Four Kinds of Cookies | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Monkeys had set them down near a farm house, and the four travellers walked up to it and knocked at the door. It was opened by the farmers' wife, and when Dorothy asked for something to eat the woman gave them all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake and four kinds of cookies, and a bowl of milk for Toto.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
L. Frank Baum
Melbourne lockdown v.4 (I think…) and apparently all I will do during this time is bake things. I’m not really the biggest sweet tooth around, give me some vegemite on toast over chocolate anyway, but everything I’ve made seems to have been whisked away anyhow.
For the principle of the matter, I would refer to these as biscuits usually - because that’s really what they are. But the pages of the book that this recipe hails from, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is an American tale and thus I have given in and shall refer to them as cookies.
The base recipe for the cookies is taken from the Smith and Deli-cious cookbook, I have made some changes to it, removed some parts that really added nothing to the recipe and changed a few little things. The real delicious part of the recipe comes from what you can add in, my variations of them kind of rotate around chocolate (because honestly, what else) but you can basically substitute the nuts and chocolate for other things if you want.
Cookies, four kinds
Ingredients
270g dark brown sugar
150g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract or paste
1 tbsp No Egg, mixed with 3 tbsp water *see note
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
Add ins
Salted Chocolate Cookie
160g dark chocolate, chopped
2 tsp flaky sea salt
Peanut Butter and Chocolate
160g dark chocolate, chopped
3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
White Chocolate and Macadamia
80g white chocolate, chopped
80g macadamias, chopped
Biscoff Double Chocolate
4 tbsp Biscoff spread
80g dark chocolate, chopped
80g white chocolate, chopped
Preheat oven to 180C.
Cream together the sugar and butter until it is fluffy and a little lighter in colour. Stir in the No Egg and water mixture, and then add in the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until the dry ingredients are completely combined in.
Now is when you can add whatever add-ins you like to it as well! Which chocolates or anything you want, add it in now. If you’re doing the peanut or Biscoff variation, save a little of the spreads to the side.
Roll the mixture into even sized balls and place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Make sure they’re distanced enough to allow for the spread when baking.
If making the Biscoff or peanut butter ones, bake for 7 minutes and then spoon the remaining spread lightly on top of each before returning them to the oven for a further 8 minutes. The spread will melt in and be delicious on top.
For the others, bake for around 15 minutes, for the chocolate ones sprinkle a little flaky sea salt on top once they come out.
Leave to cool on the tray until they harden and enjoy!
Mint Lemonade | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Many shops stood in the street, and Dorothy saw that everything in them was green. Green candy and pop corn were offered for sale, as well as green shoes, green hats, and green clothes of all sorts. At once place a man was selling green lemonade, and when the children bought it Dorothy could see that they paid for it with green pennies.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
L. Frank Baum
My exposure to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz began with the film, like many I'm sure. In fact, I only read the book itself for the first time in the last few weeks, managing to devour it within a single night, a cup of tea being continually refilled as the night grew later. I was lucky enough to get a subscription this Christmas to The Novel Tea Book Club, and the first parcel I received was a delightfully themed trip down the yellow brick road. I'm eagerly anticipating the February book to arrive, enormously curious of what will be in the parcel.
There are an array of food stuffs within the pages of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that I could have attempted - I'm very much planning to attempt the four different types of cookies that Dorothy enjoys so much - but with summer in full swing, I couldn't go past the chance to make some homemade lemonade. with just a sprig of mint to give it that real Emerald City feel.
This lemonade recipe may look a little strange to Americans, and in all rights as the origins of the book is within America, I should have really stuck to a traditional recipe for it. However, I grew up with bubbly, carbonated lemonade and it's honestly just so much better. If you really aren't a fan, feel free to switch the sparkling water for still.
Mint Lemonade
Makes approx. 4 - 6 glasses
Ingredients
3/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup cold water
1 bunch of fresh mint
4 large lemons, juiced
1 - 2 bottles of sparkling water (dependant on how much lemonade you're making)
Ice
Make a simple sugar syrup by combining the sugar and cold water together, stirring well and leaving to sit for around 30 minutes until sugar dissolves.
For each glass of lemonade, place around 4 - 6 mint leaves in the bottom with a dash of the sugar syrup. Using a pestle (if you don't have one use the back of a spoon, works just as well), muddle the mint leaves well - they should be beginning to break up, with the smell of the mint coming out strongly.
Add around 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to each glass (more or less depending on how strong you like it), with an additional tablespoon of sugar syrup before topping with the sparkling water and ice.
Add a few slices of lemon or sprigs of mint as a garnish and enjoy!