Hi! I’m Werona. Welcome to Cookies or Biscuits!
I adore food, and sweetness is my downfall. I love to spend time in my kitchen, trying out new recipes or baking old favorites. In my spare time I spend time with my family, take photographs, garden and scour through second-hand books shops. You would laugh if you saw the excitement I get from finding old cookbooks at those bookstores.
I am an Australian, who has lived in America since 2001. You will need to excuse me if I sometimes throw in a strange word now and then. My best friend graciously walked me through the “American” wording for many cooking implements recently. For 12 years I had been blissfully unaware that Americans call baking pans “pans” and not “tins”. These word differences are where the name of this blog comes from. In Australia, we use the word “biscuit” instead of “cookies”. Cookies or Biscuits? They are the same to me – but many of you image two different things.
When we first moved to America, I struggled with dealing with new ingredients, a new measuring system and new baking pan sizes. Some of my favorite foods were unavailable and suddenly I was faced with the choice of not eating them or learning how to make them from scratch. There were also recipes that needed to be adjusted slightly to account for differences in measurements. (Did you know that an Australian and English tablespoon hold 20ml while an American is 15ml?). I want to share these recipes with you, so that you can have a little taste of Australia in America. I will also share some of my family favorites (which have a distinct English feel about them) and some new dishes I have discovered since moving to America.
My husband is unable to eat gluten, so many of my recipes are made from Gluten Free flours. I mainly use Namaste Perfect Flour Blend or Orgran Self Rising flour.
Come join the journey with me – and try some new recipes. You might find a new favorite too!
This was fun to read. I love to cook too and have recently been looking at using ingredients the have no grains in them. I’m also experimenting with alternative sweeteners that are not processed or refined. It should be an interesting journey.
Hi Shelia, I have to admit I still love cooking with wheat flour, but I do often cook without gluten as Ben has celiac disease. When he’s going to be sharing the food, I use alternative grains. I’ve also been using different, healthier oils. I play around with alternative sugars sometimes, but not always. My mum’s family comes from a sugar cane farming background, so sugar played a huge part in our foods 🙂 Making big changes like that certainly is a journey and can be a challenge. Good luck!
Thanks for this page. My mum is Australian. I’m American, and I spent three years living Down Under as a child. One recipe started a flood of wonderful memories: FROG IN A POND. Thanks for reminding me of so many happy times in my Granny’s kitchen
You bought a big smile to my face when you mentioned Frog in a pond. I used to make them for our grandkids and any of the other kids that ended up at our home. My husband and I were both bought up in the country. We didn’t live in the township but about 20klms from the town a the population was 102 and 6 of that number was just my immediate family. My mum only got to go to one of the bigger towns a lot further away once a month. So if you forgot something then you had to make do with whatever you had or do it from scratch. I’m 70 now but I still love cooking. I wish you good luck, best wishes & much happiness sweetheart. Plus! Keep up the good baking. ❤
I’m also Australian & have only just discovered this page. A very close friend made frogs in the pond the other day for her neighbour’s daughter’s birthday as she use to for my daughter who is now 22 years old & I have just discovered 2 years back that I love melting moments & I’m in my early 60’s.
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J. D. Romanus
I just made the candied peel recipe. I too have a women’s weekly cookbook given to me many years ago as a school award “citizenship award”. I still refer to it every now and then. The recipe turned out great and all came about because peel is so expensive in the shops and I have a glut of oranges. Thank you for sharing it.