Hope's Date Rollettes, a classic delicious biscuit

Imagine a delicious, oval shaped biscuit rolled in coconut, and surprisingly encasing a sweet, chewy, and caramelly edible date, and you have Date Rollettes, a confection which my Mother used to bake for us on a regular basis. We loved them.I'm posting this family recipe to mark International Women's Day tomorrow, the 8th March. I want to turn the spotlight towards all of those brilliant female and pioneering cooks throughout history, but in particular my Mother whose name was Hope, and also our Grandmothers. The cooking inspiration that Mum gave me was quite subliminal. There was always something delicious being cooked or baked in our kitchen in our family home in Central Queensland, whilst I was doing my own thing as kids and teenagers do. However, I was never very far away from her cooking up a storm in the kitchen. Whenever I bake or cook now using modern appliances, such as the Food Processor, my Kitchen Aid, a modern oven, and not to mention the Air Fryer, I think of Mum and wonder how she managed without them. Although she did have a very good Sunbeam Mix Master which stood the test of time.

This is my Mother’s recipe, handed onto her from her very close family friend, "my Aunty Jean", another amazing woman. This is where the original handwritten recipes are so valuable, as I never knew that it was originally Aunty Jean's recipe, and is in her original hand writing. In the top right hand corner, Mum has written (Jean), and Good, so it must be, and yes I know it is a good recipe. Thanks Aunty Jean, however I think that over time Mum claimed this one as her own, and I think Mum actually baked more than Jean did.   Aunty Jean's life was about her family, her 3 sons, and her music. She was a very talented violinist, and my Mum and her would often play their violins together during our frequent musical evenings, when often my Dad would play the piano as well, before he died. Such precious memories. Aunty Jean Chappell (no actual relation), was also a very dear and important woman in my life.

When Mum baked these biscuits, Medjool dates weren't readily available, and baking them brought back all sorts of fond memories for me. Dates have become a standard item in most kitchens now, being used for all kinds of exotic Middle Eastern dishes from tagines to cakes, breads and  desserts. Whilst I generally buy the Medjool dates for tagines and other savoury meals, for this recipe I think that some of those are too large for these biscuits and the quantity of biscuit mixture won’t stretch very far, unless you double it of course. I used a few smaller Medjool dates, but then converted to a packaged  brand, which are smaller and standard in size, however any brand of commercially available dates will do. When my Mum was cooking these, I don't remember ever seeing any Medjool dates. 

These biscuits smell amazing when they are cooking and don’t take that long to cook. They will keep for over a week in a covered container, however they will never last that long in our house.

The challenge with cooking Australian vintage recipes is converting them from Imperial measurements to Metric. There are lots of great websites now that assist with the conversion, however I still use the Imperial measurement on my scales so that the quantities are exact. 4 oz butter can weigh slightly differently to 4 oz sugar.

Let's bake:

Makes 18

Ingredients:

• 4 oz butter = 1/2 cup = 113.4g
• 8 oz S.R.Flour = 227g
• 18 seedless dates
• 4 oz caster sugar = 113g
• 1 large egg
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 1/2 cup milk

Let's cook:

Cream the butter and sugar. When well mixed and white in colour, add the well beaten egg, then slowly add the sifted flour and salt. It's not mentioned in the original recipe, but the cooks just knew to sift the flour and salt together.

(If you are making your own S.R. flour by mixing 2 teaspoons of baking powder with plain flour, then the flour should definitely be sifted with the baking powder.)

Mix to a light biscuit batter. Please don't overmix.

Roll a date in a spoonful of mixture. Mould into uniform oval shapes, or whatever shape you like. Mine are oval to be authentic and suit the shape of the date.

Roll each biscuit into a little milk, and then into desiccated coconut.

Bake in a moderate oven on a lined baking try at 180 deg. F. or 375 deg. C. for around 20 minutes depending on the heat of your oven, and until nicely browned. Check their progress after 15 minutes.

The pretty plate which I've photographed the biscuits on is from a Shelley Fine Bone China tea set made in England which was my Mums. It's called Hare Bell and all the pieces are numbered. I call it my Blue Bell tea set.

This is one of the earliest posts I ever did on Happy Retiree's Kitchen, and now I'm really in the mood for baking more biscuits. It's a quick and easy way to produce a delicious sweet treat for everyone.

Happy International Women's Day! When I was working full-time in libraries, I often attended an International Women's Day lunch, with other working women where an entertaining guest speaker was the highlight. Now I like to celebrate IWD at home with Mr. HRK, who always reminds me about all of the amazing men in our lives as well, and I know quite a few of them are reading this story.

Thanks for visiting HRK.

Warm wishes,

Pauline

An original recipe presented by Pauline, @happy_retirees_kitchen