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I just, out of nowhere, remembered cookies I used to regularly make and I need help identifying what they were. I hope this is an actual memory and I'm not imagining things.

The cookies in question were definitely home-made, because I remember eating them still warm. They had a hard, crumbly shell and were completly hollow inside, but not so crumbly as to loose their shape when held in hand. They were circle shaped and puffed during the cooking process. They were served always with powdered sugar on top. I'm not sure about this, but they might've been fried, not baked. I think they tasted a bit like Faworki/Raderkuchen (I can't find an English word for it), but less fat. The recipe was definitely simple with just few ingredients, unless I'm misremembering me making this and it was someone in my family. Unfortunatelly, I don't have any contact with my family so I cannot ask.

Does anyone has any idea what those cookies might be called and how to make them?

Reverent Lapwing
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1 Answers1

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These might have been Grantham Gingerbread. This is one of England's oldest biscuit (Americans would call it a cookie) recipes, first recorded in the 1700's.

These are a plain sugar biscuit, usually flavoured with ginger, but you can leave this out and/or flavour with other spices. The biscuit/cookie that rises during cooking to produce a firm shell and hollow inside. They are usually not completely hollow, just mostly hollow with some pillars of batter supporting the roof.

A good recipe that I have been using is from the BBC, but pretty much all the recipes on-line are the same, with minor variations. They are made with only a few ingredients and are quite easy to make.

Edited to add: I've never seen them with powdered sugar on top and they are definitely baked and have a firm shell that doesn't crumble.

bob1
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