Ingredients
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup caster sugar
- 1 cup orange juice (preferably freshly squeezed)
- 1 tsn ground cinnamon
- ½ tsn ground cloves
- 4-5 cups plain flour
- 2 tsn baking powder
- ½ cup finely chopped walnuts
- 1 cup honey
- ½ espresso cup water
- 3 whole cloves
- 1 cup extra finely chopped walnuts
- 1 tsn cinnamon sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C (or 160C for a fan forced oven). Grease and line 2 oven trays and put to the side.
- Beat oil and sugar on a medium speed in a stand mixer until the mixture starts going white, approx 4 minutes.
- Add juice, cinnamon and cloves to mixture and beat well.
- In the meantime, mix the ½ cup walnuts, flour and baking powder in a bowl. Slowly add 4 cups to the mixture using the stand mixer. Turn the machine off and test the dough with your fingers. If it sticks to your hands, add ½ cup flour and test again. If it is still sticky, add the next ½ cup flour (I normally do have to use the whole 5 cups but it really depends on the brand of flour you use). Once you have added all the flour, check the dough again – if it is still loose, sticks to your hands or can’t be rolled into a ball add 1 tbn flour at a time until it is the desired consistency. If you decide it is too tight add a little more juice.
- Roll tablespoons of the mixture in a ball and then slightly roll them so that they are like fat caterpillars, about 2 inches long and one inch in diameter. Slightly press each biscuit so that it is flat on top and pinch the ends to form the traditional shape. Before placing them in the oven, grab a fork and again lightly press down on each cookie to leave indents on the top. This is important as the walnuts will sit on these indents in the final step of the recipe. Repeat for the rest of the dough – you should end up with about 35 biscuits.
- Place in the centre of the oven and bake until golden brown, approx 20 minutes. Allow them to cool completely on the trays.
- Once the cookies have completely cooled, mix the extra walnuts and cinnamon sugar in a bowl and put to the side.
- In a small saucepan heat the honey, cloves and water until the texture is runny and it begins to simmer. Lower the heat to the lowest possible simmer point and place 2-3 cookies at a time into the saucepan, turning each biscuit a couple of times so that they begin to soak the honey.
- Place them on a baking paper lined tray and sprinkle with the walnut/ cinnamon sugar mixture. Repeat for all cookies and enjoy!
