Saturday 12 March 2011

Vintage Recipe - Gipsy Creams


Last weekend I flew "home" with Oliver to visit my parents in Scotland for a couple of days. The same night morning I finished making the Peppa pig cake, I also made some Gipsy Creams to take back for my mum.

This recipe for Gispy Creams belonged to my grandmother. My mum remembers my Gran making them right back to when she was a young child, though in her later year, I believe she was renouned for burning them !

A bit of googling shows a biscuit made by Mc Vities called a Gipsy Cream and also a few recipes that say they are traditional. They are also very different from the one I have. I do know this recipe is at least 50 years old, but cannot really date it back accurately.

Mine almost survivedd the plane flight home.. they were a bit battered by the time we arrived - but were demolished all the same !

Gipsy Creams

2oz / 50g butter or margerine
2oz / 50g of lard
3oz / 75g sugar
1 tablespoon of hot water
1 tablespoon golden syrup
2 cups of cornflakes
1 cup self raising flour
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
vanilla essence

There was no recipe, oven temperature or cooking times in Gran's old recipe book for this one - so I literally just went for it.

I creamed the butter and lard, added sugar, cocoa and sifted flour. Mixed these in and then added the hot water , syrup and cornflakes.

The mix was quite dry, do I had to press hard to form it into balls. Make into walnut sized balls (or thereabouts !). Put on to baking trays lined with silicone baking tray sheets or baking parchment.

I flatted mine a little, but not very much. The mix really didn't spread much at all - despite not being chilled. Next time, I'd flatten them down a bit more.

I cooked these at 170deg C in a fan oven for approx 14 mins

Once cool, sandwich two together with buttercream. I got 8 sandwiched cookies out of it - but they ended up the size and thickness of yoyos. If you are a bit more sparing with the mix and flatten a bit more, I think you could get about double that



Sarah-Jane Nash, http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - March 11 - the silicone bakeware specialist cook shop

4 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh, these sound and look great. I've never heard of them but they have to be delicious. Hope all is well with you and Oliver and how nice that you visited your parents. I would love to visit Scotland! Have a great weekend!

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  2. I remember Gypsy Creams, they were great. Funnily enough, I was thinking about them the other day and how I hadn't seen them for a long time.
    Will def. try out your Grans recipe

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  3. My mum loves gipsy creams!! She has a saying " cup of tea & gipsy love?". I'm going to have to make these for Mother's day, thanks for sharing the recipe!!

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