I have always considered myself quite a nice person. I like food of all shapes, flavours and colours. From every country and continent. I don’t discriminate, I am an equal opportunity eater. It’s only the doctors who say I’m intolerant. And certain foods who refuse to tolerate me. They certainly refuse to recognise and respect my right to eat them without major physical discomfort and distress.


Gluten and lactose are not my friends.


Despite the negative attitudes surrounding me from many of those I love best, (cakes, ice cream, hot toast) I decided to become a chef. Not always easy when you live in a bread and milk filled world. I like to think that this has helped me become a better person as I embrace my differences and refuse to let the gluten get me down. I believe InTolerance. I am the InTolerant Chef.

Food should not be about what you can’t eat, but what you can and what you enjoy eating. This blog is about my journey of cooking and eating and discovery. It’s not a definitive guide to allergy awareness nor do my intolerances make me an expert. Your body is your responsibility, not mine. I only know what works for me.


I can tell you this..... No glutens were harmed in the making of this website.

Showing posts with label classic biscuits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classic biscuits. Show all posts

October 25, 2014

Old Fashioned Melting Moments



Today we're going with an Old Fashioned Favourite- Melting Moments, or sometimes called YoYo Biscuits


A real trip down memory lane for me as these were one of the first type of biscuits that I made in Home Economics (Cooking) Class in School, and were a staple of childhood lunchboxes back when most people still baked from scratch


For those who aren't familiar with these little lovelies, they are a delicate shortbread/ish style biscuit that should- as their name suggests- just melt away in the mouth
Melting moments can be served individually or stuck together in pairs with icing, jam or custard. However you serve them , they're a delicious and easy biscuit that will bring a smile to your face and hopefully bring back happy memories too



Melting Moments

250 gm Butter or lactose free spread
1 cup gf Plain Flour
1 cup gf Custard Powder- this won't be lactose free though
1/2 cup gf Icing Sugar
1 Egg Yolk
1tsp Vanilla
pinch Salt

Just a few notes before you start:
I've always used custard powder for these biscuits. If you don't use gf flour as the base, most recipes split the flour content between regular flour and cornflour to give the dough the short, crumbly texture they require. The custard flour is mostly made of starch so that works just fine, and it also gives a nice flavour and colour to the finished product. Also, it's just the way I've always made them :)
Now you can see that there's no egg yolk in these photos, but these are from the first lot I made. The trouble was that as delicious as they were, they were really just too delicate and crumbly so I had to add the egg yolk to help bind the mix together. You could also add some xanthum gum if you like to do the same thing. It really just depends on the mix of starch and flour in your choice of Gluten free flour mix and the Custard flour- each one has their own ratio that can make a difference to the biscuit at the end





Combine the spread, icing sugar, vanilla, egg yolk and salt in a bowl




Mix it with beaters until it's nice and fluffy




Stir in the custard powder and flour




Until it's all come together nicely




Pop into a piping bag with a large star tip- or you could just roll the dough into little balls and squish them down slightly with a fork




Pipe or squish the mix onto baking paper- you should get about 24 to 30 biscuits. Bake at 160*C for 12 to 15 minutes depending on size. The biscuits will still be quite soft, so leave them on the trays until they cool




I like to join my Melting Moments with raspberry jam rather than icing or custard. I find that the biscuits can be assembled straight away and last a lot longer. The trouble is though, that jam straight from the jar is still pretty soft and wet which means it won't glue anything together well at all.
To make a nice strong bond, bring about a cup of your favourite jam gently to the boil and simmer it for a few minutes to condense it down and make it nice and goopy. Use while still just warm, or it will set quite hard and you'll have to melt it again




Fresh out the oven and cooling down




Lovely served straight up with a cup of tea




But even better with a  scoop of gloop to make it extra yummy indeed




A lovely light, short biscuit that will just melt in your mouth, but with a bit of chew from the jammy centre that brings it all together

Perfect with a cup of Earl Grey for Morning or Afternoon Tea!


 So Dear Readers, would you call these Melting Moments or YoYo biscuits, and what's your favourite flavour of jam?