Use what you have.

I am a firm believer in both using what you find in the cupboard when cooking even when the recipe may call for something else and mixing things up to create new things.

I hadn’t planned on posting these biscuits because they are similar to the Helen’s Best Ever Biscuits, you just change the ingredients depending on what you have. However I was eating these Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds Biscuits yesterday in a lecture break when two my uni girls commented on them. After chatting about them for a while I wrote www.helenthura.com on a scrap of paper and told them that I would post the idea. So here it is.

I have a biscuit recipe that came to us as Apricot Wheat Germs and over the years I faithfully made the recipe as it was listed though occasionally it would be Fruit Medley Wheat Germs if we had no apricots in the house.

1.5C soft brown sugar
250g butter softened
2 eggs
vanilla
1.5C self-raising flour (bleached or wholemeal)
2 cups cornflakes
200g chopped dried apricots
0.5C rolled oats
1C desiccated coconut
1.5C wheat germ

Fan-forced oven at 160°C.
Cream butter and sugar, add eggs.
Mix in the rest.
Roll into balls and flatten lightly and cook in oven till when a finger pressed lightly into a biscuit does not leave a mark. Makes plenty.

These are very yummy and in the last 10 mths or so I have started playing with the recipe, changing the quantities of the cornflakes, coconut, rolled oats, wheat germ and apricots or replacing them all together with what ever I find in the cupboard.

These changes led to Helen’s Best Ever Biscuits back in February. Then in May there was Sultanas and Dried Strawberries and in July there is Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds. Whilst the same basic recipe provides the base each time, changing the “fillings” provides a totally new biscuit experience each time.

The ideas behind the Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds came in many parts. I was inspired to roll the biscuits in sunflower seeds after thinking of biscuits I had made with Renata (my host mother) when I was in Germany for Christmas in 2002 as well as biscuits I had a little while ago at my friend Leanne’s house. The blueberries came about because I happened to have quite a few packets left in the freezer and the chocolate was because if I left the pack of 85% cocoa in my drawer for much longer it would have been going straight down my throat.

From the basic recipe the Chocolate and Blueberry in Sunflower Seeds did not have the rolled oats or apricots or wheat germ. I increased the coconut and flour, added 80grams of Lindt 85% chocolate, 200gish of frozen blueberries and the sunflower seeds of course. The mixture was quite gooey so I just kept on adding some more of the dry ingredients till it became more user friendly.