As you may know, I have been trying to cut palm oil out of my life. Palm oil has certain properties that make it a great ingredient for manufacturers and it can be tricky to avoid unless you cook everything from scratch, particularly since it isn’t always listed as ‘palm oil’ in ingredients lists. Anyway, I discovered a few months ago that it’s in most commercially-produced biscuits (including my beloved digestives). The answer, however, was provided by two friends: Sue sent me three recipes and Kate sent me one. Since January, therefore, I have not bought any biscuits and I have made all the ones we have eaten at home. This not only avoids palm oil, but also greatly reduces plastic packaging since most of the ingredients (including the butter) come in paper or glass.
The key to a good biscuit (rather than a cookie), according to Sue, is to use a hard fat. The choice comes down to butter or hard white vegetable fat. However, it turns out that the latter (e.g. Trex) is made from palm oil. So, I’m sorry vegans, but all the successful biscuits I have made have contained butter.
I’m going to share the four recipes here, for those of you who also want to make your own. The measures are in the original units in which each recipe was written, so there is a mix of ounces and grams.
Ginger nuts
ginger nuts
8oz SR flour
2 heaped teaspoons ground ginger
4oz sugar (white or golden granulated)
3oz butter
4oz golden syrup
1 egg
Mix the dry ingredients, melt the butter and syrup, mix everything together. Shape teaspoonfuls into rough balls and press down a little, then arrange on greased baking trays with plenty of room to spread. Bake at 150C for 15 mins or until golden and becoming crisp. Cool on a rack and put in tin as soon as cold.
Shortbread Biscuits (Mr Snail’s favourite, especially dipped in chocolate)
We love shortbread biscuits
200g butter (soft)
100g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g plain flour
50g ground rice
Cream together butter, sugar and vanilla, work in the flour and rice. Roll out to 1/4 inch thick, cut into rounds (or hearts) and bake at 160C for 15-20 mins.
Granny Boyd’s biscuits
lovely and chocolatey
250g butter
125g caster sugar
300g SR flour
30 g cocoa powder
Cream together butter and sugar. Sift cocoa and flour together and work into mixture. Form into walnut sized balls and arrange on trays. Flatten slightly with the back of a fork. Bake at 170C for 5 mins then turn the oven down to 150C for another 10-15 mins. The top should be firm and the inside slightly squidgy – they firm as they cool.
Digestive biscuits from a Victorian recipe
digestives
4oz fine oatmeal
2oz wholemeal flour
2oz white plain flour
2oz soft brown sugar
Quarter of a teaspoon of salt
Half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
3oz butter
1 egg
Rub the butter into the dry ingredients and then add the egg. Mix well. Roll out to about 0.25-0.5 cm, cut into rounds and place on a baking tray. Bake at 190C for 10-15 minutes. Allow them to cool and if they aren’t crispy enough I put them back in the oven for another 5 minutes.
I would add another recipe to my collection of favourite biscuits and that’s Delia Smith’s chocolate chip ginger nuts, the recipe for which is here. These are very rich and very delicious:
chocolate ginger nuts with chocolate chips
So, do you have a favourite biscuit recipe to share?
The Snail of Happiness 
katechiconi
/ June 3, 2017Have you experimented with coconut oil? I imagine that for most of the year in the UK it is a hard fat… My tried and trusted recipe is one for a cookie, but it is GF and flourless in case anyone’s interested: 1 cup crunchy peanut butter, 1 cup sultanas, 2/3 cup soft dark brown sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tsp cinnamon. Mix all together well, and blob large heaped teaspoonfuls onto a baking paper covered cookie sheet. Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes. Also very good with choc chips instead of sultanas. It’s quick and a very good recipe for unexpected visitors.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 3, 2017Because coconut oil becomes liquid at such a low temperature, my experience is that it generally behaves like oil. You can’t beat it up with sugar like you can butter because the energy you put in melts it! I’m happy to use butter, but I know some folks aren’t.
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arlingwoman
/ June 4, 2017Mmmm, my all time favorite cookie (biscuit) is called toffee bar cookies. 1Cup butter; 1 cup brown sugar; 2 cups flour; 1 6 oz package chocolate chips; 1 cup chopped walnuts. Cream butter and sugar, add flour to create a crumbly mixture, then add nuts and chocolate chips. Do not overtax or the cookies will be oily. Press the mixture into a large cookie sheet (15 x 24? I normally halve this recipe and use a 9 X13 pan) Bake at 350F for 25 minutes and cut when you remove them from the oven, as they will harden up. They are lovely. Sorry for the converting you’ll have to do. I’ll be trying the digestive recipe!!! Love those things, but … as you said, the ingredients…
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 4, 2017I really like cup measures – I have a set so no need for conversion and I will certainly be giving toffee bar cookies a go very soon – thank you.
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Laurie Graves
/ June 4, 2017Oh, those look delicious! Not much time for baking nowadays, but I’ll keep these beauties in mind.
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coppicelearner
/ June 4, 2017Glad the recipes are working for you! The ginger nuts comes from a Be-ro cookbook I sent for in 1971! They were my late husband’s favourites and when he worked in local government for a while he always had a tin of them on his desk – amazing how many people needed to see him about a query at coffee time! The shortbreads came from my daughter and I found the granny boyd ones in a Nigella Lawson book from the library. I will be trying the digestives – I miss those too. And the others people have posted in the comments. Thank you to all.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 4, 2017I think we should compile a recipe book!
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katythenightowl
/ June 4, 2017Your biscuits made my mouth water! 🙂
I don’t blame you going for butter in your search to avoid Palm Oil – since your last post on the subject, I’ve been looking at the food we buy, and you really can’t escape it’s use in practically everything ready made! 😦
By the way, Happy Anniversary to you both 🙂
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nanacathy2
/ June 4, 2017I do love a ginger nut, and your short breads look so crisp and moreish. Do ginger florentines count as biscuits?
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 4, 2017I’m sure the do. Do you have a recipe?
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ June 12, 2017Oooh, I am dying to get baking after reading this lot! My favourite cookie recipe is in the River Cottage Everyday book – I’ll look it up and add it when I get a sec! It’s a basic chocolate chip cookie, but it can be adapted any number of ways. My favourite improvisation involved matcha and white chocolate 😋 Now all I have to do is decide which recipe to try first…
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 12, 2017I have River Cottage Everyday – I’ll check it out.
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ June 14, 2017Yep, it’s in there as “Ten-minute chocolate chip cookies”. I can vouch for the oat and raisin variation too! 😋
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babl
/ August 5, 2017Thanks for delicious post. I am sharing it. 🙂
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 5, 2017Hope you enjoy the recipes
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Love Palm Oil
/ August 13, 2017I’ve recently started to cut palm oil (or use sustainable palm oil) out of my diet too! Are there any other tips you would give, whether they are in or out of the kitchen?
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 13, 2017My best tip (although it’s time-consuming) is to make as much of your food from scratch as possible – that way you are in control of all the ingredients. Gradually cutting out processed food is quite straightforward and, before you know it, you are in the position where you are making informed choices about all aspects of your diet.
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Love Palm Oil
/ August 13, 2017Thank you for the advice!! Have been trying to do this for the past week and a bit now and although it can be tiring when i’m not in the mood to cook, it’s totally worth it knowing no animals are dying etc. because of the food i’m eating!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 13, 2017And really, you need not to beat yourself up about not doing everything. It takes time… hence my blog’s reference to small steps.
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murrayzz1
/ August 11, 2019Tried out the ginger nuts, but I used demerara sugar and a mixture of 3oz molasses and 1oz golden syrup to make them a bit darker and more treacly. I also missed out the egg by accident. The resulting biscuits were very authentic.
I baked half of them an extra 15 minutes, and they came out more crunchy, whereas the ones baked for 15 minutes were more of a chewy cookie-type consistency.
The yield from this recipe is the equivalent of two packets of ginger nuts, and the cost is about the same as the equivalent quantity of McVitie’s.
Mine came out smooth, lacking the distinctive cracked effect of ginger nuts, so I’ll include the egg next time – maybe that is its function.
Thanks for providing this excellent recipe.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 11, 2019Glad they worked so well for you.
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