Makes 24
75 g (3 oz) butter, diced
225 g (8 oz) plain flour
75 g (3 oz) caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 egg white, beaten, to glaze
caraway seeds, for sprinkling
1. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, then stir in the sugar. Add the egg and mix to a stiff paste and then the sugar (until it becomes more doughlike).
2. Roll out on a lightly floured surface, until about 0.5 cm (1/4 inch) thick, prick the top with a fork and cut into rounds with a 5 cm (2 inch) plain cutter. Brush with egg white and sprinkle on a few caraway seeds.
3. Put on to greased baking sheets and bake at 180°C (350°F) mark 4 for about 10 minutes or until light brown. Transfer to wire racks to cool.
Store in an airtight container.
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I looked at this recipe and decided there wasn’t really enough dough for 24!
So I doubled the ingredients. For the flour I used a gluten free flour (as I was baking it for a friend). I think you need to add hell of a lot more sugar then the recipe says, so taste it and if it tastes very sweet, that’s perfect. I thought it was sweet enough at first but then after it was baked, I didn’t taste the sugar much.
When they were baked, I tasted them and they looked nice, though using gluten free, they are a little like ‘cardboard’! However, they were edible. I will definitely use plain flour next time as they will be more mouthwatering and ‘normal’.
The original recipe using the plain flour was made in the Pantiles, in Tunbridge Wells not Tonbridge. They used to sell the biscuits in a shop there but they died out as other biscuits came onto the scene. It’s sad they aren’t being sold anywhere in any local Kent shops. However, there was a recent newspaper article in the Kent & Sussex Courier mentioned local Tonbridge school starting to make them again. Apparently they ‘only just discovered them’, but the fact is they’ve been around for years, it is just that they died out. So next time you eat a Wagonwheel, just think of all our British biscuits dying out.
Old Fashioned English Grub Rocks 