Melting moments

I had some sad family news this week and spent quite a bit of time looking back at my childhood, I got thinking of my paternal Grandmother, I spent a lot of time with her when I was younger and she was always cooking, always good old fashioned food, the stuff that warmed you on the coldest winter days. Her house always smelled of fruit cake, and when I bake fruit cake I am always reminded of her house.


These biscuits, Melting Moments are what we would bake together, I loved them as a child, in fact I still love them just as much now even though the are rolled in dessicated coconut and adorned with a gaudy red glace cherry.

I suddenly thought of these biscuits today and knew they would be a perfect way for my son and I to spend half an hour together in the kitchen.


This recipe comes from the essential 'Be-ro' cook book, my Granny wouldnt have been without it.

I must say though that my Granny's original Be-ro book, which I inherited from her, saw better days long ago, I bought a updated version last year and found the Melting moments recipe had changed, the addition of half a egg was wrong and completely disappointing, these biscuits should be crisp and buttery not cookie like which was how the egg made them, after much searching, god bless the Internet, I have found, supposedly, the original Melting moments biscuits.



Here is the recipe, cook them, you'll love them:

5 ounces soft butter

3 ounces caster sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence or 1 tsp of vanilla extract

5 ounces of self raising flour

desiccated coconut

glace cherries

Heat the oven to 180c/ gas mark 4. Grease two baking trays.

Cream the butter with the sugar until very light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla essence or extract.

Stir in the flour and mix well.

Roll walnut sized pieces of the mixture into balls and toss in dessicated coconut.


Cut each glace cherry into quarters, a quarter for each melting moment.


Place on baking trays, flatten slightly and place a small piece of cherry on each biscuit.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown but NOT dark brown.




This egg less original version of the recipe was perfect, these shortbread-y biscuits are crisp and melting, they instantly took me back to my Granny's kitchen.

They are perfect for children to bake too, my son loved tossing them in the coconut and would have polished off the tray of biscuits if I'd let him.

Rather amusingly, when trawling the net for the original recipe I found that these biscuits have a cult following. Try them!