Last Words The best kind of oyster
Lynda Hallinan dusts off her pinny and shares a homemade cinnamon treat.
If there were a hierarchy of home baking, the cinnamon oyster would be the undisputed Queen of the Tin in my household. Not that they ever make it as far as the tin. These old-time morning treats are all wolfed down in minutes whenever they appear on our dining table.
You can keep your ANZAC biscuits, chocolate chippies, caramel slice, ginger crunch, chocolate brownies, and lemon and poppy seed muffins. They're too sweet or too stodgy to rival the cinnamon oyster for morning tea table supremacy. I'll admit a plate of homemade lamingtons – creamfilled as it's a crime, in my mind, to serve them unfilled or with a miserly dollop of cream on top – puts up an admirable fight for consideration.
I'm no expert baker. Who has time for sifting and measuring, folding and whisking? But I'm prepared to put the effort in for a plate of cinnamon oysters. They have been my go-to choice of sweet-tooth selfindulgence for precisely 10 years, nine months.
My son Lucas has just turned 10. I found out I was pregnant with him the same day I spoke to a group of keen Coromandel Peninsula gardeners. Among the sinful delights they served up for lunch that day was a plate of cinnamon oysters. They were my first official pregnancy craving.
According to Alexa Johnston – author of modern Kiwi classic, Ladies, A Plate
– a Dunedin cook invented the cinnamon oyster in the 1950s. The recipe was first published in 1951 in the League of Mothers’ Cookery Book and Household Hints.
Loads of cooks have tinkered with it, but the recipe hasn't changed much in the six decades since.
Nor has their flying saucer shape. Cinnamon oysters are traditionally baked in shallow patty pans, or you can use paper cupcake cases at a pinch. Baking cinnamon oysters in muffin tins makes them look indelicately frumpy, but my goodness, if anything they're even more delicious for their mouth-filling proportions. Give them an extra couple of minutes in the oven though.
Whatever your choice of tin, bake, then scoff as soon as possible. They don't keep well, although spare oysters (as if!) can be filled with cream and frozen – they thaw
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with no ill consequences.
Cinnamon Oysters
I use the classic Edmonds Cookery Book recipe. It's foolproof unless you overbeat the mix, overheat the oven, or overcook the cakes.
INGREDIENTS
2 eggs
¼ cup white sugar
2 tsp golden syrup
6 tbsp flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger METHOD
1
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
2
Beat the eggs and sugar until thick. Add the golden syrup and beat well.
3
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and ground ginger. Fold into the egg mixture.
4
Spoon into greased patty tins and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the surface springs back when lightly touched.
5
Once cool, cut open with a sharp knife, fill with whipped cream, and lightly dust with icing sugar.