Happy Birthday Rachel!

Happy Birthday Rachel! While I know that our  4 years apart is constant, it still doesn't register that you're old enough to be 29. So Happy 29th Dear Sister. I'm sure that Caleb spoiled you, and catered to your every whim. You still have valuable birthday hours left so I hope you savour them. It's days like today when I wished that I lived in town with you. I would be standing on your doorstep right now, oblies in hand, off-key 'Happy Birthday' on my lips. But alas, I will have to tempt you to coming to the Wack to pick up your birthday oblies. I am hiding them in my freezer for you, so yes, come see us. Please. If only to eat oblies (tea biscuit topped with a mocha butter filling dipped in chocolate - who else is tempted?)

I'm a procrastinator, I respond to deadlines. So this is me - squeaking just in time for your birthday deadline. As per your request I made oblies, a Victoria- or at least a Pacific Christian School- 1980s favourite (I have many oblie related questions - What is the origin of the name oblie? Do they exist in the rest of the world? Are they Dutch? Google gave me nothing). Grandma would oblige and make these for birthday school treats -it's only now, as mother who has had to provide daycare and preschool birthday treats to share, in addition to party cake, that I realize the wisdom of having Grandma step in to lend a hand in the treat department.

I've cut and pasted Heather's recipe, graciously provided in our comments section a few years back. Sorry Heath, I should have given you a heads-up before posting this. For those that don't know Heather you might pick up in her recipe that as well as being an expert baker, she is a geologist. She makes this sound a bit too easy, I can easily picture her nibbling a biscotti cuppy as she single-handedly pipes mocha filling onto tea biscuits. My attempts weren't so pretty, I have come to terms with not being great at anything requiring fiddling - and these do. So mine didn't look quite so symmetrical or have as 'even' profile as I remember Grandma and Heather's.. but they sure tasted delicious.

(Warning: Some, those without the sweet tooth gene that seems to be our Dutch inheritence, might find these a tad sweet).

Heather's Oblie Recipe
OK. Eating a biscotti cuppy as I write. Those suckers make the best Christmas gifts! Or, in this case, 'we forgot to give Jamie's teacher a Christmas gift' gift.
Anyhow- here's the oblie recipe (pronounced ooobley, and no, I don't know why) Makes about 40 cookies.

2 pkgs Maria biscuits (tea biscuits, get those, though, the right thickness and size)

Cream 1 cup butter, softened.

Add 2 level tbsp instant coffee, dissolved completely in a tiny bit of water

Add 2 cups icing sugar. Beat by hand until thick and smooth, like peanut butter.

Put into a large freezer Ziploc, smush down towards one corner, cut a 1 cm hole out of the corner and pipe mixture onto the cookies. Perhaps about 2 tbsp onto middle of each cookie? You'll get a feel for it after a few batches ;) Use a table knife to smooth the cream out towards the edge of each cookie, leaving a peak in the middle. The whole thing should look like a Hawaiian volcano- low slope, even profile. All this should be done as quickly as possible before the butter starts to get all melty.

Freeze on a baking tray.

Melt 350g semi-sweet choc chips and a bit of shortening in double boiler, so it's smooth and runny. Put whole almonds in a pile on the countertop, as many as cookies you made.

Dip cookie, upside-down, in chocolate so all cream is covered. Immediately plunk an almond on top, trying NOT to get chocolate on it. The almond is the la-di-dah finger-hold so you can eat these without getting incriminating chocolate evidence all over your fingers.

Once they're all dipped and topped, put them in the freezer again on the tray until really solid. Then they're containerable.

Enjoy!

Haley's notes - I used about a tablespoon filling per cookie. I'm skipping the ziplock and just using a teaspoon next time, the ziplock/mocha filling turned into a disaster in my hands. I also didn't get the chocolate consistency quite right, mine was a bit thick. I needed to do a quick spread in addition to the chocolate 'dip.'