Food in my family has always been a very important part of the routine of our family life. Even now as an adult and with the family spread around Victoria family gatherings are centred around food and generally homemade food. All of my family cook very well (although I don’t do it often), my father and brother have both worked as cooks and we all have our specialties. All of these specialties
hold a special place in my heart; Grandma’s lamingtons leaving chocolate smiles, which no one can recreate, my father’s rich, decadent
gravy and my brother's roasted meats. My mother’s sweets bring back memories of sneaking into biscuit tins and scoffing the lot behind the back shed.
My mother made many sorts of biscuits as she refused to buy sweet biscuits due to the expense and the chocolate sending her blonde haired cherubs off the wall. An all-time
favourite was the best melt in your mouth biscuits on earth, Yo-yos. The name derived from their resemblance to the children’s toy and I believe they are a very Australian biscuit but feel free to correct me and inform of other names for these pieces of heaven. One suggestion is 'melting moments' by a Western Australian noder.
(There is a commercially produced biscuit called yo-yo but they are not half as good.)
Yo-Yos
Ingredients:
- 1 cup self-raising
flour
- 1/2 cup custard powder
- 1/3 cup icing (confectioner's) sugar
- 3/4 cup butter
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (360°F or Gas Mark 4).
- Sift flour, icing sugar and custard powder together.
- Rub in butter and work into a stiff dough.
- Roll into 36 even balls.
- Place onto a greased ovenproof tray.
- Using a fork flatten each ball a little.
- Bake until a pale fawn colour for
15-20 minutes.
- Cool on a cake cooling rack.
- Match even pairs and stick together using butter icing
or jam.
Makes 18 biscuits
My mother’s tips:
Don’t let the biscuits brown because they become too dry and crumbly.
The flavour of the icing can be vanilla or chocolate or for a more modern spin try passionfruit icing.
You can make bite sized delicate yo-yos for dinner parties etc.
Thanks to Joyce the wonder cook and “Cookery the Australian Way” the wonder cookbook.