Jottage from Cambridge - Digestives

I wasn’t all that thrilled that it was Monday yesterday either (see previous post). My poor husband left for work at the crack of dawn to attend an early morning meeting, and it already felt like it was going to be a long week. However I did have something to look forward to. A couple of my close friends were coming round with their babies, and I had promised them tea and cake. However, not quite having the strength to make a cake I thought I would make Hugh’s digestives (Everyday, p.88) which my mum had told me were delicious. I set to work taking out all the ingredients I would need and assembling them on the kitchen table. Theo and I have a very impressive range of sugars so I wasn’t surprised to find that I had the required soft brown variety. The biscuits took no time at all to make and I thought they looked quite tasty when I took them out of the oven. I was just relaxing with Tristan when another friend mailed to say she was in town and was I doing anything. I decided to invite her to the house too, but that would require making another batch of biscuits as the pile I had made looked a bit paltry for four adults. 

James, Tristan, Isabel and Margot 

I had actually made a big batch of dough (Hugh says that it keeps in the fridge for a few days) so all I had to do was warm it up with my hands (it turns as hard as rock after an hour or two in the cold), roll out and put in the oven. So, by 2.30 when everyone arrived the kettle was on and I had a nice looking plate of biscuits. I decided to add a few chocolate digestives that I had in the cupboard just in case my homemade ones weren’t all that pleasant. So the outcome … Well either no-one was that hungry or my biscuits weren’t especially good. Alas, I think probably the latter. They were far too salty, and certainly to be kept well away from the babies. I did actually give Tristan a bit of one but he wasn’t that interested – though it wasn’t yellow and banana-shaped so not all that surprising. I reluctantly ate a couple but the pile remained undisturbed for most of the afternoon. 

Uneaten plate of digestives (the plate looked the same after all the tea had been drunk)

Everyone was too polite to take the McVities as I had made such a fuss about making my own biscuits (to the extent that I told everyone that they had been invited round purely so I could write a new post for my blog). I tried to tempt Theo when he got back from work but he nibbled the corner of one and then agreed with me that they were far too salty. So, that was my first Hugh disaster. I might try them again without salt, but for now I will be content with the shop-bought kind.