A neighbor is soon going to hit the road, caravanning around Tasmania. This neighbor invited me to have Christmass dinner with them so I am baking some biscuits for him and his wife to take with them.

Zandkoekjes, biscuits with a sort of sandy texture. Nice enough when made properly.

Making a plain batch and one two colored using cocoa. Both lots of dough are resting and firming in the fridge.

Recipe calls for “basterd” sugar, a sugar with some invert sugar (golden syrup) added to it. I use Muscovado sugar which has nice molasses in there. Texture and taste are the same.

Woke up with a bloody headache this morning and what felt like a knot at the base of my neck. Went back to bed for a while, trying to relax the knot and reduce the headache.

So I thought might be better to work inside rather than in the garden today.

Zandkoekjes are nice! Crisp with a nice buttery taste with a hint of molasses behind that.

Plain zandkoekles, two color zandkoekjes and now a batch of Anzac biscuits is in the oven.


Hehehe in one of Heinlein”s SF stories the hero “cooked the biscuits in the bacon grease” which startled me, reading it as “cooked the cookies in the bacon grease”  ;D

American biscuits are like savory scones. They all taste heavily of baking powder, just like scones. Yuck.

Not too bad:

Heh, DO need some baking sheets!

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Wandered over to the people who asked me to share in their Chrismass lunch with a tin of biscuits.

We sat outside talking while Socks and their German Shepherd Max played—Socks a bit wary at first and rightly so, a Shepherd is a BIG dog. However, they settled down and Socks ended up eating one of Max’s bones—he doesn’t tend to eat them, puts them in his toy basket. Socks a bit more practical or is that greedy?

Socks was never in danger from Max who is a well socialised dog who is walked daily. That is key to having a well–behaved dog.

Walking is exercise plus you can incorporate obedience training: the people yesterday remarked how Socks walked along at my side (on lead, can’t trust Socks not to run to chase a cat (LOL, real cat hater) or rabbit or wallaby not realising the danger of cars or rifle-owning sheep graziers!)

As well as exercise and training and bonding when they are walked dogs can read (smell) their “bulletin boards” where passing dogs leave a “message” by pissing. Dogs can tell how many dogs have left a message, whether they are male or female and even the state of health of the dogs.

This seems to help socialise the dog so they don’t attack visitors or passers by. The reason small dogs are so aggressive with barking and even nips at visitors or passers by is that small dogs don’t tend to be walked so these dogs are isolated from the wider dog community. Dogs are social animals.

WALK YOUR DOGS DAILY!

Anyway, the little gift of home made biscuits was appreciated.