Biscuit recipe of the week: Rich Traveller biscuits

Welcome to our series of biscuit recipes to inspire you to take part in the Biscuit Bake-off at the MERL Village Fete on May 31st!

At the recent launch of the Biscuit Bake-off, University student Deiniol Pritchard experimented with a Huntley & Palmers recipe for ‘University Rusks’, which everyone at the special Todder Time event was very interested to taste. We’ve delved into the archives again for this week’s recipe. This recipe book from the Huntley & Palmers records held in the University’s Special Collections is a rich source of recipes…

The recipe we’ve chosen for today is for ‘Rich Traveller’ biscuit. As you plan your Easter breaks, why not try making these to take along with you on your travels…

Here’s the recipe transcribed:

Rich Traveller

48 lbs Flour (3s)
16 lbs Butter
40 lbs Sugar (No.1 – caster?)
4 oz Stuff (we don’t know what this was, but it may be a ‘secret’ spice mix as the quantity is very small)
2 oz Nutmeg
24 drams lemon essence
3 lbs ginger
12lbs coarse sweet almonds
12 lbs lemon peel
12 lbs orange peel
4 pints & 4 eggs
3 pints milk

Clearly these are quantites for industrial scale biscuit production, so you’ll need to scale down dramatically!! We have tried to reduce the quantities to a more domestic scale and convert the units to metric, but it’s tested our maths to the limit (even with the help of Google, and we gave up on calculating the ounces and drams scientifically!) We should warn you, we haven’t tested the recipe at home yet, so you may have to use your !

400g flour
135g butter
330g caster sugar
1/2 tsp mixed spice?
1/4 tsp nutmeg
A couple of drops of lemon essence
100g ground almonds
100g lemon peel (candied/grated?)
100g orange peel
1 egg (Dieniol found that the University Rusk recipe needed a bit more egg, so we’ve been generous here)
30ml milk

Why not give it a go and let us know how you get on – we’re going to try it out this weekend?!

If you’d like to enter the Biscuit Bake-off, click here for details. And if you’d like to contribute a ‘guest biscuit recipe post’ to this blog, please let us know!

By Alison Hilton (Marketing Officer) & Phillippa Heath (Public Programmes Manager)