Petworth 17th century biscuits

In honour of our 'What’s cooking?' event this weekend, I thought I’d share our recipe for 17th century Petworth biscuits. The traditional recipe is written first, see if you can follow it - it gets a bit tricky so I’ve included the modern translation too! We’d love to see a picture if you have a go.

Ingredients

500g flour

115g butter

115g sugar

1 egg

Milk

2tsp caraway seeds

To Make Bifkits (Biscuits)

To a quart of flour take a quarter of a pound of butter, and a quarter of a pound of sugar, one egg and what caraway –feeds you pleafe.

Wet it with milk as stiff as you can, then roll them out very thin, cut them with small glafs.

Bake them on tin plates.

Your oven muft be flack; prick them very well juft as you fet them in.

Keep them dry when bak’d.

Method

Heat oven to 180 degrees.

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy.

Beat in egg to butter and sugar mixture. Add caraway seeds.

Beat in flour until stiff dough is formed. If it is too stiff, add milk until you get workable dough.

Roll out to 5mm thick and cut out circles either using a cutter or small glass as a guide.

Place on baking sheets leaving spaces between each biscuit, and prick each biscuit with a fork.

Bake in oven until golden brown, around 10-20 minuets, depending on your oven.

Keep in an air tight tin once baked.

Happy baking! Don’t forget to come along this weekend to see Mrs Brown making strawberry and gooseberry jam, shortbread and other traditional treats in the Historic Kitchens.