Making mud pies

Well, not really. But in Dutch, we call these biscuits “zandkoekjes”, which literally translates to sand biscuits. Probably because of the crumbly texture. So it’s not that big a leap to mud pies. Really, it’s not. Sand. Mud. Biscuits. Pies. Really.

They’re incredibly easy to make, so this time I’m going to do things slightly different and add a video!

Ingredients

Makes about 16 biscuits

• 100 grams of self-raising flour
• 75 grams of cold unsalted butter
• 50 grams of granulated sugar
• pinch of salt

Math wizards will realise that you can easily adapt the amounts, as long as you keep to a 4:3:2 ratio.

Preparation

Wash your hands with cold water so they’re clean and COLD. Put all the ingredients into a bowl. Cut the butter into cubes. With a knife, not a fork. Ahem. Then “pinch” the butter with your fingertips to mix it with the sugar and flour. Keep on pinching until it starts clumping together. Take small lumps of dough and place them on a baking sheet. Flatten them with your hand. They don’t need to look perfect.

Place the sheet into a preheated oven at 170 degrees Celsius.

After two minutes they look like this.

After four minutes they look like this.

After seven minutes they look like this.

After nine minutes, they’re done.

Might be a bit shorter or longer depending on your oven, so keep an eye on how brown they are. You want slightly brown edges but not much more. Refer to the picture if you’re unsure.

They will come out still a bit soft, so let them cool down on the sheet for about 2 (if you’re hungry) to 15 (if you can wait that long) minutes. Enjoy!

Words are fucking difficult

Apologies for the NSFW language. But not really. My words have decided to go play hide and seek again tonight. Not as badly as the night of my first blog post, because I can still write, although it takes a bit more effort than usual.

But the talking?

Yeah, not so good.

Related articles

• (Not) a Little Slow (musingsofanaspie.com)
• Shutdown (bjforshaw.wordpress.com)
• The Non-Verbal Fairy (notesoncrazy.com)
• Losing my voice (sleepwakehopeandthen.blogspot.com)
• On Being Articulate (juststimming.wordpress.com)

Tripping down memory lane

Age 10. The high point of my “I only want to wear blue dresses” phase. I really hated that video camera flash light, which is why I’m keeping my head down. My youngest brother is not allowed to touch the puzzle pieces (normal sibling behaviour) because I’ve already sorted them according to category (not so normal).

I must have been about 8 or 9 here. Still sucking on my fingers and playing with my hair. Not interacting with the other kids at all.

My 7th birthday. My grandmother is explaining something about my birthday hat, I’m obviously concentrating on what she’s saying but I don’t look at her or smile until she’s done talking. My grandmother might have been on the spectrum too.

Age 5 or so. Flapping my knees. Also forgetting to put on facial expressions unless prompted, and then they’re slightly overexaggerated. 😉

Age 6. Toewalking. Toerunning. Overall fairly uncoordinated motor skills.

I’m not posting the one of me and my younger brother spinning in circles in the back garden because we weren’t wearing much, lol. I don’t think I come across as autistic in these videos all that much, just slightly “off” maybe. But not to the level where I’m stimming in every single video, for instance. And I’m obviously interacting with my family. So I’m not entirely sure what to make of this.

Edited to add:
In fact when first watching all the material, I saw myself behaving like a typical child. The videos start in 1980 when I was 4 and my younger brother had just been born. As the years progressed, my behaviour kept on feeling normal, and that feeling got confirmed when I saw my younger brother behave the same way at the same age.

And then I saw my youngest brother appear on screen, born in 1982. The contrast is absolutely frightening. He is constantly looking at people and smiling and pointing and touching and interacting with them on every possible level. He doesn’t fidget, even as a baby and a toddler. He looks bewildered sometimes but mostly in response to something I or my younger brother do.

As if even at that age, he already understood the rules of social conduct better than we did, and saw neither me or my younger brother following those rules. It’s now nearly 30 years later and he still looks bewildered by our conduct sometimes. 😉