Snow Balls

As I sit here on a very warm spring evening, sipping my beer, I realise I chose this recipe to cook because of the name. Snow Balls. Such coolness is evoked. It is forecast to be 30°C tomorrow, and the idea of snow right now is enough to make me lean my head into the freezer sighing in envious delight. Instead, I am here in my summer pyjamas, shooing the cats with their ghastly body heat away from me, wondering what it is I will say about these biscuity things. 

Let's start with very sticky, as being the best way to describe my Nannas of yore Snow Balls. When I first read this recipe, I thought it would be quite simple, and I had an idea that these might be kind of like lamingtons, but with a pink coating. It was a hasty first reading I might add, as you will soon see these are absolutely nothing like lamingtons. Making and baking the biscuits didn't take long at all, however be warned this mixture makes a lot. Again I will have a battle on my hands trying to force-feed those around me the biscuits I have left over. As is much the norm, I only have eaten one in order to taste it, and will decide tomorrow if I have more. 

Who am I kidding right? Of course I'll have more. Waistline be damned. 

Back to the sticky biscuits. Once I'd constructed the two halves of each biscuit and stuck them together with jam, I realised that I was to roll the whole thing in jam and coconut. My friends who know my disdain for eating with my hands, will not be surprised at my small feeling of horror at putting together a deliberately sticky thing like this. Quite simply, the idea of picking up a jam covered biscuit is revolting. I'm not particularly bothered by the idea of 'germs', but I just don't like my fingers covered in sticky food. I just don't. When I travelled in India many years ago, I gave the whole eating with my hands a go. It was a necessity as I was with ex-family-in-law, and ended up in houses that simply didn't have cutlery for me to use. Thankfully there were napkins. I would end up with a veritable mountain of crumpled paper napkins all around me after each meal as I desperately tried to remove food from my hands after pretty much each mouthful. I'm sure if I were to do that over, I'd have a little plastic fork in my back pocket for all emergencies...

So, the photo below shows the only complete Snow Ball I'll ever make, it was super sweet, and super sticky. Far too sweet actually. I think the biscuit halves with a smear of jam and a few sprinkles of coconut as a middle layer is more than enough. 

 

Snow Balls

4 eggs

¾ cup sugar

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp. cream of tartar

½ tsp. Bicarbonate of soda

Coating

Raspberry or strawberry jam (or jelly)

Desiccated coconut

Pre-heat oven to 160°C.

Sift flour, bi-carb soda & cream of tartar thrice. Beat eggs & sugar until thick and creamy (around 5-8 minutes with an electric beater). Fold in flour. 

Place teaspoon sized portions of the mixture onto a baking tray, then cook for around 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely. Join two biscuits together with whipped cream or jam (I used jam). Roll in more jam, then coconut.

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For those of you who are not in Australia, please find here a selection of Measurement & Temperature Conversion Charts which should help with the accuracy of your own cooking.