ingredients:

250g of honey

150g of syrup (treacle)

1 tbsp aniseed

225 ml water

250g patent flour

500g rye flour

20g of cookie spices

100-150 ml buttermilk

1 tbsp fine cornflour

1 small pkt baking powder

Cooking oil, butter and milk

method:

Put the honey, treacle, aniseed and water in a pan and bring to the boil whilst stirring. In the meantime, mix the patent flour, rye flour and the cookie spices. Let the contents of the pan cool off, then rub the mixture through a sieve into the mix of the flour and spices. Mix thoroughly together.

Leave the contents in a pan (covered with a cloth) for a least a week in a cool place.

a week later:

Mix the fine cornflour and baking powder and sieve this into the pan containing the ingredients prepared a week earlier. Add the buttermilk and thoroughly stir the final mix.

You will now need some kind of figure-shaped mould to pour the mix into to produce the Taai Taai cookies. In The Netherlands these moulds are available to buy. They are usually cut into a wooden plank, each plank containing about 6 figures. Similar moulds would do.

Oil the moulds and pour in sufficient mix to fill them. Remove any excess from the mould with a knife to make a clean, flat surface. Empty contents of the mould onto a flat, buttered, oven tray and brush with some milk. Bake in pre-heated oven of 220°C for about 30 minutes to a nice dark golden brown. Let them cool off and keep for at least another week before consuming them.

TIP: If you are using small moulds, keep about a 1½ centimetre distance between each cookie.