Arnold Circus Biscuits

At year-end, I compile a list of my favorite cookbooks of the year. (Quick aside: 2013 looks to be an outstanding year for cookbooks. Stay tuned!) In 2012, Margot Henderson’s You’re All Invited topped my best-of list, hands down. Henderson filled her cookbook with recipes from her catering business, Arnold & Henderson; and from her London restaurant, Rochelle Canteen. These recipes—whether fancy(ish) or simple—feel honest: straightforward food to enjoy during any celebration, whether a Christmas Dinner or New Year Party or even a quiet Date Night at home. Although published in Britain, the recipes in You’re All Invited should pose no real problem for American households. It’s a wonderful and gracious cookbook and I highly recommend it.

Being a dessert and tea-loving lot, my family particularly likes the Pudding and Cakes section of You’re All Invited. In it Henderson shares a recipe for Arnold Circus Biscuits, a version of a cookie called an Anzac biscuit in her native New Zealand. Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corp and the original rolled oat cookie recipe dates back to World War I. The wartime biscuit needed to survive long, slow journeys without spoiling, thus it contained neither eggs nor butter. Instead, the biscuit relied on ingredients not apt to spoil (in this case, oats, flour, coconut and sugar). Modern versions of the recipe still omit eggs, but many, including Henderson’s recipe, now contain butter.  Why does Henderson call her version Arnold Circus Biscuits? Perhaps because she located her catering business and restaurant in an old Victorian school—its old bike shed, to be specific—in East London’s Arnold Circus. So I think of the biscuit as her house cookie. Henderson’s recipe makes about 36 biscuits.

100g porridge oats

75g desiccated coconut

100g plain flour

100g caster sugar

50g demerara sugar

100g butter

50g golden syrup

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/fan 160º/350ºF/gas 4, and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Put the oats, coconut, flour and both sugars into a large bowl and mix to combine.

Put the butter into a pan and add the golden syrup. Heat slowly and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter and syrup have melted together. Put the bicarbonate of soda into a cup, add 2 tablespoons of boiling water and mix to dissolve. Pour the mixture into the pan. Stir with a wooden spoon, then tip into the dry ingredients and mix to a crumbly paste.

Take teaspoonfuls of the mixture and roll them into balls. Place them on the cold baking trays, leaving a space of at least 3cm between them because they will spread as they cook. Bake for about 12 minutes, until they have spread out nicely and are a dark golden colour.

Cool on a rack, then store in an airtight tin.

Notes

For those of you that don’t speak British, some clarification might be in order. Porridge oats are rolled oats. Desiccated coconut means flaked or shredded coconut. Plain flour, as opposed to strong (high-protein) flour and soft (pastry) flour, is all-purpose flour. Caster sugar means super-fine sugar. Golden syrup, practically synonymous in England for Lyle’s Golden Syrup, is cane sugar syrup. Bicarbonate of soda translates to baking soda. Three centimeters equals just over an inch. And, of course, colour means color.

Although these cookies boast a long shelf-life, I can tell you that they don’t hang around too terribly long in my household: we can put away a batch in a couple of days. They are perfect with tea or as dessert (or even for elevenses…just ask my dear wife).

Pasta Dough No. 2

When using my torchio pasta press, I work with different dough recipes depending upon the type of pasta shape I am making. Because I am on a bit of a gramigna kick (here), my current dough-of-choice consists of 250 grams of type 00 and extra fancy durum flour mixed with 125 grams of eggs. This 2:1 flour-to-egg ratio produces a dry, hard dough suited to making gramigna in a torchio.

Just for fun, I used this same dough to make flat egg noodles in a conventional pasta machine with rollers. Although a 2:1 flour-to-egg ratio works exceptionally well in a torchio, this mixture felt a tad too hard for a home pasta machine. So, over the course of a week, I made multiple batches of dough, adding varying amounts of additional water to create a dough that was dry and hard—which results in a pasta with a firm texture—but not so hard that it would unduly stress my pasta machine.

With each batch I started with a mixture of type 00 flour from Central Milling (150 grams) and extra fancy durum flour from Giustos (100 grams). I sifted the flour into the bowl of a standing mixer and added a large pinch of salt. Next, I placed a glass on a scale, tared the scale and added 2 whole medium eggs and 1 medium egg yolk. On average this egg mixture weighed approximately 125 grams.

Over the course of five runs, I added as few as 5 grams and as many as 20 grams of additional water to the 125 gram egg mixture. I set the mixer, equipped with a paddle attachment, to low and drizzled in the egg mixture. Next, I mixed the dough until it came together (about 2 minutes depending upon the amount of liquid). Then, I removed the dough from the mixer, kneaded the dough by hand for a minute or two, and wrapped the dough in plastic and let it hydrate at room temperature for 30 minutes. Finally, I rolled the dough to setting 3 on my Imperia R220 Manual pasta machine.

By adding a relatively small amount of water to the eggs—as few as 5 grams—the dough became noticeably easier to roll in the R220. Of the dough variations, I preferred the driest batch (i.e., the dough with 5 grams of additional water), which produced a pasta with a great bite.

Fusi Istriani Revisited

In 2012, I wrote about fusi istriani, an origami-like shaped pasta from Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Working with a small dowel and some triangular-shaped pieces of pasta, I created a close approximation of the shape illustrated in Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta [2009].

I ended my fusi istriani post with a passing reference to a variant created by wrapping a small piece of square pasta around the handle of a wooden spoon (or, traditionally, a spindle) to form a penne-like pasta. During my research, I found more references to and images of this tubular fusi than its shapely triangular counterpart. Although both shapes come together quickly once you get the hang of making them, you can make the tubular version more quickly and without a dowel, spoon handle or spindle. Here’s the process I followed.

1. Sift 300 grams 00 flour into a work bowl. Add 3 large eggs and mix the dough until it comes together into a rough ball.

2. Turn the dough out of the bowl onto a work surface and knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes. Wrap the kneaded dough in plastic and let it rest on the work surface for 20 to 30 minutes.

3. Cut the dough into quarters. Working with one-quarter of the dough at a time (keeping the remaining dough wrapped in plastic), roll the dough to a thickness of approximately 1 mm. (I roll the dough to setting 3 on an Imperia 220.)

4. Cut the pasta sheets lengthwise into 1½-inch strips. Cut the strips into 1½-inch squares. Working with one square at a time, fold opposite corners of the pasta square together over the square’s center and pinch to seal. Place the formed pasta on a baking pan dusted with semolina flour, taking care that the fusi do not touch one another. Repeat with the remaining squares. Roll, cut and form the remaining dough.

5. Cook the fusi istriani in a large pot full of salty, boiling water. Test the pasta about 2 to 3 minutes after the salted water returns to a boil. When the pasta loses its raw taste yet is still firm to the bite, drain and add the cooked pasta into your ready sauce—fusi istriani is traditionally served with a chicken sugo—and cook the pasta and sauce together for a minute or so.

Notes

The above recipe serves 4 as a main course. I use an accordion dough cutter to create the strips and squares. If you have perfect squares, forming the shape takes very little effort. Although the fusi come together easily, you need to work quickly otherwise the pasta squares will dry out and resist sealing. (I cover the cut pasta squares with a towel until I form them.) Finally, I’ve made fusi istriani a number of times using Type 00 Pizza Flour from Central Milling in Logan, Utah. I like working with this flour, which makes delicious pasta.