Highlander Biscuits

I have a fascination with recipe books put out by food manufacturers - you know the sort, '100 delicious meals with cream cheese', 'Pork for all occasions', 'Tomato soup in every course'.  Those sort of books.  They bring me great amusement - there are normally one or two good recipes, and then dozens that are really scraping the culinary barrel.

These sort of books were especially popular in the 1950s - 1970s, when processed and packaged foods were introduced and gaining popularity.  Manufacturers were keen to extend their reach, so often distributed free booklets full of (questionable) recipes utilising their products.

One particular feature that these books tend to share is their inclusion of recipes requiring only a tiny portion of a package on ingredients - for example, a sauce requiring one tablespoon of mushroom soup.  I suppose that they hoped women would purchase a whole stack of cans, to ensure they always had a tablespoon available for their brilliant sauce!  Or maybe it was less sinister - perhaps they simply ran out of recipes requiring any decent amount of the product, and therefore tried to sneak a little in to all sorts of normal recipes, without any genuine impact on the taste of the dish.

You will understand, then, that I greeted the Highlander Biscuits recipe (from the Highlander Condensed Milk Cookery Book, c. 1913) with some suspicion - these seem like fairly ordinary butter biscuits, with the addition of two tablespoonsful of Highlander Brand condensed milk.  I was dubious as to whether the small amount of condensed milk would add anything to the recipe, however the photograph of the cookies (found in Ladies, A Plate) looked appealing, so I decided to give them a go.

Well - I am thrilled that I tried this recipe!  The cookies are dense and short in texture, pleasingly solid without being heavy, and indeed, the condensed milk has imparted a delicious, subtle caramel flavour to the otherwise simple chocolate-chip cookies.

Apparently, with the chocolate added, these are not officially 'Highlander Biscuits' - they have become 'Kiwi Crisps'.  No matter.  They are delicious, and a nice example of the 'product-specific cookbook' genre.

Highlander Biscuits / Kiwi Crisps

Cream together 115g softened butter with 55g caster sugar, until light and fluffy.

Beat in 2 tablespoons of condensed milk (note - these are NZ metric tablespoons, so 15ml each), and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Sift together 170g plain flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and work into the creamed mixture, along with 60g of dark or milk chocolate chips.  Once you have a 'crumbly mass', tip it onto the bench and quickly, gently knead together into a rough ball.

Roll teaspoonsful of the dough into balls, and place them, spread apart, onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Press each ball down to flatten somewhat with a fork.

Bake for 12 - 15 minutes at 180 degrees (because I have a powerful oven, I tend to err on the side of caution with cookies and biscuits, so I baked mine at 175 degrees for 12 minutes, and they were spot on).

Cool on a rack, and store in an airtight tin.  This made around 25 small cookies for me.

I took a tin of these to my friends who run the Wondoflex Wool Shop in Malvern - we have a pretty good arrangement:  I bring in baked goods, regularly, and in return, I am always given a nice cup of tea while the talented Jill fixes up any knitting mistakes for me (shh!).

Now, of course, I have a tin of condensed milk, minus 2 tablespoons.  So I suppose I will go and bake something else requiring condensed milk...