Wow, it has been a while since I have last posted on the blog.

Sorry for being so scarce, life just crept up behind me and blindsided me.

I had 2 family friends pass away within weeks of each other and our customs and traditions kept me baking for the entire month. I have never washed so many dishes in my lifetime than I did this past month.

If the baking production line wasn’t the only thing keeping me busy. Eskom popped its ugly head and well who likes to have loadshedding at 20:00 till 22:00 and then again at 04:00 till 06:00???

During one of those loadshedding sessions, I had to manual open the gate and well it kept springing back so I forcefully pushed it and the wires created a birds nest around the spring and well long story short. It required me to watch a youtube video and painstakingly roll the wire around the coil, in the dark with only the help of a torch that my mother had to hold and all of this was done without an ounce of caffeine in my body.

Then during another session, a truck drove the telephone over, killing our ADSL line as well as our land line. Telkom is a real pain in the ass!!!! A month later and the phone line is still out of order. I have seen with my own two eyes the contractors laying fiber cables; Telkom tells me that we have no fiber in our area. I just did not and still do not have any energy to tell them that we do, but why should I do the job they are getting paid for???

So you see, I have not been avoiding you, I just haven’t had time to sit down and do something I like, I only seem to be sitting down to sleep.

Anyway with things slowly down and some form of normal calamity in my life, I decided today would be the day to just bake something that didn’t require a complicated recipe and something that if I forgot in the oven for a few extra minutes would add to the flavor and not char the cookie to a crisp.

I am fully aware that Diwali is a few days away and I really should start making some sort of head away on making an oil cake, but I have brain fog. I seriously cannot remember that last time I picked up a recipe book to look at a recipe, let alone plan a food menu. My father on the other hand is super excited for Diwali, not sure why. All I know is that it is going to require me to get up even earlier to have a 3 oil bath and then send up a silent prayer that my Panjabi suit still fits seeing as all the baking has taken on a toll on my body. Who knew spring rolls looked so good around my waist???

I came across this recipe in Dianne Bibby’s recipe book and at first I didn’t want to make it, because it had short bread in the name and I have a fear of making short bread, someone once told me that short bread cookie making was an art.

The recipe book kept opening to this page and when I finally did have a look at all the ingredients, it was just up my street. All the ingredients were in the front of the pantry, there would be no need for me to dig and search high and low for an item. While I was baking for all the services, I just threw ingredients back into the pantry so that I had counter space.

Now that I sit back and look at the disaster that I call a pantry, I cannot find anything and it also seems like there just isn’t any space for everything anymore. I foresee a deep deep spring cleaning in the near future.

But back to the biscuits, the ingredients were common pantry staples.

The method was super easy and the decorating and finishing touches were just a joy to do.

This biscuit was a hit, it was unique and everyone that tried it loved it. Now I can finally get rid of that ancient yellade biscuit that gets dragged out of storage every time Diwali comes around.

Ingredients:

• 200g x butter, room temperature.
• 60g x brown caramel sugar.
• 50g x light brown sugar.
• 200g x cake flour, sifted.
• 40g x corn flour, sifted.
• Pinch of salt.
• 50g x almond nibblers.
• 60g x sesame seeds.
• Whole almonds.
• Icing sugar for dusting.

Method:

• In a bowl, cream the butter and both sugars together till light and fluffy.
• Add in the cake flour, corn flour, almond nibblers and salt.
• Mix till well combined.
• Using a mechanical ice cream scoop, scoop out some of the mixture.
• Using your hands, shape the mixture into a ball.
• Roll in the sesame seeds.
• Place on a baking tray.
• Stud the top of each cookie with a whole almond, before popping into a preheated oven.
• Bake at 18- degrees for 20 – 25 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown.
• Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.
• Allow to cool completely before dusting with icing sugar.