Make your own Assorted Cream biscuits

Coconut Ice, Choc Crackle Caramel & Lemon Delice

As a child, it was a rare treat to have some Arnotts Assorted Creams in the biscuit barrel. It wasn’t that we didn’t like or prefer Mum’s home made biscuits, there was just something so nice about having the choice of so many different flavoured biscuits at once. Favourites like Delta Creams, Shortbread Creams, Monte Carlos, Kingstons and Orange Creams. I could never decide on just 2 or 3 but had to have one of each (while Mum wasn’t looking of course).

I had 3 different kinds of leftover icing in my freezer. (Why do I always keep these ‘little bits’ of icing? So I can make a variety of iced biscuits I guess.) I thought about making a basic biscuit mixture, slightly altering the flavour of it and sandwiching (is that really a word) them with the 3 different icings.

After making the biscuit dough, divide into three (or as many as you have different icing for).

Roll into balls, flatten with the back of a spoon or a fork and bake. For the Coconut Ice, I rolled the balls in coconut before flattening. For the Lemon Delice, I added a small bit of lemon essence to the dough. Grated lemon rind would’ve been nice too but I didn’t want to risk it with my fussy daughter. She would’ve complained if she saw specks of ‘something’ sticking out of a biscuit. For the Choc Crackle Caramel, I rolled the balls in cocoa before pressing.

Once cooled, sandwich with icing and enjoy. I flavoured the pink icing with a little coconut essence and the yellow icing with lemon juice. The caramel icing was leftover over from the Caramel Mudcake Cupcakes I made the other week.

Basic Biscuit Dough
(from “Day to Day Cookery” – my high school Home Economics text book)

125gm butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1.3/4 cups Self Raising flour
1 egg
Vanilla

Melt butter and mix well with sugar. (The recipe says to cream butter and sugar together but most often I just melt and mix. Quicker that way and same result.) Add the beaten egg and vanilla. Gradually add sifted flour. Mix into a stiff paste. Roll small pieces of dough into balls and place on baking tray. Flatten with back of a spoon or a fork. Bake in a 180 deg C oven for approx 8-10 mins or until golden brown.

They went like hot cakes and I got asked “why didn’t you make more?”. Gosh, I’m tied to the kitchen some days!