Cheap and easy biscuits

I love finding a recipe that I know I'll use in the years to come. I found such a recipe a couple of weeks ago and was delighted with the results. It came from the Down to Earth forum, submitted by Paula Hewitt and she calls them Easy and Cheap Biscuits (cookies).

The great thing abut this recipe is that it uses only four ingredients. Paula says the recipe makes 70 - 80 biscuits. I made up one lot of about 40, another batch of 25 a week later and I still have one batch frozen as a log in the freezer.

I had two rolls of dough to freeze.

Makes 7-8 dozen, cook 10 min at 180C

500 grams butter (approx 1.1 lb)
1 can condensed milk (390-400 gram)
1 cup sugar
5 cups wholemeal self raising flour (or plain flour and baking powder)
toppings like choc chips, smarties, jam, cinnamon and sugar

Cream butter and sugar, add condensed milk. stir in flour. roll into balls and flatten. top with choc chips etc, or thumbprint and add jam for jam drops.

Bake at 180C for approx 10 min until golden brown. cool on racks.

I topped some of mine with jam and marmalade. Others with chocolate sprinkles and choc chips. All of them were delicious and they kept well in a sealed container.

I turned some into jam drops.

I'm going to share this recipe with our fundraisers at work. I reckon a little tray of these biscuits would sell at our stall for about $4 which would make us just over $50 per batch. I estimate the cost of ingredient to be just under $10 if we buy condensed milk, and less if we make our own. Definitely a handy recipe for charity fundraising.

But here at home it's a good one to make up and have in the freezer for unexpected guests. You could defrost the dough and have them cooked in under an hour. I've written the recipe inside the cover of my Feast cookbook, I'm sure Nigella would approve. This is definitely a keeper.

You'll notice I've put up some Amazon ads for the USA, Canada and the UK. The UK Amazon is now offering free postage to UK buyers from now until January 1, 2010. There is no minimum purchase needed. I will use any money I make on these ads to finance the set up and ongoing costs of the forum.

The start of another week and I'm back to working Mondays and Tuesdays from today. Hasn't this year gone fast! I guess you're all working on your Christmas gifts. I have discovered a new favourite dishcloth pattern. I'll show it to you tomorrow. I hope you have a beautiful week.