Easter Biscuits

Want to enjoy an Easter treat minus the chocolate overload?

These traditional English Easter Biscuits are light and crisp, with a delicate spiced flavour and sweet currants and peel scattered throughout.

They really are the taste of Easter-time from years gone by, but completely enjoyable today – even my 11-year old loved them!

Easter 1940’s style

There’s a dizzying choice of Easter goodies on our supermarket shelves today, and of course the ol’ Hot Cross Buns are often sold from Boxing Day in many supermarkets. In fact, some supermarkets now sell them all year round!

Wind back the clock about 80 years and Easter would have looked a whole lot different. I reckon if you had asked for Hot Cross Buns on Boxing Day people would have thought you were mad! And the shops were probably all closed Boxing Day, anyway.

And while there may not have been the variety we have today, there were a few special little treats that we don’t often see these days – including these old-fashioned Easter Biscuits dotted with currants and peel.

This recipe is an English one, and I’ve based it on a recipe I found in The North Western Courier (Narrabri) dated 20 March 1941.

What you’ll need

To make these biscuits, you’ll need two baking rays and a round (5cm) cookie cutter.

The ingredient list includes:

• plain flour (all purpose flour)
• mixed spice
• baking powder
• pinch salt
• butter
• caster sugar
• an egg
• currants
• mixed peel
• icing sugar
• lemon juice.

See the recipe card at the bottom of the post for precise quantities of ingredients.

Making Easter Biscuits

The recipe for Easter Biscuits is fairly straightforward.

Start by pre-heating your oven to moderate (180 degrees celsius, fan-forced) and lightly greasing the two baking trays.

Cream butter and sugar, beating the butter first and adding the sugar gradually.

Add the lightly whisked egg and beat again until smooth.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and spice, and then gradually fold into the mixture.

Add currants and peel and stir through until distributed throughout the mixture.

Place the mixture onto a floured bench and form into two round balls. Roll out the balls to about 5-6mm thickness.

Use the round cutter to cut out biscuits and then place on the trays. If the mixture becomes difficult to work with, place in the fridge for 15 minutes before proceeding.

Add enough lemon juice to the icing sugar to form a runny paste. Brush the tops of the biscuit with the lemon juice and icing sugar mixture. Yes, before baking!

Place trays into oven and bake for 15 minutes or until a golden colour.

Allow to cool for about 10 minutes on trays before using a spatula to transfer the biscuits to a cooling rack.

More Easter Recipes

Find more Easter recipes from the Cooking with Nana Ling collection here.