HONIED CARROT AND SPICE BISCUITS

The weather “down-under” has been marvellous, but unfortunately the heat isn’t great for creative cooking inspiration. It just makes me lazy and I end up throwing together sort of interesting salads or just grilling everything on the BBQ. It makes for tasty light meals, but nothing too blog worthy really I'm afraid. I am working on some melon granitas and homemade ice cream today, so hopefully – with any luck – they will turn out as good as they sound and I will have some lovely summer treats coming up very soon.

This weekend was wild! I went sailing on Wellington Harbour with some friends and it was fantastic! It was a 8.2 metre keel boat (supposedly won’t tip over) and it was like being on a carnival ride with the boat deck being practically vertical half of the time. Now I am tossing up whether or not to take lessons at the local sailing academy. They are reasonably priced and in talking to experienced sailors it sounds like winter sailing is the best. I guess I need to see if it’s something I will have enough time for…

Anyway, this sweet recipe was a last-minute project I fooled around with the other night whilst craving something sweet and tasty, but sans chocolate. We had a massive chocolate overdose over the Christmas break and, unlike my hubby, I am ‘over it’ for a while! I have this old cookbook with 100 quick & easy cookie recipes in it, but I have noticed that sometimes a step or two is left out or the measurements aren’t quite right, so I had made a few notes that this one was okay, but needed a bit of help.

I started with the basic cookie recipe, but added vanilla and changed a few measurements to get this, the perfect cookie (or mini muffin). These do not come out hard or chewy really. This recipe yields a much softer almost cake-like biscuit that is very tasty indeed. Imagine an entire dish of the best part of the muffins – just the tops!

I hope you enjoy them!

INGREDIENTS:

1 Cup Sugar
300 Gms (½ Cup) Butter, softened
2 Eggs
¼ Cup Honey
2 Tsp Vanilla Essence (extract)
2½ Cups Flour
2½ Tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg, Allspice mixed together)
¼ Tsp Salt
1 Med-Lg Carrot, shredded


DIRECTIONS:

First, preheat oven to 160 C (325 F).

In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter together until pale yellow and fluffy.

Next, add eggs, honey and vanilla and beat well.

In a separate bowl, sift together all dry ingredients and then slowly incorporate them into the sugar/butter mixture.

Mix until all of the ingredients are well combined then add the carrot and mix well again.

Now, with 2 spoons, shape the dough into approx 2-3cm (1-inch) balls and place them about 4 cm apart onto a silicone baking mat, or cookie sheet lined with baking paper.

Bake about 15-20 minutes or until the edges go slightly brown. Be careful not to overcook or they will be dry and possibly burnt on the bottoms.

Remove immediately and cool on a wire rack.

Voila - Perfectly delicious cake-like cookies.

This recipe makes about 4 dozen lovely biscuits or miniature muffins. If you prefer mini muffins, cook them longer – about 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick/skewer comes out clean.