Recipe: Nanna's Italian Lemon Biscuits

Harmony Day is just around the corner (21 March 2012) and so too is the annual “Taste of Harmony” lunch.  For those who haven’t participated in this before, Harmony Day is a day that acknowledges individual difference and the importance of living together, harmoniously.  Now to the food part J We all usually bring a dish that is symbolic of our heritage; where we are from, grew up, a family recipe, a fond memory of something that we ate as children.

Being a little time poor this year and with my love of baking I was searching for something that was relatively quick to make yet still emazingly sweet.  I couldn’t surpass the vivid memories I have of my nanna’s biscuit barrel being constantly filled and after digging through some of her old recipe books I couldn’t pass up her lemon biscuit recipe.  This recipe varies from the normal “cream butter and sugar” and leans more to making of dough; requiring you to bind the butter and flour and knead the dough.  Whatever the process though these biscuits are divine and defiantly worth a try.  They are light and tangy and let me tell you, my Nanna very rarely got it wrong in the kitchen!

Ingredients:

3 cups of self-raising flour

125grams of unsalted butter

¼ cup milk

2/3 cup caster sugar

1tsp vanilla essence

2 eggs

Lemon Icing:

3 cups icing sugar

2 tablespoons of lemon juice (approximately)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees fan forced;
2. Stir milk and sugar in a small saucepan over a low heat until sugar is dissolved. Add vanilla essence.  Allow to cool for five minutes;
3. Sift flour into a medium size bowl and rub in the butter;
4. Stir combined warm milk mixture into the flour mixture;
5. Add egg and stir until combined;
6. Knead dough until smooth;
7. Roll rounded teaspoons of dough into thin sausages (roughly 10cms in length) and twist two sausages together to form circles.  Press the edges together to ensure the biscuit holds shape whilst baking;
8. Bake for 12 minutes; and
9. Cool on wire rack.

Lemon Icing:

1.    Stir sifted icing sugar into a small heatproof bowl;

2.    Stir in enough juice to make a firm paste; and

3.    Stir over small saucepan of simmering water until pourable.

Tips:

Makes about 30. 

Ensure that you press the biscuits together so that they hold their shape whilst baking.