The Most Tastiest Cookie of Them All

Do you read a lot of food blogs? I've noticed there tends to be recipes or techniques that 'do the rounds' and everyone wants to try them. Like cake pops. I've not tried them yet. But I am little behind the times trend-wise.

This chocolate chip cookie recipe is one from ages ago. It's by a guy called Jacques Torres who has a chocolate shop in New York. Apparently he has the best cookies ever in his shop and he shared the recipe with the New York Times. So what? I hear you say. Well, his recipe calls for the dough to be chilled for 24 to 36 hours before you bake it. 24 hours! Now, as someone who doesn't make bread because you have to wait an hour for it to rise ... I was skeptical. Two different flours, two sugars, 5 inch cookies? Skeptical.

I made a quick batch (scaled way down from the NYT recipe) with what I had in the house. They aren't complicated. And baked them straight away. They were pretty good.

So I picked up all the stuff (not the expensive chocolate) and gave it a go. I made half the recipe and left it in the fridge. The dough was delicious on its own. I made it late a night so I wouldn't be tempted to throw them straight in the oven.

Next night I split the dough in half and made it into 10 balls. (I don't think 5 inch cookies are helpful for portion control. I'd still eat two. So I made normal size cookies.) They were fantastic. The best cookies I've ever baked. The salt on the top was perfect.

I cooked more the next night even more yummy. I also keep a few balls of dough in the freezer and when I baked those - they were awesome too!

I am totally convinced. This is most definitely my new favourite cookie recipe.      

Autumn macarons + recipe

Hello macarons.

Yep. More.

I've had to change my 'current obsession' back to les macarons. I've been making them a lot more often this year. I'm still not sure why I love baking them so much. They are really hard work and I am usually so impatient!

I made these for the lovely people at my work. We had a 'Summer Social'. Yes, at the end of September. So I made Autumnal themed macs. They are flavoured with a hint of cinnamon and filled with a milk and dark chocolate ganache.

I tried to get a subtle orange-y brown colour. I didn't want them to be too 'Halloween-orange' or look like they were meant to be orange flavoured. I'm still using gel based food colourings, but I think I'll have to try the powdered ones soon.

They went down really well. I thought they were a little on the rustic side, but no-one seemed to notice. Maybe because one of my colleagues made Nigella's Chocolate Guinness cake and it was freaking awesome.       



For the first time ever, I'm posting a full recipe with my macarons. Please read it all the way through before you decide to make a start. I use the Italian meringue method which involves hot sugar so please be careful.

Makes: about 18 full macarons. Takes: some time.

Ingredients

150g Ground almonds
150g Icing sugar
108g Egg whites (about three large eggs)
150g Granulated sugar
38g   Water
1 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
Red and yellow food colours (or orangey-brown if you have it) - not the liquid ones.

Filling

50-60g Dark chocolate
50-60g Milk chocolate
1/3cup about 85ml Double cream
(Information about using ganache in various ways)

Tools

Electronic scale
Food processor/spice grinder
Three or four baking sheets
Candy thermometer
Mixer/electric hand mixer
Piping bag with large tip
Baking/parchment paper
Paper with circles drawn on it

Method

- Firstly you'll need to make these the day before you want to eat them.
- Secondly you'll need to leave your egg whites out to 'age' a day or two before that. (You can microwave them for 10 seconds to skip this - it works, mostly)

- Take the ground almonds, icing sugar and cinnamon and grind them together in a food processor or spice grinder. Then spread the mix out on a baking tray to dry out. You can do this in a slightly warm oven if it's damp in your kitchen.
-Weigh out your egg whites into two sets of 54g each.
- Sieve the almond/sugar mixture into a bowl and add 54g of egg whites and a small blob of red and yellow food colouring.
- Mix together really well into a smooth paste.
- Put the other set of egg whites into a sparkling clean bowl and whisk them until it forms soft peaks, it will still be a bit foamy looking.
- Put the granulated sugar and water in a small pan and start to heat it gently. Don't stir it. Keep an eye on the thermometer.
- When the sugar solution reaches 118c take it off the heat.
- Pour the hot solution in a slow stream into the eggs whilst continuing to whisk.
- Whisk until the mixture gets nice and shiny and check the temperature is below 50c.
- Fold the shiny mixture into the almond paste.
- Get a piece of printer paper. Using a upside down shot glass or a set of compasses draw a set of circles with a couple of cm gaps between them. Or download a template - like this one.
- Put a wide circular tip in your piping bag, place the bag in a glass and load it up with macaron mixture.
- Put your template on a baking tray and cover it with a layer of parchment paper.
- Pipe out circles until you have filled a tray. Then tap it on the counter to remove any air bubbles and the bobble on the top left by piping.
- Continue to fill trays this way until you have no mixture left.
- Leave the macarons to set and form a skin. Your finger shouldn't stick if you touch it. It takes about half and hour, but can be longer if it's humid or has been raining.
- Set you oven to 160c (fan) and let it get up to temperature.
- Put your first tray of piped macaron mixture on top of another (empty) tray and place it in the middle of the oven.
- Leave the oven door open a little bit (use a wooden spoon to prop it open) and cook for around 10-12 minutes. They shouldn't 'wobble' when they are done. I also like to turn mine around during cooking as I use a fan oven and they sometimes rise unevenly.
- When you take them out let them settle for a minute or two then gently peel them off the paper.
- Let them cool completely on a rack.
- Do the same with each tray.
- Whilst they are cooking, make the ganache.
- Break up both kinds of chocolate into a bowl.
- Microwave or heat the cream in a pan until it is just about to boil.
- Pour it over the chocolate and leave for a minute or two, then mix thoroughly until there are no lumps.
- Put the mix in the fridge to set.
- When all the macaron are cool, match them up in pairs. If your piping was really good, they'll all be the same size. I usually have a few that are a little larger. oops.
- The ganache should have set enough that you can pipe it. If it has gone really solid - like a truffle - just heat it a little to get the right consistency.
- Pipe a blob of ganache on one side of each pair and pop the top on to flatten it out. You should be able to see it at the sides but not have it ooze out.
- Put all the macarons in an airtight container and pop them in the fridge overnight.
- Remove them from the fridge 30-60 mins before serving.
- Enjoy!

If they didn't come out like you expected - try a troubleshooting guide like the one at foodnouveau.com.

Heston inspired turkey burgers

Hello, I am still alive! I've had a bit of a stressful month and I've been spending a lot of my time on another project I can't you about yet. But I really wanted to stop by and tell you about this 'recipe' I tried. The pictures are rubbish, I tried to get a tasty looking one when I was consuming the left overs for lunch but it is not pretty.

Now, I know you've heard of Heston Blumenthal. He cooks in some crazy ways, but what I find interesting is how he tests and tests things to find out the best way to do it. A little while ago he had a show on TV where he took one ingredient each week and explained some great, though unconventional, techniques for getting the best out of them.

The first week was beef and he got some guys to make their best burger recipes. Then he made this one using only beef and salt.

o_O

No breadcrumbs, no egg yolk, no onions, no herbs, no cheese hiding in the middle. It relies on the 'grain' of the meat created by keeping all the strands of minced meat going in the same direction.

I decided to give it a go with some turkey mince. Partially out of laziness and partially out of experimental spirit. And it worked great! I just added some salt, rolled up the mince and after a bit in the fridge, cut some slices. I made six from 500g of turkey and cooked them for about three minutes each side. Lovely and juicy and great in a squishy white bread cob with lots of salad. Yum.

Patriotic (red, white, and blue) Macarons

It's been a little while since there was any macaron action around here hasn't it? In fact last time was my Cherry Pie macarons over a year ago. That seems to be just enough time to forget how tricksy they are to make ...

Here is a little story. This last weekend was the Queen's Jubilee in the UK. My friends decided that the extra bank holiday would make it ideal for their housewarming party and gave it a Jubilee theme. Now, I'm not much of a royalist but the opportunities for crafting and baking around an event like this are awesome. I mentioned I might bring some iced biscuits which I vaguely remember being countered with, "Why would you make biscuits when you can make macarons?" I think I took that as a challenge. (I may or may not have been in the pub at the time.)

So, I decided to make red, white, and blue macarons for the occasion. I think Patriotic Macarons is a good title - they would work in the UK, USA, France, Norway, Russia, Iceland, Luxembourg, Australia ... you get the picture. I wasn't convinced I could make 'white' macarons. They are always a little bit yellow-y from the almonds, so I went with a white filling instead - white chocolate ganache. Plus ganache is super easy to make and very tasty.

This is how they turned out. I was worried no-one would eat the blue ones, since blue food is meant to be really unappetising, but they all disappeared no problem.

Here is the recipe for the ganache, you can use it to make truffles too.You need 5oz of white chocolate and 3oz of double cream. (I used a whole 150g bar of chocolate.) I think the ratio might be different for milk or dark chocolate, so this is just for white. All you do is warm up the cream in a pan until it just about simmering - then pour it over the chocolate and leave it for a minute or two. Mix it up well so there are no lumps left then leave it to cool. I popped mine in the fridge for half and hour. If you leave it longer it will get a bit more solid - which is not useful for filling macarons but you can roll it into balls and make delicious truffles. As a side note, making macarons tends to leave you with a lot of egg yolks. If you don't have anything to do with them right away, I read that it's best to cover them with a little water before you put them in the fridge to stop them from drying out. However, this time I used all the yolks and the left over cream from the ganache and made a pint of custard which I've put in the freezer. Next time we have apple pie or something, I think I will be mighty pleased that it's there waiting.

Recent triumphs and disasters in the kitchen

Well, hello there. Today I want to talk to you about some of my recent culinary adventures. In the main my savoury endeavours have been triumphant and my baking more on the disastrous side.

My baking inspirations have been about being a bit more calorie conscious. I've found a couple of recipes that sounded ... viable whilst not being insanely calorific. Not that I'm against a calorific piece of cake. Chocolate fudge cake is one of my favourites, but if its 550 calories, its obviously got to be an occasional treat (or else I've really got to step up the exercise!).

First up - Chocolate chip blondies that are supposed to be 75 calories a slice. I pinned the recipe from Chocolate-covered Katie. They are made from chickpeas. I found them just about edible, Marc said they were horrid. Before I even told him what they were made of. Fail.

After that, I thought I'd go a slightly different route. There are lots of recipes around that use bananas to sweeten cakes. So I had a go at Banana/oat breakfast muffins. These were also not nice and actually give me a terrible stomach ache. Epic fail.

You'd think I'd learn after these escapades that cake is calories. If you remove the sugar/butter/flour there is no tasty cake left ... but I felt like one more go. So I went with 'World's Healthiest Chocolate Chip Cookies?' I can tell you right now that they are not. They did actually taste quite nice, which is good compared to the previous two. But they are not even low in calories. They are about the same as a Bourbon biscuit. And technically you get two in each of those.

My savoury inspirations have been about upping the variety in the cuts of meat I use. My interest in this is twofold. Firstly I want to eat more of the less popular bits of animals. I'm not squeamish about handling raw meat and I know where it comes from. But I do think we should eat as much of the animal as we can. Someone who is really into this is my friend Di (who blogs at Veg Box Chronicles) she is an awesome cook and uses odd bits all the time. WIth delicious consequences. The other factor is cost. These are also usually cheaper cuts, and saving cash is always good right?

In the last couple of weeks I've cooked a ham hock and pulled pork (pork shoulder). Both are dishes which are full of flavour but need low and slow cooking. Using the slow cooker is great for this. It takes 6-10 hours to cook things, but you don't have to do anything. Just chuck it in and then its ready at tea time.

I really enjoyed the ham and Marc loved the pulled pork. Both are going in 'the book'. This is where recipes go that we want to use again. The last recipe to make it in there was Chicken Fajita Lasagne, but that's a tale for another day ...

Caramalised onion and sun-dried tomato palmiers

These pastry based savouries are perfect for a picnic. They are only two bites big but huge on flavour and use only three main ingredients. Okay it is a bit of a cheat as one of the ingredients is ready made pastry. And I cheated even more by using ready-rolled pastry ... but who's counting?

I think the impressiveness to difficulty ratio is pretty good. They are a bit fiddly, but also very forgiving because of their 'rustic' look.

Ingredients

- 1 pack of ready-made puff pastry (if it's not ready rolled roll it out into a big rectangle about 5mm thick)
- 1 jar of sun-dried tomatoes in oil
- about half a jar of caramelised onion chutney/sweet onion jam
- an egg mixed with a little milk for egg washing
- salt and pepper for seasoning and maybe some herbs (I used a bit of dried thyme)

Method

- Drain and chop up nearly a full jar of sun-dried tomatoes (my jar was about 280g)
- spread some onion over the whole surface of the pastry
- distribute the tomatoes over the top of that and season with a bit of salt, pepper and thyme
- roll both sides of the pastry into the middle (the long sides) and stick together with a little egg
- pop the roll into the fridge for about half and hour (you'll really want to do this or pop it in the freezer for a bit so that it hardens up some)
- start to slice 1cm pieces off the roll with a sharp knife
- lay them on a baking sheet, cover the top in egg wash
- bake in the oven for about 10 minutes at 180c

I actually made these to take to a social at my work with what I think is called a 'potluck' meal in the US but we sometimes call it a 'fuddle'. However I ended up being poorly and not being able to go, so I can't let you know how they went down. Marc seemed to like them!

Experiments in pasta: Fregola

Fregola. Fregola? Have you heard of it?

I hadn't seen it before today. I just happened to be watching a programme about Italian cooking and saw them making it. It's a pasta made from semolina. Kinda like cous cous but a bit bigger and weirder. I've never had much success making actual pasta but this turned out really well.

You make it by laying out semolina on a tray and then sprinkling it with water. You swirl it with your finger tips and tiny pasta rubble appears. I think you are supposed to dry it out after that in the Italian sun, which we are supremely lacking ... so I baked it in the oven for a bit.

You cook it in boiling water like any dried pasta for 8-10 minutes. It's very filling. I made it with tomato sauce but it's meant to be good in soup and stuff too. Apparently they save the smaller bits for soup, but I currently do not have a sieve so a colander had to do. You get the picture.

Frankly, I still can't believe it worked ...

Ah, I found the program, it was Lidia's Italy. She explains it way better here: http://www.lidiasitaly.com/recipes/detail/1029

I am rather interested in Italian recipes (and wines) at the moment as we have booked to go to Italy on our honeymoon. Whoop! Very exciting :)

Home made granola bars recipe

Did I mention I'm trying to cut back on my baking? Well, not so much the baking as the eating of the baked goods. These are a bit of an in-between. I'm not sure they can honestly be called 'healthy'. They have about the same calories as a Mars bar, but they do have way more nutritional value. Pretty easy to make too, and very tasty.

Ingredients makes 12 bars

100g butter/marg
200g porridge oats
50g sunflower seeds
50g chopped walnuts
3 tbsp honey
100g light brown sugar
100g dried fruits (I used apricots)

 Method

- Put the oven on 160c or the equivalent
- Put the oats, nuts and seeds on a baking tray and toast for 5-10 minutes in the oven
- Melt the butter, sugar and honey together in a pan
- Mix the oats, nuts, seeds and fruits in with the butter mixture
- Tip it out on to a baking tray (25cm x 18ish) which is either greased or lined with baking paper
- Lightly press the mix into the tray so that it will hold together
- Bake for around 30mins
- I suggest cutting it before it cools as it gets quite solid once it has set
- Enjoy for breakfast or as a tasty snack :)

Beef Wellington

We had a bit of a family celebration at the weekend. To avoid too much work in the kitchen we decided to allocate each course of the meal to a different person and I promised to cook something a bit special for the main course.

I looked at a couple of different things, but decided to have a go at beef wellington. Which I've never made before ... or even eaten before.

A lot of the recipes I found suggested that it wasn't a difficult dish to make - just a little time consuming. Which pretty much covers it. This is my recipe which I kind of mushed together from all the ones I read online. There's loads of steps and plenty of waiting for things to cool so it's not something you can do in an hour - but it's worth making if you want something impressive looking. Went down a storm with my family :)

I made roasted baby carrots and potatoes to go with it as they take about the same time to cook.
 

Ingredients (4-6 people)

600g Fillet beef - from the middle of the fillet
1 pack of ready made puff pastry (I'm lazy I used ready rolled)
250g Mushrooms
150g Shallots
2 Cloves garlic
75g Pâté
6 Slices of ham (or parma ham or some pancakes)
Butter/oil for frying
Flour for dusting
1 Egg for egg washing
Salt and pepper

Red wine sauce/jus

Half a bottle of red wine
1 litre of beef stock
25-50g butter
Dried/fresh thyme


Method

- Trim any fatty or membrane-y bits from your meat and put it in the fridge to keep cool
- Chop up your mushrooms and shallots and garlic really small. Use a food processor if you have one, or plenty of patience to get everything teeny.
- Heat up some oil and/or butter in a frying pan add the chopped up ingredients and cook gently without browning the shallots. Keep cooking until all the water has boiled away from the mushrooms. I should look like a sort of brown paste. Add some salt and pepper. This is called mushroom duxelles.
- Put the'duxelles' into a bowl and leave to cool.
- In the mean time deglaze the pan with a splash of wine and reserve the liquid.
- Wipe out the pan and return to heat.
- Remove your meat from the fridge and pat some salt and pepper all around it. Massage a bit of oil all over it.
- Sear the meat on all sides including the end. Then set it aside to cool again.
- Whilst it cools, deglaze the pan again and add to the mushroom liquid.
- Put the cooled beef back in the fridge.
- When the duxelles (mushroom paste) is cool, mix it with the pâté and put it back in the fridge.
- There is a recurring theme here, everything has to be cool or it will melt the pastry! So before the next step I popped the meat, duxelles and ham in the freezer for 5-10 mins.
- Next put down some food safe cling film. Lay out your slices of ham (or pancakes? some recipes use pancakes for this bit instead) so that they over lap. These will be wrapped around your meat so make sure there is enough.
- Take the meat out of the fridge again and pat it dry with kitchen roll. Add any juices from the meat to the liquid collection.
- Spread some mushrooms/pâté mix in the middle and place the meat on top. Spread the rest all around the beef including a bit on the ends.
- Wrap the ham around the meat and then wrap the cling film around it to hold everything in place. Then back in the fridge to cool again.
- Next roll out your pastry on a floured surface.
- Whisk an egg with a little milk or water and brush it on the pastry.
- Unwrap the meat parcel, make sure its dry, and place it gently in the centre of the pastry.
- Fold the pastry around it making sure that it is well stuck down and sealed with egg wash. Also make sure that there is only two layers of pastry where it joins up or the pastry won't cook through.
- Turn the pastry encased meat onto a preheated baking sheet so that the seam is underneath.
- Egg wash the top and then score several lines lines across the top. Egg wash again and make two slits that go through the pastry, ham and pâté.
- Pop it back in the fridge again, for at least 15 minutes so that the pastry can relax.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes on gas mark 7/220c
- When the pastry is golden brown, remove from the oven and leave to rest for 5-10 minutes.
- To serve, first slice off the pastry at one end then cut 1inch slices. It should be quite pink in the middle.

For the sauce/jus

- Put all the reserved juices/liquids into a pan with half a bottle of red wine and simmer it to reduce it by about 2 thirds.
- Put the beef stock in a pan and reduce by half - add the reduced red wine and some thyme.
- Just before serving add a good blob of butter and mix in.
- Sieve to remove any bits and pour a little over each slice of wellington.

Enjoy!

1,2,3, Cookies

This is my very own recipe. Okay, so you can't really invent a cookie since they're all made from essentially the same elements but this is mine. I'd love to write my own cookbook one day and take all the lovely foody photographs. I'll probably need more than one recipe for that though -so it might be a while...

Anyway, I've called them 1,2,3, Cookies mainly because they are super easy to make! They are made from a mixture of 1oz sugar, 2oz butter and 3oz flour. I've not made an attempt to convert it into volume yet so it's time to get the scales out if you want to have a go.

This amount makes six cookies. That's not very many you may say, but when you live in a household of two people, baking 24 cookies at a time is not such a great idea.

Ingredients 

1oz Granulated sugar
2oz Butter/Margarine
3oz Flour (plus a little extra)
6 Glacé cherries
Heaped tablespoons of candied, chopped, mixed peel
1 tsp Golden syrup
Pinch of salt

Method

- Preheat oven to 180c (350f, gas mark 4) and line a tray with baking paper.

- Cream together the butter and sugar and then mix in the syrup.

- Chop the cherries into quarters and mix with the candied peel and about a tablespoon of flour.

- Mix the 3oz of flour and the pinch into the wet mixture until it is starting to resemble dough.

- Gently mix in candied fruit and flour and squish into a ball of dough.

- Separate into six equal balls and space them out on the baking tray - press each one down into a cookie shape. Make sure there is a bit of room between them as they might spread a little.

- Bake for 8 minutes until the edges are just starting to brown.

- Let them cool a little.

- Consume with a nice cup of tea. I'm not a big fan of tea, but Mr Fiancé has to have a cup when tasting experimental baking projects.

Next I'm going to make them with some different flavours like cranberry and white chocolate chunks. If you try this recipe I'd love to know what you think.

Easy flat bread

I've been eating red pepper jelly with everything since the food fair yesterday!

This afternoon I was looking for something else to devour it with and decided to have a go at making some flat breads. It's really easy to make and only has 3 basic ingredients - flour, oil and water.

This amount makes enough for about 4 flat breads which are around 6 inches across (enough for our snacks!) but you could double or triple it up.

Ingredients:

1cup self-raising flour (for plain/strong flour add 2tsp baking powder and a pinch of baking soda per 3cups)
1tbsp olive oil
1/3cup cold water
1/2tsp salt
I added a sprinkling of dried thyme and a bit of italian seasoning I found in the cupboard.

Method:

- Mix flour, salt and any other flavourings in a bowl
- add the oil and water to form a dough
- knead until it's a bit more shiny
- cut into pieces and roll out each piece
- heat up a griddle or frying pan coated with a little oil
- cook on each side for a minute or two - just watch for when it starts to bubble up on the first side or brown slightly
- enjoy warm with tasty dips - or make it into a mini pizza!

Mini scones

Today my finacé is feeling a bit under the weather so I made some scones to cheer him up a bit.

They are great for people who prefer savoury snacks since they are more bread-like than anything. (And a nice change for those of us who consume chocolate like it's going out of fashion...)

My recipe is in ounces for this one, I've made an attempt at a conversion to the US system but it doesn't seem to translate to well.

Ingredients:
8oz Self-raising flour(1 3/4cup Plain four + 2 tsp baking powder)
1oz Sugar (3 tbsp)
2oz Butter (4 tbsp)
pinch of salt
1 egg
1/4 pint milk


Method:
Delia uses a slightly different recipe but there are some good pictures of the method on her site.
- Preheat oven to 220c/190c fan/425f/gas7 lightly grease and flour a baking tray
- Sieve the flour into a bowl with the salt
- Add the butter (room temp) and rub into crumbs
- Add the sugar and mix together
- Beat the egg together with enough milk to make about 1/4 pint (about 2/3 cup) liquid
- Add about half of the egg/milk to the bowl and mix with a knife - if it is still dry and not starting to stick together add more of the liquid. When it starts to form a dough lightly knead it into a ball
- On a floured surface, roll it out to about 1/2-1 inch thick and cut out circles (or other shapes)
- You can use some of the left over liquid to brush the tops of the scones to make them brown nicely
- Bake for about 10 minutes
- Enjoy with butter and jam, or jam and clotted cream for a real treat.

It's got to be raspberry jam for me! When my Grandad was alive he used to make it; the best kind, with the pips in. I miss my Grandad, and my Granny - I used to cook buns with her when I was little and eat glacé cherries.

New favourite cookie recipe

I got a new book a while ago which looked to have lots of great recipes for lovely treats such as cookies, cupcakes and brownies in it. I tried a couple out and was quite dissappointed with the results.

So it was back to the internet to find something yummy that actually works. I found these chocolate cookies!
They are quite soft and chewy, like a brownie-cookie. I love brownies so thats a great combo for me!

Also no eggs in these, but they do have yogurt. I suppose they are low fat, still plenty of sugar though.

This recipe makes 12 good size cookies.

Ingredients:
1 cup Self-raising flour (or plain with 1/4tsp bicarb)
good pinch of salt
4 tbsp butter/marg
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
7 tbsp cocoa powder
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Method:
- Preheat oven to about 180°c (350°f). Line two trays with baking paper or whatever you normally use.
- Measure out the flour and salt and chocolate chips into a mixing bowl.
- Melt the butter in the microwave or over a pan of hot water.
- Add the sugars, cocoa and vanilla to the butter and mix up to form a sandy goo. Add the yogurt and mix it in.
- Add the chocolate gloop into the flour and mix until combined.
- Use a spoon to make six blobs of mixture on each tray, make sure they are quite far apart.
- Pop them in the oven for about 10-12mins (depending on your oven)
- After 8 minutes mine looked really puffed up so I squished them down a bit with a fork them left them for another 2 minutes.
- Let them cool for a bit on the tray.
- Even better the next day, just like brownies.
- nom nom nom

I found this recipe over here The Little Chef   (no, not that Little Chef another one) who in turn found them here Orangette.
Wherever they came from orignally they officially rock!

When buttons are biscuits

Due to my current minor obsession with button shaped things, I made some button biscuits! I must admit that I was rather inspired by a post at Forty-sixth at Grace. Her un-baked cookies look so lovely in pastel colours.

Mine are not such a pretty shade but tasted pretty good. Not too sweet (a nice change after the fudge incident) more like a shortbread biscuit. I had to add some extra flour as the mixture was a little sticky and it really does help if you refrigerate it for the times suggested. I am very impatient and tend to stick things in the freezer for 5 minutes and hope for the best. I used a skewer to do the holes in the middle.


Even the recipe is cute! It can be downloaded via Forty-sixth at Grace as a beautifully illustrated page by Eva Juiliet.

Valentines creamy fudge hearts

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today I had a go at making fudge. It's one of those recipes that people avoid as it's hard to get right. I wish I'd known that before I set out! ha ha.

I don't think I got it quite right. Everything seemed to go okay - but the texture isn't very creamy it's more like a sugar mouse. (Which is fine but they are way easier to make, you don't have to boil sugar or anything). These are also VERY VERY sweet.


If you'd like to have a go, I got the recipe here: creamy fudge hearts,  it's on the Martha Stewart site.

I only made half the quantity suggested and I'm glad I did as anymore would have bubbled over the top of the pan! To be fair it does say what size pan you need but I don't really get what a quart is. Anyway, you need a BIG pan, a jam/candy thermometer and lots of patience.


The fiancé would like to add at this point that VERY VERY sweet is an understatement.

EDIT: They tasted much better the next day! Still sweet but a lot more creamy.

It's nearly Christmas

I love Christmas time. And not just the big day. I love shopping for presents and making Christmas-y things and watching Christmas songs on VH1.

I've tried something new this year - edible tree decorations. I used Nigella's recipe from her Christmas book (recipe also available here) to make these sort-of-gingerbread biscuits.

Next time I think I'll use a lot less pepper than she suggests. They still taste nice but, yes, peppery. I tried a few different cutters like hearts and bells but the tree shaped ones came out best. I really like their traditional look, especially with the red ribbons.

I was going to make cards again too but I didn't have time as I was designing engagement announcements. *giant grin* That's right my man and I got engaged!

Warm spiced apple drink recipe

Seems like a lot of people's favourite part of winter is that feeling you get when you can finally be toasty warm and cuddled up with a hot drink!

This is one of my favourite spots for a hot chocolate, especially while out shopping. I don't drink coffee so I'm a big fan of hot chocolate.

Last winter I visited a friend on a feezing cold day and she had made a warm spiced apple drink which was just as delicious, not to mention a lot healthier. So I thought I'd share the recipe - it's really easy.

All you need is a litre of apple juice, a cinnamon stick, 3 whole cloves , a couple of strips of orange zest and a pinch of ground allspice.

Pop all the ingredients in a pan and simmer very gently for around half and hour. Make sure to remove the spices before serving in warmed glasses or mugs. Enjoy!

Crêpes and hot chocolate fudge sauce - recipe

Crêpes are much lighter than pancakes and very tasty. These recipes are really easy and don't need any special ingredients. I am so impressed with how well this sauce works, there must be some kind of magic involved.

I've put the american measurements on here as they are easier for this kind of simple baking and you can double them up quickly for more people. No pictures again I'm afraid - they just don't stay around long enough!

Crêpes (makes 4)

1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup water
pinch salt
1 tbsp melted butter (or oil)
1/2 cup plain flour

Mix egg, milk, water and butter in a bowl add salt and flour last. Beat till it's smooth.
(I put it to one side at this point while I made the sauce.)
When you are ready put a frying pan on a medium heat and add a little butter or spray oil.
Put 1/4 cup of the batter in the middle of the pan and swirl it around.
After about a minute the edges will start to lift slightly and look a bit crispy - slide a fish slice or something similar underneath and flip it over to cook on the other side until it's slightly brown.
Serve folded over with chocolate sauce in middle. yum.

Magic hot chocolate sauce (plenty for 4 crepes or even 4 ice creams)

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp flour for runny sauce or 2 tbsp for super thick sauce
1/2 cup water
2 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp butter (or oil)

Mix the sugar, flour, salt and water together in a small pan with a whisk then add the cocoa and stir over a medium heat until it starts to boil.
It suddenly goes really thick and gorgeous!
Take it off the heat and stir in the butter and possibly a drop or two of vanilla or coffee.
Let it cool slightly.
Try not to eat too much of it before the crêpes are ready!

(I found these recipes here and here.)

Chocolate cake with no egg - recipe

This recipe is super easy to make and doesn't use any eggs so its great for when there's nothing in the house but you want something tasty to eat!
(I suppose it could also be pretty handy if you don't/can't eat eggs/dairy for some reason too)

I made this cake the other day and it was lovely and moist and it tasted even nicer the next day - a bit more brownie-like. I've not tried using this recipe for cupcakes yet, but I can't see a reason why it wouldn't work. The mixture is quite runny though.

Ingredients (UK notes)

- 1 3/4 cup sifted cake flour (we don't have cake flour so I just used plain- 195g)
- 1 cup sugar (used granulated, seemed okay - 225g)
- 1/4 cup cocoa (30g)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda (used bi-carb)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup fat (butter/marg 75g or apparently you can use 70ml of veg oil)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (mine was fine without this!)
- 1 tablespoon vinegar (used red wine vinegar as thats what we had around)
- 1 cup cold water (240ml - I read somewhere you can use coffee if you like)

Basically, you mix it all together and pour it into a greased + floured 8in/20cm tin and cook it for 30mins on 305f which is about 180c (gas mark 4) I did mine on closer to 160c as we have a fan oven.

I must admit I recently bought a set of measuring 'cups' so I can do American recipes really quick, no scales required!

Mini Pineapple-up-side-down Cakes

This week I decided to try some more baking, since my man is a big fan of fairy cakes, I usually make those but these are just as easy.
This amount makes 4 individual cakes.

Ingredients:
1 small tin of pineapple chunks (or rings) in own juice.
50g Flour (50g is just under 2oz)
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Bicarb (I find this works better than SF flour)
50g Sugar
1 egg
50g Butter (I use low fat marg, seems to work)

Pre-heat you oven to 200c (400f or gas mark 6)

Line 4 tiny tins or ramekins with butter and sprinkle a little sugar in the bottom.

Line the bottom of the tin with pineapple.

Mix the other ingredients together in a bowl or mixer, when its kinda runny mix in a tablespoon or two of the pineapple juice from the tin.

Split it between the tins.

Pop in the oven and bake for 10-15 mins.

Leave to cool a little - then run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake
and turn out onto a plate.

I found that sometimes they rise a bit in the middle - to make them sit flat on the plate cut the extra bit off with a knife before you turn them out.

Theres no pictures yet as they didn't stick around long enough last time! yum.