Irish Organic Association

IOA

  • Home
  • About
    • Why Choose IOA
    • Join IOA
    • IOA Organic Food and Farming Standards
    • Steps to Organic Certification (Farming)
    • Steps to Organic Certification (Processor)
  • News
  • Research & Reports
    • Organic Market & Production
    • Research & Innovation Projects
    • Organic Farming & Public Goods
  • Contact Us
  • Farming
    • Organic Farming Scheme and Grant Aid Scheme
    • Why Choose IOA
    • Join IOA
    • Steps to Organic Certification (Farming)
    • Application Forms (Farmer)
    • Farmer Forms
    • IOA Organic Food and Farming Standards
    • Mart Information
    • Classified Ads
    • Education
    • Field Talks
  • Processing
    • Why Choose IOA
    • Join IOA
    • Steps to Organic Certification (Processor)
    • IOA Organic Food and Farming Standards
    • Application Forms (Processor & Retailer)
    • Processor Forms
    • Organic Aquaculture
    • Organic Health and Beauty- Private Standards
    • Organic Catering- Private Standards
    • Certified Products- Private Standards
    • DAFM Funding
  • IOA Members
    • Directory of Certified Organic Operators
    • Application Forms (Farmer)
    • Application Forms (Processor & Retailer)
    • Farmer Forms
    • Processor Forms
  • Certification
    • Farmers and Growers
    • Processors and Retailers
    • Organic Health & Beauty – Private Standards
    • Organic Catering – Private Standards
    • Certified Products – Private Standards
    • IOA Organic Food and Farming Standards
  • Organic Matters Magazine
  • Forms
    • Farmer Forms
    • Processor Forms
    • Application Forms (Farmer)
    • Application Forms (Processor & Retailer)
  • EIP
    • MOPS Videos
  • Find Organic produce
  • News
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • About
  • News
  • Research & Reports
  • Contact Us

Organic recipe of the week – divine shortbread biscuits

25 March 2015 By IOA Webmaster

This weeks recipe comes from Maeve Cairney, who works with IOA as a processing inspector and also as our Quality Manager.

rsz_maeves_biscuits

“This recipe came from a cookbook I was given as a gift but I have made my own alterations to it. The biscuits/cookies/bikkies or whatever you want to call them, are great for mid-morning coffee breaks. I also love to make them and give them to people as gifts because you will never buy a biscuit that tastes as good as these” said Maeve.

 ORGANIC INGREDIENTS & QUANTITIES:-

Dough: –        200g unsalted butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla sugar

90g caster sugar

270-300g plain flour

 

Decoration: – Nuts, cinnamon, cocoa, jam, marzipan etc for decoration

 METHOD:-

Beat the butter and sugars together until pale and fluffy. I use a hand mixer for this but make sure the butter is just soft, not melted. To make your own vanilla sugar just put some icing sugar in a jar/tub with a vanilla pod and it can be used from two weeks onwards.

  • Add the flour through a sieve and work it into a dough. Again, I use a hand mixer for this but with the dough hooks. You could just as easily do it by hand. However, the lightness of the biscuits is directly related to how lightly you handle the dough so don’t knead it.
  • Transfer the dough to a bag and put in the fridge to rest for an hour.
  • When you remove the dough, preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4 and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment.
  • I usually split the dough into three so that I can do a variety of biscuits and below are some suggestions for the varieties:
    • Divide one section of dough into small walnut sized balls. Dip the balls into milk and then roll them in cocoa or cinnamon. Place the balls onto the baking sheet and flatten each one gently with a fork, leaving about 1 cm between each one.
    • Roll out one section of the dough and cut using a shaped cookie cutter. Make a small indentation in the centre of each biscuit and fill it with a tiny amount of jam (any flavor).
    • Divide the final section of the dough into small walnut sized balls. Insert a small ball of marzipan into the centre of each one. Flatten the balls with a fork and sprinkle crushed almonds on the top.
  • Bake the biscuits in the oven for approx. 10 minutes until light golden colour. Allow them to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Note – the dough will keep in the fridge for a week if you only want to make a few biscuits at a time. Also, the dough can be baked “plain” by rolling and using a cutter or by rolling into small balls and flattening as above. You can coat baked & cooled biscuits with melted chocolate too for another variety….the possibilities are endless

Filed Under: General, Organic recipe of the week

About IOFGA

©IOA (Irish Organic Association ) is Ireland’s leading organic certification body dedicated to certifying organic produce and products throughout Ireland.

  • Why Choose IOA
  • Join IOA
  • IOA Organic Food and Farming Standards
  • Steps to Organic Certification (Farming)
  • Steps to Organic Certification (Processor)

Address

Irish Organic Association
Unit 13 Inish Carraig
Golden Island
Athlone
Co. Westmeath
Ireland.
N37 N1W4

Contact

Tel: (+353) 090 643 3680
Fax: (+353) 090 644 9005
Email: info@irishoa.ie

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Office hours

Open
Mon – Fri
9am – 5pm.

Closed 1 – 2pm

POLICIES

Data Protection Policy
Privacy Policy

LATEST TWEET

By avoiding synthetic fertilisers & through #soilmanagement practices, #organics locks up more carbon in soils, making farms more resilient & helping to mitigate and adapt to #climatechange.

Shared from our friends at @organicseurope

Copyright © 2023 IOA : Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association CLG trading as the Irish Organic Association