Baked Marzipan Biscuits

These biscuits are pure nuts and honey. They can be very brittle.

Get
300g organic almonds
2 tbsp honey (Prickly box honey, Bursaria spinosa)
Some (macadamia) nuts for decoration
2 tbsp organic cocoa powder optional
1 egg yolk

Unglazed

Do
Blanch almonds.
In a saucepan or bowl, use a puree stick to make a smooth paste from the almonds and the honey. Kneed the paste to marzipan. Cool for some time in the fridge.

Take a clean (pure linen) tea towel and role out the ball of marzipan. Use cookie cutters to get the desired shapes or make a roll and cut into pieces and decorate with nut pieces. Mix the egg yolk and paint biscuits. Put into a preheated oven and bake at 180°c for about 10 minutes on the second shelf from the bottom. They should be golden.

One traditional shape is little cones, called Bethmännchen ("a little Bethmann"). They have been around since 1393 on Christmas markets in Frankfurt. They usually contain powdered sugar, rosewater, flour and egg as well.

Click to enlarge

For our cones we made a ball, flattened it with an indentation in the middle, and added a fresh macadamia nut in the centre. Pinch the top to close around the nut.
When little bits are left over that cannot be rolled out at the end, cocoa was used to hand kneed them into shapes.
Refrigerate if done anywhere on The Mid North Coast at this time of the year.

Chocolate Nut Biscuits

Designed and baked by Ross in Bellingen

GET:
1 cup macadamia oil

2 eggs (reserve yolk of one to glaze)

0.33 to 0.5 cups of honey (to taste)

100-200g of chipped chocolate (90% cocoa)

5 cups flour (w/meal wheat or spelt - or replace with a % of nutmeal of choice to taste and may need to adjust total flour to get nice crumb consistency)

1 tsp ground cinnamon or more to taste

Here with chocolate chips

DO:
1 Mix oil, eggs and honey.

2 Add flour, cinnamon and chocolate chips and to make a biscuit crumb consistency

3 Press and smooth into papered baking tray

4 Cut to desired shape/s and size/s

5 Glaze with yolk, reserving a little

6 Garnish each biscuit with almond or nut of choice

7 Glaze nuts with remaining yolk

8 Bake in 160 C oven for 15-20 minutes

9 Remove and cool in tray for 10 minutes then recut shapes.

10 When firm remove biscuits and cool on rack

Bunya Tree Seasonal Celebrations

This living Bunya tree makes a beautiful recyclable x-mas tree. Providing food for the next 1000 years. All chocolate wrappers can be reused in the next season. No waste! Patented by Jan.

Baked Macadamiazan

get

organic macadamia nuts - any amount
lemon juice
light agave syrup
water

do
 
Preheat the oven to 150°c.
Grate the nuts coarsely into a bowl with a medium hand grater.
Add lemon juice, agave syrup to taste. Mix.
Stir in enough water to make a moist but solid mixture.
Knead and form into a dough.
Butter a baking tray.
Cut the nut mixture into cookie sized pieces and form into suitable shapes.
Place on the baking tray and bake for about 25 minutes until golden.
Remove from oven and cool
Cover and store in a tin.

Yellow-shouldered Hover Fly in macadamia flowers

This recipe depends on your taste as regards sweetening, and amount of lemon juice. If you like it very lemony, leave out the water and take a lot of lemon juice. If you like it very sweet, leave out the water and take more agave syrup. Vary the amount of nuts according to your needs.

Plain almond biscuits

get
350 wholemeal flour (spelt flour)
2 tbsp honey
1 egg
1.5 heaped teasp ground cinnamon
250g butter
200g almonds

do
Mix honey and egg in the middle of the flour in a large bowl.
Add cinnamon, butter flakes, ground almonds
Knead to a pastry. Add extra flour if sticky.
Cool in fridge.
Roll out thin and cut out circles (or shapes)
Bake at 190°c for 10 minutes on a baking tray. Cool.

Store in a tin lined with greaseproof paper.

These biscuits are soft and without any chunky bits in them. Just a homogenous nutty taste with a touch of cinnamon. They go well with coffe and tea. Best on the second day and after.

Image
August Macke, Still life hyacinths carpet, 1910