Tastes like home.
I showed Mum how much I loved her by saving up my pocket money and buying slivered almonds (and those plastic sleeves) from the Nut Man at Camberwell Market, so I could bake her batches of these.
Chrissie Swan says…
This is by far my favourite recipe in my cookbook, because it’s my mum’s favourite ever biscuit. But this isn’t actually my first published cookbook. In 1986, when I was 12 years old, I self-published a tasty little tome called Classic Cooking. It was a collection of just nine recipes (included bananna cake – yes, with three Ns), and this was the first recipe. By “book” I mean a yellow manila folder with a now‑rusty clip filled with A4 sheets decorated with my fave Derwent colours and slipped into plastic sleeves.
I showed Mum how much I loved her by saving up my pocket money and buying slivered almonds (and those plastic sleeves) from the Nut Man at Camberwell Market, so I could bake her batches of these. Sadly, the recipe was lost for over 35 years. Mum has asked me about them every few months since about 1989, and I have never been able to find the recipe. I felt like a failure for not being able to give her these goddamn biscuits!
I looked everywhere online and in bookshops. It seemed to have never existed. Until January 2025: I was clearing out a heap of crap under the stairs and I found it! Classic Cooking from 1986! Since that day, we have polished off about 760 of these bickies between us!
Ingredients
200g slivered almonds
200g butter
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
250g (1 and 2/3 cups) plain flour
90g (¾ cup) icing sugar
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan-forced.
Scatter the slivered almonds on a baking tray and cook for 8–10 minutes until toasty and golden. Remove from the oven and set aside until they come back to room temperature. They’re too rubbery when fresh from the oven. You want them CRISPY!
Place the butter in a bowl or heatproof measuring jug. Melt in the microwave, then whisk in the vanilla.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and ¼ cup of the icing sugar.
Pour the butter mixture over the flour mixture. Dump in the almonds and stir with a spatula until the dough comes together. It should be glossy and buttery. I’m salivating.
Reduce the oven to 160°C fan-forced.
Roll heaped tablespoons of the mixture into balls with wet hands, then drop onto a large silicone baking tray (my fave) or a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 18 minutes or until golden.
Allow to cool for about 15 minutes, then put your remaining icing sugar in a sieve and dust the biscuits with the sugar. Sometimes I like to put the icing sugar in a big bowl and plop the biscuits into that to coat. Makes a lot. And every single one will go. Hasta la vista, baby!
THE SHORTCUT QUEEN BY CHRISSIE SWAN, PUBLISHED BY PLUM, IS OUT NOW.
Published in ed#750
Want more of The Big Issue?
Subscribe to The Big Issue magazine to enjoy powerful journalism, stories from our vendors, and more — all delivered straight to your door.
Subscribe now.