Ciao bella! And some almond-lemon biscuits

I know, it's been a while. It's not you though, it's me. Guess what I've been up to?
Yup, moved to Italy!
(Don't worry, I have total faith you got that one. You got smarts).

I'm only going to be away for four months, but it's been all kinds of disruptive.  There's lots I want to share but, unfortunately, nothing in the food department. Yes, in a country famous for it's food, I'm currently sharing a dormitory kitchen with 150+ other people. I'm moving to Rome in a more stable, long term sort of way soon though, so keep everything crossed for me!


It's ok, I still made biscuits. Well, technically, I made them before I flew out, but there's a lot of raw, cut out dough left for me in my freezer for when I get back. And end of November, post flight biscuits are always a good idea, my friend. 

I cannot recommend this recipe from Sweetapolita enough. You might notice my biscuits aren't quite the perfect, flat, easy to decorate doodah's she promises. There is a very easy explanation for that, and it is that I am a moron. In a recipe that promised no puffy, risen biscuit tops, I used self raising flour, not plain. Stoopid. 
You freeze these and bake from frozen, so the dough is always well chilled and you don't need to faff with weighing when you, like, *need* biscuits. That is a good thing. 

They were still pretty good though...


What I'm sure an American might call a sugar cookie/ A rather nice biscuit
(adapted from Sweetapolita)

750g plain flour

450g salted butter 
400g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs

*1 tsp almond extract
Zest of half a lemon*

Those last two are the biggest changes I made. The original wanted vanilla and lemon extracts, but I'm too cheap and lazy to buy another extract when I always have a lemon or two knocking around and I love almond-lemon flavoured things. The rest is a little adapted in the usual, "I'm lazy-I buy salted butter rather than butter and salt-that's the sugar I like" ways.

1. Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs
2.  Add flour and mix it in til you can't see floury bits, but you haven't sent your dough the mixing equivalent of 4 rounds in a boxing ring. You know, somewhere in the middle. 
3. Divide into two blobs and fridge them for 20 mins or so.
4. Roooooll them out. Keep rollin', rollin', rollin', etc. 
5. Cut them out in pretty shapes and FREEZE them on a baking tray. Once they're frozen you can put them in baggies and forget they're there and forget to eat them before you move countries. 
6. Bake from frozen for 12 mins until golden
7. I decorated with lemon juice/icing sugar icing (I know you can make that without any help!), lemon sherbet and a few lemon and raspberry sweets. But that's just me.