Plain cookies are awesome. These are simple biscuits with poppyseeds to give them a nice speckled look, with a hint of lemon and a white chocolate covering for super-awesomeness.

The recipe is from the greatly recommended “Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World” by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. Here is how I made them:

Prepararion

Combine egg, sugar, and oil in a bowl; whisk with a fork to mix well. Add in the poppyseed and fine lemon rind. Measure off the flour, add the salt to this. Add the flour to the egg-mixture. Mix with the fork and then quickly knead with your hands to form into a ball. Leave in the fridge for about one hour or longer.

Baking

Pre-heat your oven to about 175°C. Roll out the ball of dough to a thickness of 3 mm. Use a knife – or a wavy wheel cutter for example – to cut strips of 4 to 5 cm width, then go across to form rectangles of approximately 4,5 x 7,5 cm. Or cut out round shapes, whatever you fancy. Transfer those to a baking sheet lined with baking parchment, leaving 1 cm space between them. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes, which should make them flecked pale golden but not brown. Get them out and transfer them onto a cooling rack.

Chocolate covering

Melt the white chocolate slowly over a pan with hot water, “au bain marie”. Stir to keep it from melting unevenly. White chocolate melts at a lower temperature than dark chocolate, and when overheating it, it gets crumbly and unpleasant, so be patient, go slow, and keep an eye on the hot water – no need to get it to boil. When the chocolate is manageable, use the back of a spoon to spread it on top of the cookies and leave to cool and set completely.