As a novice baker I find that it is generally a good idea to bake more than one item at a time as there will be a good chance that at least one product will be edible. The odds improve further if one is making cookies or biscuits, which are easy to make and less prone to disasters. Such as the Orange Biscuits above, made from a recipe I adapted from the Best Ever Baking book by Carole Clements. It was buttery and redolent with the gorgeous aromas of orange oils and zests. I cut down the amount of sugar from 200g to 150g, which in itself is already a shocking amount, and this resulted in a just-sweet-enough biscuit that did not overpower its oranginess.
Ingredients
115g butter
150g sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tbsp fresh orange juice
grated rind of 2 oranges
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp orange oil (optional)
1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add yolks, orange juice and rind and continue to blend.
2. Sift flour, salt and baking powder. Add to the butter mixture and stir until it forms a dough.
3. Wrap dough in greaseproof paper and refrigerate for 2 hours. Or if you are impatient like me, you stick it in the freezer for 25 minutes while you make your next product.
4. Set oven to 190 degrees C and prepare cookie pan. Take out dough, roll spoonfuls of it into balls and place on cookie pan. Press down with fork to flatten.
5. Bake 8-10 minutes.
While cookie dough was getting a chilling, I made banana muffins with some ripened bananas, muscovado sugar and raisins. Recipe came from the same book as the cookies but it failed to tell me I should not overmix. As a result my muffin turned out quite breadlike. Still, it rose quite respectably and made for a fine breakfast food the following day.
