This week we said goodbye to the loveliest lady – my Auntie Anne, aged 95. She was the first person I stayed with when I was tiny. I recall trying to find the toilet in the night, and realising it was outside. My aunt and uncle, who encouraged badgers into their house, thought the outside scuffling was the little devils scrabbling round for food!
It was my uncle who taught me to walk Hermesetas tabs off a diving board (a knife) into a waiting cup of tea. Such simple pleasures in those days. Anne, taking after my grandma, was a phenomenal baker. My mum often jokes that I was a chip off Anne’s block! And it was my gorgeous auntie who taught me how to make Ginger Hollows – we usually ate these puffed up biscuits plain, but on a special occasion we would top them with chocolate or fill them with cream … occasionally both … A proper old style afternoon tea treat! – Lizzie
Ingredients
- 350g caster sugar
- 115g butter, slightly softened
- 1 free range egg
- 250g plain flour
- 2 tsps bicarbonate of soda
- 2 heaped tsps ground ginger
Fancy extras
- 100ml cream
- 200g chocolate of choice
Method
- Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 2/150ºC. Grease and line a baking sheet
- Either using a stand mixer or by hand in a mixing bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until light. Add the egg and beat until pale and fluffy.
- Add the flour, bicarb and ginger to the bowl and mix well.
- Take small pieces of dough (approximately a heaped teaspoon) , roll them into balls and place on a baking sheet with plenty of space to make sure the cookies don’t touch each other as they cook – you should fit around 12 cookies per sheet.
- Bake for about 40 mins or until golden and puffy, turning in the oven halfway through if necessary.
- Leave to cool and firm up on the baking sheet before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
- If you are going fancy, gently heat together 100 ml cream with 200g chocolate and stir well. Dip the cold biscuits into the chocolate and leave on baking parchment to set. Keep in an airtight tin.
