{"id":272,"date":"2007-12-19T13:02:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T13:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=272"},"modified":"2007-12-19T13:02:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T13:02:00","slug":"christmas-teacakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=272","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Teacakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/wishiwerebaking\/2116439666\/in\/set-72157594512704411\/\" target=_blank title=\"click to enlarge in new window\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" hspace=\"10\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2174\/2116439666_63e57f78c3_m.jpg\" align=\"left\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=Indent>OK, really quickly, here&#8217;re two recipes.  The first is standard ginger teacakes, the second is a parsnip version of those same teacakes.  Yes &#8211; parsnip cookies.  When you live in the UK, and you&#8217;ve subscribed to an organic vegetable cooperative, you end up with these things &#8230; in bulk!  What the heck do you do with parsnips?!  Particularly if you&#8217;ve only ever seen them once before!  Well, cookies, of course!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>Ginger Teacakes<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Flour<\/li>\n<li>2 Tbsp baking powder<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 tsp ground Cinnamon<\/li>\n<li>1 Tbsp ground Ginger<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 tsp ground Cloves<\/li>\n<li>1 small &#8220;arm&#8221; Star Anise (optional)<\/li>\n<li>1 Cup brown sugar<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 cup apple sauce<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup olive oil<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup molasses<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 cup crystallized ginger, chopped<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup flax seeds, ground (linseeds)<\/li>\n<li>Granulated sugar, for rolling<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>Combine everything except for the flour (well, and also leave out the granulated sugar that&#8217;s for rolling, of course).<\/li>\n<li>Gradually work in enough flour to make a very stiff dough.  We used strong, wholemeal flour, but you could wimp out and use something light-colored.<\/li>\n<li>Form into 1 inch balls, roll in sugar, and place upon parchment paper, with about 1.5 inches in between each cookie.<\/li>\n<li>Bake at 300F \/ 150C for around 12 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Allow to cool completely before removing from parchment.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=Indent>So, that&#8217;s the Gingerbread version.  They turned out wonderfully, all light &#038; fluffy inside.  We used whole, dessicated ginger for our powder (you can find them at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfherb.com\/store\/spices-culinary-herbs,category.asp\" target=_blank>SFHerb.com<\/a>, item # 87 or 687).  This kind of ginger is much better than just plain old ginger powder, as it&#8217;s much hotter &#038; more potent.  We made two batches, one with the Star Anise &#038; one without (because <del><i>some<\/i> of us don&#8217;t like the flavor<\/del> it takes over the flavor of the cookies, and pretty soon it&#8217;s like you didn&#8217;t have any other spices in there).  One note: be sure to use a mildly flavored honey, as somehow the flavor comes through (yes &#8211; experience speaking, here &#8211; we tried to use up some really strong honey, and can taste it in the end product).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>Parsnip Teacakes<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>4 cups steamed parsnips (without the <b>bitter core<\/b>)<\/li>\n<li>Guts of 1 Vanilla Bean<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 of a nutmeg nut, microplaned<\/li>\n<li>3 Tbsp coriander seeds, ground &#038; sifted<\/li>\n<li>Zest of 1 lemon<\/li>\n<li>3\/4 cup flax Seed, ground (linseeds)<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 cup granulated sugar<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup xylitol (can substitute granulated sugar)<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 cup honey<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup agave nectar (can substitute honey or corn syrup)<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 tsp salt<\/li>\n<li>4 Tbsp baking powder<\/li>\n<li>5 cups flour<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>Mix everything except the flour and baking powder.<\/li>\n<li>Let stand for 15 minutes, to allow the flax seeds to hydrate.<\/li>\n<li>Mix in baking powder.<\/li>\n<li>Mix in most of your flour, reserving some in case you don&#8217;t need it.<\/li>\n<li>Once you&#8217;ve got a really arm-breakingly stiff dough, let rest for 5 minutes or so, to let the flour hydrate &#038; let the dough relax.<\/li>\n<li>Form into 1 inch balls, roll in sugar, and place upon parchment paper, with about 1.5 inches in between each cookie.<\/li>\n<li>Bake at 300F \/ 150C for around 12 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Allow to cool completely before removing from parchment.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/wishiwerebaking\/2122858450\/in\/set-72157594512704411\/\" target=_blank title=\"click to enlarge in new window\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" hspace=\"10\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2020\/2122858450_b2dffa377a_m.jpg\" align=\"right\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=Indent>These could&#8217;ve been a bread, maybe, except that they&#8217;re way too tender for that.  We concluded that they might have wanted to be muffins, really, because they are so incredibly tender.  We&#8217;ll have to see what happens when they finish settling, but we&#8217;re certain that they won&#8217;t turn out to be &#8220;snaps&#8221; by any means, since they have the different sugars in them to keep them tender, and the honey to pull moisture from the air (fun stuff, food science).<\/p>\n<p class=Indent>They could have taken way more spices than we added, because the flavor of parsnips really overwhelms anything we threw at them.  They could have used maybe the zest of 4 lemons instead of just 1, and, strangely enough, they smell &#038; taste like they really would pair well with coconut &#8211; so the next try at these will probably involve the use of coconut milk powder (again, found at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfherb.com\/store\/baking-food-items,category.asp\" target=_blank>SFHerb.com<\/a>, item 251).<\/p>\n<p class=Indent>The parsnip teacakes are heading off to our neighbors and our local health-care professionals (the ladies at the pharmacy and the doctor &#038; nurse at our local surgery).  There&#8217;s really no way we can leave these sitting about in our house, lest we eat them all up (as happened to the first batch of ginger teacakes).<\/p>\n<p class=Indent>Now, what could we make out of these silly swedes&#8230;?<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/3.0\/\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" style=\"border-width:0\" src=\"http:\/\/i.creativecommons.org\/l\/by-nc-nd\/3.0\/80x15.png\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>This work is licensed under a<br \/>\n<a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/3.0\/\">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OK, really quickly, here&#8217;re two recipes. The first is standard ginger teacakes, the second is a parsnip version of those same teacakes. Yes &#8211; parsnip cookies. When you live in the UK, and you&#8217;ve subscribed to an organic vegetable cooperative, you end up with these things &#8230; in bulk! What the heck do you do [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baking","category-food","category-recipe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}