No, I’m not referring to the New York Times perfect chocolate chip cookie, alas. I have been trying to find an easy, quick and tasty recipe to add stuff to and I think I might have cracked it. For me, the perfect cookie is crispy round the outside and squidgy in the middle and this is it! In the interests of fairness I must openly disclose that I am a peanut butter fiend but if you’re not, I’m sure the peanut butter M&Ms could be replaced with smarties, plain M&Ms or indeed chocolate chips.

These spread a little more than I was expecting so they’re not the neatest. Bear this in mind when you’re baking these! Next time I’ll split them between two cookie sheets.

You will need:
100g of butter, softened
100g light brown sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
150g self raising flour
100g peanut butter M&Ms (I bought these on eBay)

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy, then beat in the syrup. Add roughly half the flour and mix until combined, then add the rest of the flour with the M&Ms. Get in with your fingers and make sure the M&Ms are evenly mixed in. Divide into 14 balls (or more if you prefer a smaller cookie) and place onto baking sheets lined with greaseproof paper. Bake for 12-15 minutes until light brown around the edges. Place on a wire rack to cool.

Posted under baking, recipes

Nothing ever goes easily in this house of mine! I threw this mixture together, got it all in my piping bag and managed to pipe 8 rounds before my piping bag exploded! If you decide that you want to make piped biscuits like these can I heartily recommend acquiring a piping ball like this one as it’s less fragile than a bag. I got mine years ago from a Tupperware catalogue but I’ve lent it to Kirsty so I ended up just placing teaspoonfuls spread well apart on a baking sheet. It meant these were slightly less pretty but still very yum!

I also cheated as I made these at 11pm the night before we left to go on holiday so instead of using the ganache to sandwich the biscuits together, I used chocolate spread which worked wonderfully.

You will need:

225g butter, softened
60g icing sugar
25g dark chocolate, melted
170g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tbsp rice flour
2 tbsp icing sugar for dusting

for the filling:
225g unsalted butter, softened
180g icing sugar
25g dark chocolate, melted

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy then stir in melted chocolate. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and rice flour and stir into the creamed mixture.
Pipe the mixture using your largest fluted nozzle into 2 inch rosettes spaced 2 inches apart on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

For the filling: Beat butter and icing sugar, then stir in the chocolate. Spread the filling onto the bottom half of the cookies, and then sandwich together with the other halves

Dust with the icing sugar.

Posted under baking, recipes

I’ve seen these glorious things of beauty on so many blogs over the last few months. In a multitude of colours too, they just scream EAT ME! So when I came across this apparently simple recipe I decided to have a go for myself. My first attempt wasn’t so good – we didn’t make it to the sandwiching stage this time – but apparently once you’ve mastered them you’ll want them all the time.

Firstly, you’ll notice that my macarons are a bit lumpy. The reason for this is that my ground almonds were not fine enough – it’s not enough to pass it through a sieve, ideally you want to have these mixing in a food processor with the icing sugar and cocoa. Alas, avid fans may remember my food processor had a bit of an accident and I haven’t been able to replace it yet. I have subsequently been told that this is the definitive recipe for chocolate macarons but it’s slightly different to what I did.

You may have noticed that my photo quality has been – well, abysmal lately. Unfortunately I’m relying on my mobile phone just now until I get my camera sorted so please bear with me!

You will need:
3 egg whites
50g granulated sugar
200g icing sugar
110g ground almonds
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Preheat your oven to 150C/Gas 2. Combine the icing sugar, ground almonds and cocoa powder and put them in a food processor to get rid of any lumps. In a glass or metal bowl, beat the egg whites until they begin to hold a shape then and slowly add the sugar. Beat until they are stiff then fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites half at a time. Pipe them on baking trays lined with greaseproof paper and bake them at 150C for 12 to 15 minutes. Sandwich them together with a chocolate ganache or if (like me) you’re a bit lazy, get some nutella on the go.

Let me know if you’ve made these and have had better success than I did!

Posted under baking, recipes

I’m not sure what to call this post! The cake wot I made has so many different identites that I know – millionaire’s shortbread, caramel shortcake, caramel cake to name but a few – that you will probably all call this something different. Whatever you call it, I found an old recipe that my Mum used to use and decided that I’d try this out. I must admit that I’m not a big fan of caramel cake so I only had a little bit of this, but Bob and my Nana liked it so I must be doing something right!

Now, being the kind soul that I am I’m going to give you two alternative recipes for the caramel. I misread the recipe from the side of the condensed milk can and ended up with a treacley caramel which made more of an adult cake. My Mum’s is a lighter caramel.

You will need for the base:
100g butter
50g caster sugar
150g self raising flour

Preheat your oven to 200C/Gas 6. Cream together the butter & sugar then add the flour. Spread into a greased & lined 20cm square tin and bake for 20 mins. Allow to cool.

You will need for my Mum’s filling:
100g caster sugar
100g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
400g tin condensed milk

Place all ingredients into a pan, bring to the boil stirring constantly. Boil for 4 minutes then spread over your cake base and leave to cool.

OR, you will need for the filling I used:
25g butter
150g dark brown soft sugar
400g can condensed milk

Place the butter and sugar in a pan and stir over a medium heat until the butter melts and the sugar has mostly dissolved. Add the condensed milk stirring continuously until the first bubbles appear on the surface. Remove from the heat and spread over the base.

Once your caramel has set, melt 200g chocolate (I used 100g milk and 100g dark) and spread over your caramel. Leave it for 15 minutes to cool and if your chocolate has semi set, lightly mark out the squares on the surface before leaving in the fridge to set properly.

Posted under baking, recipes

Everyone who emailed me about the bake swap should have received an email detailing their swap partner. If you haven’t got yours, let me know

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that my children (Nairn in particular) are obsessed with starbucks and in particular with their ooey gooey marshmallow twizzlers? Now I’m not a skinflint by any stretch of the imagination but £1.50 for three marshmallows and a bit of chocolate is extortion in my book and definitely comes under the veil of, “Things wot I could do myself for cheaper”. I should mention as Apryl reminded me that you can do this with bananas too, I usually skewer the banana and stick it in the freezer for about an hour so that it’s easier and more solid to work with.

So! Stick a few marshmallows on a skewer like so. Melt your 100g bar of chocolate in the microwave or in a double broiler, and dip the skewer into the melted chocolate, lift and tap the skewer on the side of the bowl to let any big drips fall off.

Holding your skewer over a bowl, shake some hundreds and thousands over your skewer. Dip the end into the bowl to make sure it’s coated.

Place your skewer into a glass and put in the fridge to let the chocolate set

Hand to 8 year old child for a verdict.

Posted under for the kids, swaps, with the kids

So, the second of my cakes from yesterday and alas this one is a bit of a sad story. I mentioned yesterday about listening to your cakes – when you’re baking, a quick and easy way to tell if your cake is finished cooking is to listen to it. Put your ear to your cake and if it’s not quite ready you’ll be able to hear little bubbles popping and you should put your cake back in the oven. A done cake should be silent. Well! I pulled this loaf out after 40 minutes and it was still bubbling so I put it back in for five minutes and pulled it out without listening. Had I done that, I’d have realised that the centre was completely raw and that my cake would collapse as soon as it started cooling. Sigh.

Anyway, the parts of the cake that were cooked were out of this world but this is a cake I’d definitely recommend being careful with.

To make it yourself, you will need:

140g butter , softened
200g self-raising flour
1½ tsps baking powder
200g light brown sugar
3 large eggs
6 tbsp milk
finely grated zest 1 large orange

For the topping
3tbsp juice from your zested orange
50g golden caster sugar
50g dark chocolate

Preheat your oven to 180C/Gas 4. Grease and line the base of a 1.2l (2pint) loaf tin. Put all the cake ingredients into a bowl and beat with a hand whisk or wooden spoon for 3-5 mins until light and fluffy. Spoon the mixture into the tin and level the top.

Bake for 40-50 mins until golden brown and firm to the touch. Meanwhile, heat the orange juice and sugar gently in a small pan, stirring until dissolved. When the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and spoon over the orange mix. Leave to cool in the tin, then remove and cool completely on a wire rack. I usually mark holes in the top of this cake the way I would with lemon drizzle cake, using a skewer.

Break up the chocolate and melt. Drizzle over the cake and leave to set.

Posted under baking

Now I know what you’re thinking. “Vonnie, that cake doesn’t look cooked!”

WRONG!

This is Nigella Lawson’s chocolate mousse cake, the recipe can be found in her book “How to be a Domestic Goddess” and if you click on the photograph, I’ve posted it on the flickr page. It’s yummy, probably massively calorific and best of all? It uses eight whole eggs.

So I only have 30 left to find a use for…

Posted under baking