Matariki Biscuits

Matariki Biscuits straight out of the oven

 

None of the ingredients in the batch of Matariki Biscuits I baked last Friday were available to Maori when they first began celebrating Matariki in Aotearoa. Given the damage that too much butter, sugar and white flour have done to the health of Kiwis of all ethnicities since then, this was probably a good thing. However if baked as a once-a-year treat a batch of these biscuits will not hurt anyone, and may even bring joy to those who like almond-flavoured biscuits.

For those who don't, you can easily ring the changes in flavour by using brown sugar instead of white and a teaspoon of spice (mixed spice and/or ginger and/or cinammon) instead of the white sugar and almond essence. Replace the ground almonds with the same amount of flour. Or you could try vanilla essence; or lemon or orange zest (and ice the biscuits with lemon or orange juice flavoured icing).

Just keep the same ratio of dry to liquid ingredients as in the recipe below, and follow the same method, and you will be able to sprinkle your tins with stars of many colours and flavours.

  

 

  MATARIKI BISCUITS

Ingredients

150 g butter

1/3 cup icing sugar

½ cup cornflour

½ cup ground almonds

1 cup white flour

1 tsp almond essence

1 egg

Method

Melt the butter in a large pot.

Remove it from the heat, mix in the dry ingredients.

Whisk the egg and essence together.

Add the egg mixture to the rest of the mix, stir in well.

Add a little extra flour if the mixture is too wet to roll out.

Form the dough into a ball and knead it gently on a well-floured board.

Roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin to ½ cm thick.

Cut it into shapes with a star-shaped cutter.

Place the shapes on a greased or non-stick baking tray. 

(They can be close together as the mixture does not spread.)

Bake the biscuits at 180 degrees C for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown.

Ice them with a water icing flavoured with almond essence (1 cup sifted icing sugar, 1 tsp almond essence, a little hot water to mix to a smooth icing) and decorate them with silver cashous, or hundreds and thousands, or flaked almonds.