Tuesday 17 March 2015

Fifteens for St Patrick


Happy St Patrick's Day! All over the world, people of Irish descent will be celebrating their patron saint. I'm not aware of any Irish blood in either me or my friends but, on Saturday night, we celebrated anyway!


Chickpea and I both wore green and a simple shamrock brooch I'd made out of felt. We listened to Irish drinking songs, watched The Yank (funny for all the wrong reasons) and ate traditional Irish food, like potato cakes.


My contribution to the food was a batch of Fifteens. I first tried these biscuit-like goodies at my quilt group's Christmas party and thought they were delicious. The name Fifteens comes from the fact that there are 15 of most of the ingredients.They're a traditional treat in Northern Ireland and couldn't be simpler to make. In fact you can  probably make them in 15 minutes! If you'd like to make a batch for your own St Patrick's celebrations, or just because, here's how.


Ingredients

15 large marshmallows, halved
15 digestive biscuits, crushed
15 glace cherries, halved
150ml condensed milk
75g desiccated coconut



Mix together the marshmallows, biscuits and cherries.


Gradually stir in the condensed milk until it starts to form a stiff dough.


Then the messy bit: use your hands to pull the ingredients together and then form the dough into a long sausage.


Spread a layer of the coconut on a clean surface and roll over the sausage, pressing lightly until it's well coated. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 2-3 hours. Cut into 15 slices!


Yummy! Very sweet so you probably won't want more than one and even better the next day.

I'll leave you with an Irish blessing:

May your troubles be less
And your blessings be more
And nothing but happiness
Come through your door.

xx

9 comments:

  1. I like the look of those biscuits, I don't eat chocolate and find it hard to find a sweet treat, these look perfect....
    Amanda xx

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  2. what a lovely blessing. Half my family come from Cork so we have Irish blood, but have never celebrated St Patricks day, maybe we should start with those yummy biscuits xx

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  3. Happy St. Paddy's day from here in Ireland. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the celebrations too.
    Rosie xx

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  4. Happy St. Paddy's day from here in Ireland. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the celebrations too.
    Rosie xx

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  5. A recipe AND a blessing! Thank you! And Happy St. Patrick's day to day to you! Love your felt shamrock. xx

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  6. Gosh those 15's look great and super simple which means I could just about manage to give them a whirl.
    Happy St Paddys!

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  7. Those biscuits do look yummy, happy St Patrick's Day to you! xx

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  8. Oh yum I love fifteens. A lovely Irish lady at work makes them and they are delicious. I really want to have a go at making them, thanks for sharing the recipe.
    Marianne x

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  9. These are the cutest shamrocks you have made. The cookies look delicious. Thank you for sharing a fun recipe.

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