Freezer Biscuits

These biscuits are great as you can mix up a big batch, keep it in the freezer then take some out and bake them whenever you want them - fifteen minutes to eating time. They're a good basic recipe too - make up the plain dough and add flavourings to make different versions.

Ingredients:

  • 250g softened butter
  • 1½ cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 cups plain flour
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • optional flavouring of choice (see below)

Method:

  1. cream butter and sugar
  2. add eggs one by one and beat until combined.
  3. fold in flour and vanilla with a spoon.
  4. roll into three sausage shapes about 5cm in diameter or square the dough up for square or rectangular biscuits
  5. wrap each in cling wrap and freeze until required - they may be kept in the freezer for up to 3 months in in the fridge for a week.
  6. when ready to bake, slice biscuits off the frozen sausage
  7. place onto a greased or lined tray
  8. bake till very pale gold at 200C.
  9. remove from tray while warm and cool on a wire rack
  10. store in a sealed container.

Flavourings:

  • Chocolate: add 2 tab of cocoa powder to the mix.
  • Choc chip: add 1/2 cup grated chocolate. Don't use buttons because the mixture will crumble too easily
  • Coconut: add half a cup coconut; this is also good with orange zest or a splodge of jam or both instead of vanilla. Balls of dough can also be rolled in coconut.
  • Spice: add 1 tsp of mixed spice, allspice or combine either spice with ground cloves, cinnamon, ginger.
  • Orange or lemon: omit the vanilla and add 2 tab grated orange or lemon zest.
  • Ginger: add 1 tab ground ginger or 1/3 cup chopped glace ginger.
  • Jam: allow the dough to soften and make an indent in centre of each biscuit with your pinkie or end of a marking pen and place a teaspoon of jam in the hole.
  • Nuts: add 3/4 cup of finely chopped nuts of choice - walnuts, hazelnuts, macadamias, almonds are all good.
  • Oatmeal: substitute 1 cup of rolled oats for 1 cup of flour - some spice would also work well with this mixture
  • Cornflake: substiture 1/2 cup of cornflake crumbs for 1/2 cup flour.

I usually split the dough into thirds and then add some flavourings so that I have a choice of three different biscuits.