Dr. Abernethy and his biscuits

Abernethy Biscuits are cookies from Scotland (in Britain, cookies are called biscuits). They were named for Dr. John Abernethy, who believed that most diseases were "due to disordered digestion". With that in mind, he adapted an old recipe for "Captain's Biscuits" and added caraway seeds (presumably to help digestion).

This is a modern version of Dr. Abernethy's original recipe.  When you make recipes from Britain, you need to pay attention -- the measurements are NOT always the same. For this recipe, when they say 8 ounces of flour, they are measuring by weight, not volume.  8 ounces of flour by volume is 1 cup; 8 ounces by weight is 1 1/2 cups.

These are easy cookies to make, and have a lot for kids to do between the mixing, rolling, cutting, and poking. The caraway seeds may be too pungent (they're used in rye bread), so you can leave them out if you wish.  We've made them both ways, and the caraway flavor isn't bad.  These cookies are not as sweet as sugar cookies, but they have a nice flavor of their own.  

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Abernethy Biscuits

Ingredients:
      1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
      1/3 cup granulated sugar
      2 tsp baking powder
      1/3 cup butter (cold butter is best, as it makes the cookies flakier)
      1/2 tsp caraway seeds (optional)
      1 beaten egg
      1 tbsp milk
      extra flour for rolling

Utensils:
      mixing bowl
      sifter
      whisk
      rolling pin
      cookie cutter
      cookie sheets

Steps:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 380F.
2. Sift the flour, sugar, and baking powder into a mixing bowl (if you don't have a sifter, just mix them together with a whisk).
3. Add the butter and "rub it in" until it's well-mixed and looks like coarse crumbs. (To "rub it in", cut it into small pieces and then use your fingertips to mix it all together.)
4. Mix in the seeds, and then mix in the beaten egg and milk. It should form a stiff dough. If it doesn't, add another teaspoon of milk.  (Towards the end, it's easiest to mix it together by hand to form the dough.)
5. Put the dough on a floured board and roll it until it's about 1/8" thick.
6. Cut out the cookies (traditionally these are round, but any shape works -- we used a candy cane cutter) and put them on a greased cookie sheet. Gather up the trimmings and roll them out again.
7. Take a fork and poke holes in the top of the cookies.
8. Put them in the oven for 5-10 minutes or until they're golden brown on top. Let them cool on the tray.

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Nutritional info: for 24 cookies (it depends on your cutter), 64 calories per cookie.