Home Baked Biscuits vs Shop Bought Biscuits
Growing up, the only biscuits I can remember my mum or gran buying were, Penguins (the English equivalent of TimTams – which appeared in the house about once a year), Digestives (the plain boring ones without the chocolate on them!) and Toffee Pops (a huge treat in our house when these arrived and it was normally my Grandad who went out and got these for us, when he was out shopping alone with nobody to say “we don’t need those”).
As you are probably guessing, we didn’t have a lot of treats in the house (not that I’m scarred by this!). I do however still remember going round to my best friends house, Dawn Adamson, and looking enviously into the treats cupboard, which I kid you not was filled to bursting with crisps, lollies, chocolate bars and biscuits. I would look longingly, knowing that the only chocolate that would be in our house was on the odd Friday night when Dad came home from work with Cadbury’s Cream Eggs as a treat!
I am now old enough to appreciate that we were better off with our rare treats and home made biscuits, than my friend Dawn was, with her huge cupboard, full of treats that she could have whenever she wanted. Now I sit back and remember how wonderful it was to grow up in a home where there was always the amazing smell of home baked biscuits in the house.
Many of the favorites I can remember being baked are, Cornish Fairings, Grantham Gingernuts, peanut cookies (my gran made this every week for my uncle), peanut biscuits, chocolate biscuits……. to name just a few. Since then I have introduced even more recipes into our cupboards such as Chocolate Brazil Nut Cookies, Stem Ginger Macaroons, Peanut Butter and Pumpkin Seed Biscuits, Anzac Biscuits……
I also bake a fruit slice for my husband to take to work every day. It all started because he got fed up with the muesli bars getting smaller and smaller and he always comments that the cake is made with love.
There is something about home baked biscuits that taste so much better than the shop bought ones. I think it is a combination of things that makes them so good; the smell of them cooking, the thought that someone has put time and love into baking the biscuits themselves rather than popping to the shops, and I think lastly it is that you know what is in your biscuits and can make them as big or small as you like! In my case I always ere on the larger side!!
You will then always find a batch of home baked biscuits in our cupboard. Normally I rely on the recipes I grew up with, unless someone has sent me a new one to try out.
For me, a tin of home made biscuits not only taste amazing, but they make me think of home and my wonderful family.
Please SHARE your biscuit recipes with us so that I can add more variety into my bulging cupboard of home baked biscuits.
Happy Baking
Rachel
