipe from JamieOliver.com, but Jamie Oliver recipes and I frequently do not get along. This was no exception. I tried them twice and they looked appetising enough – they are in fact shown in my profile picture – but the texture and taste were awful. I thought it was me. After all, despite being able to bake decent cakes and scones, I have my troubles with bread and pastry. I took heart, however, from my ginger nut expertise and persevered.

I decided one day to make cupcakes but thought I’d have a look around the internet for inspiration beforehand. I spend quite a lot of time looking online at the myriad recipes of something I want to try and descriptions of techniques about which I want to learn; I suppose it’s my version of reading cookery books. In the middle of the list of seemingly endless cupcake variations popped up a recipe for jammy dodgers.

The branded biscuits, Jammie Dodgers, made by Burton’s Foods, hold much nostalgia for children of the 1980s. They comprise two plain cookies, the top one of which has a heart-shaped hole that reveals the red jam sandwiching them together. Simple but scrumptious! Somehow I had never thought of making these biscuits at home, but it suddenly dawned on me that they should be pretty simple.

They were, and there was something deeply satisfying about the resultant pile on the cooling rack, with jewel-like red jam peeking out. 

I’ve made them twice now, once with plain biscuits and raspberry jam and once with lemon biscuits and lemon curd. The biscuit is light and crisp and keeps quite well in an airtight tin. I’m thinking now of trying a lime version with lime curd so that I can have traffic-light biscuits (I’m easily amused).

The recipe for the plain biscuits is below. If you want make a lemon version, just add the zest and juice of a lemon. You might need to adjust the amounts of sugar and flour slightly to compensate for the extra liquid, but that didn’t seem to be a problem when I made them. A 7.5 cm/3 in cookie cutter will produce good-sized biscuits and, if you don’t have an extensive cutter collection, a screw cap from a wine bottle works well for the hole in the middle. Don’t forget to re-roll the cut outs for even more biscuits!

Jammy dodgers

Makes 12

145 g softened butter or margarine

70 g caster sugar

1 large egg beaten

Few drops vanilla extract

230 g plain flour

35 g corn flour

½ tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

100 g seedless raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas mark 4. Cream the butter or margarine and sugar then gradually beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Sift in the flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt and blend with a wooden (not metal) spoon until everything comes together in a ball of soft dough.

Roll out the half the dough to around 3 mm thick (this is quite thin, but the cookies will rise slightly during baking) and use a cookie cutter of the desired size to cut out an even number of biscuits, re-rolling the scraps until all the dough is used; these will form the bases. Roll out the other half of the dough until the same number of cookies is cut. From this second batch cut out small shapes in the centre (eg, circles or hearts); these will form the tops of the biscuits. Place all the biscuits on baking trays and bake for 15 min until lightly browned.

Cool the biscuits on a rack. Spread a small amount of jam on each base and cover with the top halves. Keep in an airtight container for 4-5 days.

Bye gulls!

The title of this post might seem a little odd, but it stems from a discussion I had recently about the correct spelling and pronunciation of bagels. If you live in east London, it’s likely that they’ll be referred to as “beigels”, pronounced ‘bye-gulls’, which is said by locals to be the authentic spelling. “Bagel” (pronounced ‘bay-gull’) is purported, by east Londoners and others, to be an Americanised spelling. However, I have been told by plenty of people in various parts of the UK that they have only ever known this latter spelling. As the original Yiddish word is “beygl”, I reckon that either spelling is fair game. Whatever you call them, bagels have been a bread success story of the 20th century.

Thought to have their origins in Poland in the 1600s, bagels were taken across Europe, to the UK and to the USA by Polish migrants in the late 19th century. Now they are widely available in plain and flavoured varieties – raisin, cinnamon, sesame, poppy seed and onion are probably the most common –­ but all share the dense texture and smooth, chewy crust. Supermarkets give over notable shelf space to them, and a host of outlets have sprung up that toast and fill bagels to order with a wide choice of fillings. The Beigel Bake shop in London’s Brick Lane is a must-do on the tourist attraction lists. People have even gone to the trouble of designing dedicated kitchen gadgetry.

I really enjoy bagels for breakfast and am generally happy to buy the supermarket ones. Having improved my bread-making skills over the past year, however, I thought I would have a go at making them. They hold some mystery because they are boiled before baking, which seems a strange thing to do to bread. This step is, though, remarkably simple and helps to give the exterior it’s slightly leathery finish and beautiful golden colour. I looked around for recipes, which seem to vary quite a lot. Some were rich, including eggs, butter, malt syrup or honey, but some seemed more like straightforward bread recipes. I gather the recipes fall into two main categories in North America: Montreal-style bagels are made from sweet, rich dough and are often flavoured with sesame or poppy seeds, whereas for New York-style bagels the dough is less rich and they have no added flavourings or toppings.

After looking in my store cupboard, I opted for fewer ingredients, thinking that would be simpler. The first couple of attempts, though, were real flops ­– literally! I had the balance of yeast to flour wrong and the dough over-proved, meaning that the bagels completely collapsed during baking. With a bit of tweaking, I came up with a formula that yields consistently good results. I have provided this recipe below along with a tutorial.

You will see that I’ve mentioned the bagels may be kept uncooked in the fridge overnight. The science suggests that this process enables development of long, strongly cross-linked gluten strands without letting the dough over-prove. This is said to improve the texture and flavour of the finished bagels. I have, however, tried my recipe with and without refrigeration, and I didn’t notice much difference, so I would employ this approach for convenience as much as anything else. Convenience is certainly the reason behind the other frequently cited reason for refrigeration, which is that Jews could prepare the bagels before the Sabbath began, avoid partaking in prohibited cooking activities during it, and the bagels would be ready to cook when it was finished. Either way, refrigeration does mean that baking bagels can fit into even tight time schedules, so that makes them a winner for me.

Give them a go.