Time for a biscuit..

lemonpoppyseedviolet.jpg

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We’ve got the vision, now let’s have some fun.
Yeah, it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute.
–Time to Pretend, by MGMT

We live in a very conscientious building. Every now and then, we would get notes slipped under the door, notifying us in advance of upcoming disruptions to the general peace of the building; someone new moving in their furniture, someone renovating their bathroom; everyone always apologising for the noise and inconvenience. Tonight, this is the note we should have written to our neighbours : “Hello, our names are B and Y, and we apologise in advance for the noise we’re going to make on Friday at precisely 11:15pm when we will suddenly decide to jump up and down, and around the room, to the tune of MGMT’s Time to Pretend. Much love.”

If that doesn’t work, maybe I should send them some biscuits. Such as these little numbers I made recently, to stave off the doom and gloom of the neverending rain Sydney seems to be suffering from.

Not to be seen scraping the bottom of the parenting barrel or anything, but if biscuits were children, I’d be taking this one aside, putting gentle arm on crumbly shoulder and saying, my dear Lemon and Poppyseed biscuit, of all your brothers and sisters, you are my favourite. You are a versatile recipe that I’ve been using for years now. Not only are you light, buttery and oh-so-melt-in-the-mouth, but given the occasion, you can also be plain vanilla, vanilla with chocolate ganache, passionfruit with passionfruit buttercream, chocolate on chocolate, and matcha with white chocolate.

As for the filling, I seem to have channelled Aran a little, with the use of crushed candied violets and violet syrup to make a violet buttercream. All I need now is a fresh cup of tea and a new song…

Base recipe for the biscuits :

180g unsalted butter, softened
60g icing sugar
180g flour
60g cornflour

Cream the butter and sugar until pale. Sift the flour and cornflour together. Add the sifted ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until just combined.

Roll the mixture into small balls, weighing about 14g. Indent the top of each biscuit with a fork. Bake at 180’C until golden, about 15 minutes. Allow biscuits to cool before sandwiching with filling of choice.

(Things you can add to your biscuit mixture when at the mixing stage include : vanilla beans, freshly grated citrus zest, spices, poppyseeds, cocoa powder, matcha, dried flowers such as lavender buds or crushed rose petals… but not all at once, or you’ll have a very confused biscuit! 🙂 )

5 Comments »

  1. Cakelaw said,

    April 26, 2008 @ 9:07 am

    What cute little biscuits! And violet buttercream – swoon. If I could have one of these, I wouldn’t mind at all if you danced all night to MGMT.

  2. Susan from Food Blogga said,

    April 26, 2008 @ 9:57 am

    Aren’t those precious! As for “conscientious” and “apologetic” neighbors, let’s say I could stand a few more of them in my building. 🙂

  3. Y said,

    April 26, 2008 @ 2:18 pm

    Cakelaw : Too bad you don’t live in our building! I could do with someone to bribe regularly with food (probably a good thing that I’m not a parent, now that I think about it..)

    Susan : Sometimes they’re extremely fussy and picky about things (the “rulebook” for example, strictly stipulates that there are to be no pianos played after 11pm), but I’ve grown quite attached to them over the years.

  4. Huan-Tzin said,

    May 6, 2008 @ 11:24 pm

    no f*cking the stars or heroin parachutes?
    what kind of MGMT fans are you guys?

  5. Y said,

    May 7, 2008 @ 7:35 am

    HT: Hahahaha! We’re the mature ones that don’t have time to pretend ;P

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