Earl Grey and Lemon Drop Thumbprints

Lemon-Licious Biscuits

For the most part I am cookie loving, Shakespeare wielding English teacher. However, there has always been a tiny part of me that would like to become an adrenaline loving, notebook wielding detective who fights crime by day and makes souffle by night. I think this desire is driven by the misguided belief that I have a special gift in solving crimes. This fact is drawn from my experiences in the field (on couches and in cinemas) where I have an uncanny ability to pick the culprit and solve the crime 5-10 minutes into the film (please note that this "gift" has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that all films follow a generic story arc and often the director will let you sneak a peek at a beige, unsuspecting character who is later unveiled to be the mastermind. No. Rather I am an unskilled, unqualified detective extraordinaire!) Apologies, I digress. At university, while stoking the fires of my "gift" I took one lonesome unit in criminology, it was here I was introduced to the term racial profiling. As the name suggests, people's behaviour and criminality is assessed based on their external appearances, leading to prejudice in the criminal system.

Well get ready Inspector Gadget, I have a coined a new term: frucial profiling. Like racial profiling, certain fruits are judged harshly based on their appearances and classified accordingly. This form of discrimination extends, but is not limited to, lemons. Lemons get a bad rap in the fruit world, both in taste and colour. When a dish goes bad and the suspect ingredients are placed in a line up, the finger is always pointed at the lemon who is blamed and shamed for being sour and abusing it's fragrant power. In a best case scenario, the lowly lemon is used as a wing-man to make others look good and then denied any form of recognition ("What makes this basil, lemon chicken so delicious?" you ask. "Oh, it's the basil of course"). The lemon, is not petite like the blueberry or voluptuously sensual like the mango. It is not exotic like the lychee, nor is it plain enough to blend in, like the humble apple. The lemon, with its bumps, nobly bits and a skin colour that clashes with everything, has had to come to terms with playing second fiddle in the culinary world.
Until now.
These lemon-licious biscuits have changed the status of lemons worldwide. No longer does it hide in shame in the fruit and veggie aisle, avoiding the judgmental glares of frucial profilers. No. Now stands proud and triumphant as this baked creation brings out its inner beauty. With a heart of lemon gold, the creamy cheesecake filling is embraced by the delicate aroma of the Early Grey butter biscuits. As a new dawn hails for this forgotten fruit, so too does the official debunking of frucial profiling. Then again, perhaps not, as these innocent lemon drops are criminally delicious!

Earl Grey Biscuits

80g unsalted butter
1/3 cup castor sugar
2 TBS milk
1/2 tspoon vanilla essence
1 cup self-raising flour
1/3 cup custard powder
8 Earl Grey Teabags(optional; I prefer them with the Earl Grey infusion, but it is also yum if left out!)

Preheat the oven 180 degrees and line two baking trays. Beat the butter and sugar in a mixer, until the mixture turns pale in colour and creamy in texture. Add the milk and essence and continue to beat until combined. In a separate bowl sift the flour and custard powder. Break open the tea bags and pour the contents into the flour and powder until it is speckled evenly with the tea leaves. A note on the tea bags: in my humble opinion it is best to use cheap tea because the leaves have been ground to a fine powder as opposed to the more "authentic" expensive tea blends which have chucks of leaves that do not spread into the batter evenly. Once the flour is speckled by tea leaves, gradually add all the dry ingredients into the mixer, continuing to mix until it forms a soft dough.  Roll two teaspoonsful of mixture into balls and place on tray. Use your thumb or the end of a wooden spoon the cause an indent in each biscuits (while you don't need to be super gentle here, just make sure that the hole doesn't pierce the bottom of the biscuit. You will want to create a wide indent in the biscuit rather than a deep one. Though maths and general baking precision is not my strong point, you are aiming for an indent that is approximately 1cm deep and 2-3cm wide). Set the biscuits aside and make the lemon-licious cheesecake filling.

Lemon Cheesecake

250g light cream cheese
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
Rind of one lemon

In a mixer, cream the cheese and sugar until it becomes light and fluffy. Add the lemon juice along with the rind of one lemon (grated finally). In order to create a make shift piping bag, fill a zip lock bag with the cheesecake mixture pushing it down into the corner of the bag. Carefully snip the corner of the bag off (about 1/2 wide) and then gently pipe the mixture into the center of the biscuits, filling up the indentations. You can be quite generous in filling as the cheesecake tends to hold it's form.

Bake for 15 minutes and then move onto a cooling rack.