Don’t tell my mother but a box of these biscuits are on their way to her as I type. It’s Mother’s Day in the UK this Sunday so why not spoil your Mum a little? Even if you don’t live over here where spring is trying to push it’s way through the frost, it’s a good way to earn some brownie points.  These biscuits not only taste great but they also travel well. For this reason they were my christmas present to loads of people. Well, people in the UK, they travel well but not well enough to reach Shannon. I know this because her christmas card arrived in February. I have made these again and again and they never cease to impress me with how easy they are to make and how gorgeously tasty they are. Especially with a cup of tea. Lovely.

I read a lot of recipes that called for molasses to be used but outside of health shops it’s just not available in the UK. Even Waitrose my go to for specialist ingredients failed me offering only molasses sugar. However it was the Waitrose website which provided the solution I’d been looking for and the recipe I went with is almost entirely their work. I have no affiliation with Waitrose. I know somebody who works for them that’s all and you’d be wrong if you didn’t think that I regularly bore him with questions about his work place. Back to the recipe, if you’re in the states and molasses is freely available then by all means please use it. But if you are UK based then the golden syrup and muscovado sugar combination is a winner and not hard to find.

• 125g/1 stick unsalted butter
• 100g/just over 1/2 cup dark muscovado sugar
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
• 325g/2 and 2/3 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 3 tsp ground ginger (2 if you like your biscuits a little less gingery)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Melt the butter, muscovado and golden syrup together in a pan over a low heat.

This picture makes me drool. And experience sugar cravings. Make sure you give the mix a good stir and try to break down any lumps of sugar or litle brown marks appear in your biscuits!

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon together before stirring the melted wet ingredients in. This should make a stiff dough. If the dough is not holding together because it’s too dry then just wet your hands and mould it together again to add a bit more moisture. It should look something like this:

Roll the dough out on a floured surface (preferably with a floured rolling pin as well) to about 5mm thick. If you want them thicker or thinner than this then go for it, just remember to adjust the cooking time by a few minutes.  Cut them out using a cutter of your choice, I use a nice boring circle but feel free to go crazy with dinosaurs or rockets. I would if I owned these. This should make somewhere between 20 and 25 biscuits for you.

Obviously I should listen to my own advice and put flour on my rolling pin because the one on the bottom right is all flaky! Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and bake at 170 degrees centigrade or 340 degrees fahrenheit for 9-10 minutes.

Then pack them up into a box to send to your mother! Or pop round if you live nearby and surprise her with them. Happy Mother’s Day!