{"id":189,"date":"2016-04-09T17:41:08","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T16:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/?p=189"},"modified":"2016-04-09T17:41:08","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T16:41:08","slug":"brandy-snaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/cooking\/patisserie\/brandy-snaps\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandy Snaps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_3456\"<\/p>\n

There are numerous variants of the recipe for Brandy Snaps, few make any reference to brandy. \u00a0A glance down the ingredients might indicate that these are high calorie biscuits and so to be avoided. \u00a0Certainly they can never be considered ‘healthy’ but each biscuit only requires around a teaspoon or so of the paste so perhaps the final calorie count isn’t quite as bad as some might think. \u00a0I’m not going to get a calculator out to check.<\/p>\n

After searching the internet and various books I decided to use a recipe given by Jane Grigson<\/a> in her book English Food first published in 1974. \u00a0This is one of a very few recipes I found that does include brandy in the ingredients.<\/p>\n

Curious about the recipe?<\/a><\/p>\n

Curious about the history? Read on.<\/p>\n

If you read this blog you will know that we like to know a little of the history of the things we bake. \u00a0The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson is always a good starting place. \u00a0From this source we learn that brandy snaps were around at least as far back as 1898 the ‘lack of discriminative taste peculiar to uneducated palates’ made use of brandy redundant, manufacturing the biscuits without brandy was cheaper and if the target market included those with such ‘uneducated palates’ then they wouldn’t know the difference if the key ingredient was missing!<\/p>\n

Wikipedia\u00a0<\/a>advises that brandy snaps do not include any brandy in the recipe, rather that they can be served together with whipped cream that incorporates a little brandy. \u00a0From here we do learn that the biscuits date back a little further than the account provided by Alan Davidson. \u00a0A publication in 1802, Family Friend or Housekeeper’s Instructor, defined brandy-snaps as a small cake of gingerbread, probably\u00a0brand-schnap\u00a0<\/em>from being burnt, to for the real or supposed presence of brandy.<\/p>\n

Mrs Beeton makes no reference to these biscuits despite her Book of Household Management being published in 1861 when brandy snaps must have been well established.<\/p>\n

One of the key ingredients of any brandy snap is golden syrup. \u00a0Jane Grigson writes that this product was not available until the 1880s. \u00a0Earlier versions of the recipe would have used black treacle instead. \u00a0Golden syrup is a product developed by the British company Tate and Lyle<\/a>. \u00a0Abrams Lyle was a Scottish businessman who had his five sons build a sugar refinery in Greenock in 1881. Mr Lyle knew that the refining of sugar cane produced a treacly syrup that was usually wasted. \u00a0He began marketing the syrup as ‘Goldie’, at first on a small scale but the product quickly found its market and within weeks the firm was selling more than a tonne a month. \u00a0The Tate and Lyle website states that the still used green and golden tin has hardly changed since its introduction in 1885. \u00a0Golden Syrup was awarded a royal warrant in 1911 that it has retained ever since. \u00a0The firm is named in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s oldest brand.<\/p>\n

Despite the popularity of Golden Syrup in the UK, until recently the product wasn’t easy to find in France. \u00a0Nevertheless the most recent French series of Bake Off required candidates to produce Les Brandy Snaps for the semi-final to the competition. Mercotte<\/a>, the Mary Berry of the French Bake Off, published the recipe the candidates were required to use on her website. \u00a0While Golden Syrup is now relatively easy to find in French supermarkets the recipe imposed on the candidates substituted glucose. \u00a0Of course the programme was seen by plenty of British viewers and comments left on the web-site go to some lengths to criticise the programme for veering so far from the ‘original’ recipe. \u00a0Despite that, none of those that took time to express their views publicly to Mercotte advised that older ‘original’ recipes used black treacle.<\/p>\n

Reading around the subject, it seems that these biscuits were first popularised as a ‘snack’ food at fairs and fetes. \u00a0Jane Grigson advises they were sold alongside eel pies and gingerbread. \u00a0In the 1970s when she wrote English Food, brandy snaps were still sold at Marlborough’s annual fair in large flat rounds. \u00a0Mrs Grigson thought they made a better alternative than candy floss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nRecipe<\/h3>\n

Ingredients (20-30 biscuits)<\/strong><\/p>\n

120g butter<\/p>\n

120g Golden Syrup<\/p>\n

120g granulated sugar<\/p>\n

120g plain flour<\/p>\n

10g ground ginger<\/p>\n

10g brandy<\/p>\n

5g lemon juice<\/p>\n

pinch of salt<\/p>\n

Prepare baking sheets covered with baking parchment. \u00a0The biscuits can be cooked in batches making it easier to mould them into rolls or baskets. \u00a0Any moulding needs to be done quickly after the biscuits come out of the oven, as they cool they become crisp and unworkable.<\/p>\n

If you want to make cylinders from your biscuits, the traditional way is to shape them around the handle of a wooden spoon. \u00a0Lengths of stainless steel pipe are another alternative.<\/p>\n

For ‘basket’ shape brandy snaps you can use a ramekin or small bowl as the mould. \u00a0Silicone ‘cups’ sold for poaching eggs are another alternative, as are the silicone moulds sold to make half spheres of chocolate etc.<\/p>\n

Pre-heat oven at 160c<\/p>\n

Add butter, syrup and sugar to a heavy based pan, place over a moderate heat and stir until you have a smooth mixture. \u00a0Make sure the mixture doesn’t become too hot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"IMG_3446\" \"IMG_3449\"<\/p>\n

Take the pan off the heat and allow the mixture to cool until it is just tepid.<\/p>\n

Still off the heat, stir in flour, ginger, lemon juice, brandy and salt.<\/p>\n

Place teaspoons of the mixture onto prepared baking sheets making sure to space them well as they will spread considerably during baking.<\/p>\n

Bake at 160c for 8-10 minutes. \u00a0The time will depend both on your oven and on the amount of mixture you use for each biscuit.<\/p>\n

Have any moulding devices to hand immediately the biscuits come out of the oven. \u00a0You will find that for the first few seconds it is impossible to move the biscuits without damaging them. \u00a0Quickly though the mixture will begin to cool and you have a small window of time when the biscuits can either be rolled or pressed around whatever moulds you have selected.<\/p>\n

These are straight out of the oven:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3453\"<\/p>\n

Below are biscuits moulded as baskets and rolls:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3454\" \"IMG_3457\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References:<\/h4>\n

Grigson, Jane (1974) English Food. Penguin books, 1979 edition.<\/p>\n

Davidson, Alan (1999) The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press, 2006 edition.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are numerous variants of the recipe for Brandy Snaps, few make any reference to brandy. \u00a0A glance down the ingredients might indicate that these are high calorie biscuits and so to be avoided. \u00a0Certainly they can never be considered ‘healthy’ but each biscuit only requires around a teaspoon or so of the paste so […]<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-patisserie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205,"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europage.co.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}