A lovely friend of mine bought her first apartment this week and what better way to help make a house feel like home than with a freshly-baked spice-laden ginger nut biscuits.

We all know that feeling; aching back and frazzled mind after weeks of packing, cleaning, waiting, moving, unpacking, panicking and collapsing on to the sofa surrounded by boxes and the realisation you hate all your old stuff.

All you need is visitors to bring you delicious food and an offer to move a book shelf into place. And then to be left alone to devour the remaining biscuits. In that case, I’m your man.

Old-fashioned Gingernut Biscuits (or cookies for the rest of you)

The Pantry
2 cups of plain flour
120 grams of unsalted butter (soft-ish, but not quite room temperature)
1/2 cup of golden caster sugar
1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
3 teaspoons of molasses
1 egg
3 teaspoons of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/3 cup of raw sugar crystals for dusting

Preheat oven to 180c.

You can make this recipe totally by hand if you prefer, but I’m more inclined to throw the lot into the KitchenAid and be done with it. I’m impatient and would rather the machinery manage the tedious combining of butter to flour.

Combine the all the dry ingredients (excluding the raw sugar crystals) in a mixing bowl and mix on low speed until well combined.   

Add the butter all at once and on low speed mix until it is well rubbed into the flour and resembles damp sand.

Beat the molasses and egg together to combine and add to the mixture. Once combined increase speed a little and mix until a stiff dough begins to form. Once you have your mixture rattling around in a ball, you’re done.

Take a teaspoon sized piece of dough and roll into a ball. Flatten against your palm and place one side down into the raw sugar crystals, and repeat. Gently flatten the raw biscuits a little more with the prongs of a fork.

Bake for 20 minutes until slightly golden around the edges. They won’t colour deeply, so don’t be tempted to overbake or they’ll become a little too rock-like on the teeth. Allow to cool for 10 mins on the tray before moving to a cooling rack. Package up along with your furniture moving muscles and deliver the taste of home to anyone who needs it.

They appeared to do the job with resounding praise: ‘This is how biscuits are supposed to taste’.