If you fancy a quick and tasty treat to enjoy with your tea, these melting moments will be right up your street. I particularly love how quick they are to make, and the fact that I usually have the ingredients in the store cupboard, making it a doddle to just whip up a batch if someone’s popping round at short notice. And they’re incredibly pretty with their cherry on top!

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A plate of Melting Moments biscuits ready to enjoy, sitting on a table in the garden with two mugs of proper Yorkshire tea
Yield: 35

Judy's Melting Moments

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes

Delicious oat-coated biscuits with a cherry on top. With most ingredients readily to hand in the cupboard, they're also ideal to make for friends arriving at short notice. So good, you can't just eat one!

Ingredients

  • 5oz / 130g margarine
  • 3oz / 80g lard (or Trex/vegetable shortening for vegetarians)
  • 6oz / 150g caster sugar
  • 2 tsps / 10ml vanilla essence
  • 10oz / 300g self-raising flour
  • 1 large egg
  • 3oz / 75g porridge oats, for coating
  • 18 glace cherries - halved

Instructions

    1. Heat oven to 180C / 350F / Gas 4. Grease 2 baking trays or line them with baking parchment, and weigh out your ingredients
      All the ingredients you need to make Melting Moments biscuits, weighed out ready for use: caster sugar, margarine, shortening/lard, porridge oats, 1 large eggs, glace cherries and vanilla essence
    2. Cream the margarine, lard and sugar.
      Picture of the margarine, lard and shortening being creamed with an electric hand whisk
    3. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence.
      The egg and the vanilla essence are beaten into the creamed sugar and fats
    4. Stir in the flour and mix well.
      Adding and mixing in the flour to the creamed ingredients
    5. Using dessert spoonfuls of mixture shape into balls.
      (It helps if your hands are dampened with water)
    6. Roll the balls in the porridge oats to coat.
      Spoonfuls of batter are dropped into the bowl of oats and rolled into balls before they go on the baking tray. We can see the halved glace cherries on a chopping board, ready to be added when the balls are on the tray.
    7. Place and space the balls on greased baking trays.
    8. Flatten each ball slightly and place cherry.
      The oat-coated balls are placed on a lined baking tray and lightly flattened, before a glace cherry half is placed on top. They're spaced far enough apart not to spread into each other as they bake.
    9. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until light golden brown.
    10. Remove from oven and allow biscuits to cool on a wire tray.
      Take the biscuits out of the oven when they're golden brown and then put them on a wire rack to cool

Notes

These are quick and easy to make, and also simple to adapt to make them gluten-free for your coeliac friends. Just substitute your preferred gluten-free self-raising flour blend - we like Dove's Farm, but there are some good supermarket own brand ones available these days, too - and some gluten-free oats, and everyone will be able to enjoy these with their tea.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

35

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 102Total Fat: 6gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 8mgSodium: 105mgCarbohydrates: 12gFiber: 0gSugar: 5gProtein: 1g

Nutritional data provided is a guideline and will vary according to precise ingredients used and how large your home-made portions are.

© Judy Burgin
Category: Cakes and biscuits