Home-bakers often refer to Mary Berry’s repertoire of sweet treats at this time of the year as they seek to impress large crowds of guests.
The doyenne of baking – who often refers to her top recipes online – claims her fork cookies are one of her preferred tea-time treats, despite comprising just three ingredients.
The biscuits first made an appearance on Mary’s website after she rediscovered the century-old treat in a Cordon Bleu cookery book.
Her take on the recipe has since featured in numerous cooking blogs, including The Engish Kitchen blog, where it received acknowledgment for its simplicity and flavour.
The blogger wrote: “I trust her recipes 100 per cent and have bever baked one of them that hasn’t been exceptional or hasn’t worked out. She truly is the Queen of cakes and bakes.
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“[Whether] you call these cookies, or if you call them biscuits, there is only one word to describe them and that is delicious.”
Ingredients:
100 grams butter, softened
50 grams caster sugar
150 grams self-raising flour.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C / Fan 160/ gas 4. In the meantime, lightly butter two baking trays.
Measure the butter into a bowl and whip it to a softer consistency. Slowly mix in the sugar, and start incorporating the flour. Use your hand to combine the ingredients until they form into a cohesive dough.
Shape the dough into 16 spheres, roughly the size of walnuts, and arrange them with ample spacing on baking sheets.
Dip a fork in water and use this to flatten the biscuits, then bake them in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes until pale golden brown.
Once baked, lift the cookies off the baking tray and leave them to cool completely on a wire rack.
Bakers can add an array of different extracts like almond or lemon to suit their taste preferences, with spices like cinnamon and ginger also popular mix-ins.
