A simple little recipe to share with kids, for a variety of reasons…

Firstly, it’s easy enough for school-aged kids to make on their own. Secondly, it’s egg free, dairy free, nut free. Lastly, the kids love to roll and decorate the dough. My kids had a go at making snails and butterflies… keeping them entertained for quite a while.

Mostaccioli are a hard, chewy biscuit, originally made with grape must (un-fermented pressed grapes – a bi-product of the wine making process). The original recipe dates back to 300BC, but sometime during the medieval ages, honey was introduced as the sweetening agent. You can read more about the Calabrese Mostaccioli here. You can spice them up with some ginger, mixed spice… or no spices at all.

This traditional southern Italian biscuit generally is made during Christmas, and is often molded into decorative shapes, but we just rolled them out by hand and had lots of fun doing so.

Note: when freshly baked, mostaccioli are very hard. They are best eaten when allowed to soften in an airtight container for a few days.

You will need:

500g flour

500g honey

a few drops of vanilla extract

cake sprinkles

Combine the flour, honey and vanilla to form a firm dough.

Roll out into a log, approximately 1cm in diameter. Roll into different pattern shapes.

Bake at 180 deg Celsius until pale brown in colour, approximately 10 minutes. Take care not to over-bake the biscuits as they  can become quite hard. Allow to cool completely before serving.

Have fun!!