“There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”

Mark Twain

“There are two kinds of people: those who think they can, and those who think they can’t, and they’re both right.”

Henry Ford

“There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.”

Woody Allen

“There are two types of people – those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am!” and those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are.”

Abigail Van Buren

“There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group: there is less competition there.”

Indira Gandhi

 “There are two kinds of people in the world, those with loaded guns, and those who dig.  You dig.” 

Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

“There are two kinds of people, those that listen and those that wait to talk.”

 

“There are two kinds of people in the world:  generalists and specialists.”

 

“There are two kinds of people in the world:  Those who make things complicated, and those who make things simple.”

 

and my personal favourite:

 

“There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don’t.”

All unattributed

And then there are two more groups of people – those who like their molasses biscuits crunchy, and those who like them squidgy (and these are not the same as those who like squidgy chocolate chip cookies). So the easy thing to do is to make both and allow your guests to sample. One thing is for sure – St Francis is most probably in the squidgy camp, since these biscuits are very loosely based on mostarccioli, an Italian cake, made from almonds, honey, sugar, spices, vanilla and orange peel, traditionally eaten on the feast of St Francis. Apparently it was the only earthly food St Francis really liked – he even asked for some on his deathbed.

This is how to make them.

For about 16 biscuits

• ½ cup/60g good quality Dutch cocoa powder
• ⅔ cup/90g plain flour
• ¼ cup/50g golden caster sugar
• ½ cup/60g ground almonds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 6 tbsp/90g runny honey
• 6 tbsp/90g black treacle or molasses
• ¼ cup/60 ml red Martini
• ⅔ cup/90g icing sugar
• 1 lemon – juice and zest

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
2. Sift the cocoa powder and the flour into a big mixing bowl
3. Add the caster sugar, the ground almonds, the cinnamon and the bicarbonate of soda. Stir.
4. Add the honey, molasses and Martini – mix together with an electric beater
5. Refrigerate for about half an hour
6. Now you have a choice:
7. Either, for crispy cookies, turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll out until it’s about ½ cm/¼” thick. Then cut out shapes using a cookie cutter, place on a silicon-lines baking tray and bake for about ten minutes
8. Or, for squidgy cookies, roll the dough into even-sized balls, place on a silicon-lined baking tray, and squish down with a fork or the palm of your hand and bake for about ten minutes
9. Then, whichever method you’ve used, move the silicon paper, with the cookies still on, onto a cooling rack.
10. Meanwhile mix the icing sugar and the lemon zest and juice into a glaze.
11. When the cookies are cool, paint them with the glaze

squidgy molasses cookies

crispy crunchy molasses cookies

Theme tune from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – “There are two kinds of people in the world, those with loaded guns, and those who dig.  You dig.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1PfrmCGFnk]