A week ago last Wednesday we were meant to be meeting my Mum for the day at Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire.  I grew up in Nottinghamshire so Clumber Park was a great spot for us in the school holidays.  Since I’ve grown up and now live in North Yorkshire it’s still only an hour or so’s drive for me so is an ideal meeting place for me when catching up with my mum.  When the kids were younger it was great as they would love feeding the ducks, climbing the trees and running around by the lakeside.  We sometimes took a picnic or if it was cold would eat in the cafe.  We planned this last time to take a picnic, my mum bringing the sandwiches, etc and I’d bring the sweet stuff.  Only in true British style you plan a picnic and the weather forecast is rubbish.  Rain was forecast and we didn’t fancy walking around Clumber Park in the rain and sitting eating a picnic with soggy cakes and sandwiches.  We took a rain check (sorry about the pun!) and decided to meet at Meadowhall for lunch instead.  A good thing too, the heavens opened as soon as I got on the A1 and it didn’t ease off until I was well past Leeds and nearer Wakefield!

So what has this got to do with Chocolate Cardamom Biscuits?  Well as I mentioned before I was in charge of bringing along the sweet stuff so I chose to bake the Chocolate Cardamom biscuits and the Flappenjacken from Signe Johansen’s Scandelicious Baking as my contribution to the picnic.  I had already done the biscuits when we decided not to have the picnic any more.  I thought I’d take them in a box to give to my mum as she would no doubt be catching up with friends or with my auntie but I completely forgot to take them with me.  In the end my family troughed them between us.

So last Tuesday I had decided to bake these pretty biscuits and although mine are slightly different to Signe’s they still tasted great.  When I looked in my cupboard for a jar of cardamom pods they looked well past their best so I chose to add cinnamon instead for the spicy hit.  So in all fairness they’re really Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies!  Also in Signe’s recipe you roll up the dough into a sausage shape and cut off circles from the roll when the cookies have been chilled.  Not here. I chose a heart shaped cutter and chose to roll out my cookies and cut out hearts with them instead.

I will definitely bake these cookies again, they will be perfect in the winter and at Christmas time. A bag of these would make a lovely present or they would go down well with a scoop of ice cream.

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx