Triple Chocolate Muffins

This is super easy a delivers a ridiculous chocolate kick. It’s a twist on a Hummingbird Bakery recipe but I added more chocolate and thought to hell with frosting. It’s Monday night and I have Hot Cross Scones to make – more about those in another post. So here we go. 

Ingredients

80g soft butter (I mean it – let that stuff get warmed up)

280g caster sugar

200g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

40g cocoa powder

240ml whole milk

2 large eggs

50g milk chocolate cut into chunks

50g white chocolate cut into chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/GM 5.
2. Put the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder in a bowl and mix until like fine sand. I was almost tempted to use a food processor but you need to mix the next bit and who wants that much washing up.
3. Whisk the eggs into the milk and add ¾ of it to the flour mixture. Then mix until smooth. Add the last bit and do the same. Then fold in the chunks.
4. Divide the mixture into 12 large muffin cases. Mine had high sides so if you have the regular sized ones maybe go for making 16 or stick with 12 and let the muffins fall over the top of the cases. That always looks generous when giving someone a muffin.
5. Bake for 20- 25 minutes if making 12 – if more than  17-20.

Told you it was easy!



Chocolate Marshmallow Pie

I made this around Thanksgiving and it truly is an American pie. It came from Jamie's magazine and I have to say mine looks very much like the picture! I love how they use crumb bases, rather than faff around with pastry bases, most of the time. This appeals to me. Plus this pie allowed me to blowtorch marshmallows – always a pleasure.

This pie went to the top of the favourites list for many of my work colleagues, which is not to be sniffed at. It’s very rich so only a small slice is needed per person. I’d encourage you to make this is a pie dish as the heavy weight of it lends something to the whole experience. I’ve found that TK Maxx has great deals on bakeware and the one near me always had a selection of pie dishes in various sizes.

Ingredients

Base

225g digestive biscuits

1 tbsp plain flour

Pinch of salt

115g melted butter, cooled

Filling

75g plain flour

25g cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

75g dark muscovado sugar

100g butter

100g dark chocolate – no more than 60% cocoa

150ml cold water

1 egg

Topping

Make your own marshmallows – recipe here – or just buy a pack

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.
2. Put the biscuits, flour and salt in food processor and pulse until fine. Then add the melted butter, whizz and put the resulting crumb in the pie dish (mine was 23cm). Chill for 20 minutes. (You can always bash the hell out of the biscuits using plastic bags and a rolling pin, doing the mixing in a bowl).
3. Once chilled bake the base for 10 minutes.
4. Now for the filling. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt into a bowl.
5. In a saucepan put the sugar, butter (chop up) and chocolate (broken into pieces) with the water and heat gently until melted and smooth. Take off the heat, add the dry mixture and the egg, then mix together well.
6. Pop in the oven for 10 minutes. Don’t worry when you take it out – it should look wobbly. It will firm up as it cools.
7. Once cool, or just before serving, arrange the marshmallows on top and blowtorch!!! Serve.

Marshmallows (with no sugar thermometer)

So I'm writing this while waiting to run up and down a hill. It's The Thew's fault as he signed up for a race up and down three hills (hilariously called The 3 Molehills) and of course his family followed suit. My sister-in-law asked if I'd do one of the stages, so she could do only two, and for some reason I said yes.

Outside its pouring with rain and fairly cold. I'm surrounded by people waiting for their stage who seem genuinely excited about running and it's not helping my mood. I don't enjoy running and somehow I seem to do so much of it. I suppose it keeps me fit and gives me a focus for the monotony of the gym but it's annoying I don't enjoy it. Seriously it would make my life easier if I was super thrilled to run around all day, get muddy and sweat in public.

However the place where I'm waiting has a little Christmas shop so it's better than a tent in a field. It's getting all festive and before Christmas hits we have Thanksgiving to do first. If you know Americans, or anyone who has lived there for a while, try and celebrate it with them. There is all the good food and marshmallows play a large part. I mean they put them on top of sweet potatoes!!!! However, these ones are destined to be put on top of a chocolate pie. I thought I should try making them and sugar thermometer be damned. These are sufficiently good and I did it based on time rather than temperature. You can flavour and colour them however you like but I kept these white and vanilla to complement the dark richness of chocolate.

Ingredients
175ml water
300g granulated sugar
100ml golden syrup
5 sheets (about 9g) gelatine sheets
1/2tsp vanilla extract
Optional food colouring
Icing sugar
Oil
Cornflour

1. Put the water, sugar and syrup in a pan. Dissolve everything together on a medium heat and them put on medium/high. Once boiling set your timer for 9 minutes.
2. Put the gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water. Once soft transfer to a large bowl and add the vanilla.
3. Get a loaf tin and lightly grease with vegetable oil. Then coat with cornflour. This is going to help you get the marshmallow out. It will be a pain still but at least you're ahead of the game.
4. Once the timer goes off slowly pour the sugar syrup into the bowl while whisking. I did it with hand held but a free standing with balloon whisk would be easier. Once all the syrup is in mix for 10 minutes. Yep - 10 minutes. This will transform the golden liquid into white fluffy sticky mallow.
5. Pour into tin and let set for a few hours.
6. To get it out I recommend having a pile of icing sugar on hand. Cover your fingers in it and gently prise one end away from the shortest side with the tin as upside down as you can. Then keep re-covering your fingers in icing sugar and slowly ease it from the tin onto a surface covered in icing sugar.
7. Cut with a sharp knife dipped in icing sugar and seal any sticky edges with some. There done!



Chocolate Malt Biscuits

A couple of weekends ago some good friends of mine got married. The night before one of the Bride's friends, who I met on the hen, stayed over at mine as we were decorating a boat together on the wedding day (I know - random). Anyway she brought many lovely gifts with her, one of which being a jar of caramel biscuit spread (the others alcohol based) which we had discussed in length on the hen do. It’s basically the caramel biscuits you sometimes get with tea or coffee in the little wrapper mushed up to make a spread. I know!!! 

She proceeded to reveal a packet of malted milk biscuits from her bag as these are the structure she had found best to spread this on. It was immense.  

So that got me thinking about malt and biscuits. I’m a fan of malt. I’ll have a malt shake over a pure milkshake but I’ve never been a fan of malt loaf or malt drinks. However the malted milk biscuits were good and so I investigated. I found a recipe and they worked out very well. I made 2 ½ times this amount as my work eat biscuits like the world is ending and I needed lots! 

Ingredients

150g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

100g butter (soft)

75g granular sugar

60g Ovaltine

2 large egg yolks (you can whisk up the whites, add 120g caster sugar to make 2 large meringues. Bake on the lowest heat you have for about 1 hour, turn off the oven and leave to cool in the oven).

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Leave to one side for the moment.

3.    Cream the butter and sugar together until it’s got pale. Everyone goes for this fluffy thing but unless you have a free standing whisk thing then about3 or 4 minutes will do.

4.    Then add the Ovaltine, egg yolks and vanilla. Mix well.

5.    Add the flour mixture and you’re done. You may need to use your hands to bring the mixture together as it will just look like wet sand.

6.    Then divide into 16 balls.

7.    Space them out on a baking tray – no more than 8 on a large cookie sheet – and press them down until they are about 1cm thick. Bake for 11 minutes. No more, no less!

8.    Cool and eat with a glass of milk.

 

Look - spread on biscuits!!! Oh and wine.

 

Rocky Road Shambles

I was seeing some friends and wanted to bring them some goodies. I decided to make my Fruit and Nut bars as one of my friends is vegan and these don't contain any ingredients derived from an animal source. However Holland and Barrett were out of flame raisins so I got regular ones. BIG MISTAKE. The juiciness of flame raisins basically helps hold everything together.

So I found myself with fruit and nut rubble. It tasted great but it definitely wasn't a gift so I just left in the fridge and went with flowers and wine. After a lovely weekend I returned the rubble. I hate wasting food and was desperately trying to think what to do with it all. Then the eureka moment happened. What about just bunging it all in melted chocolate? I had some chocolate chips in the fridge and some golden syrup to bulk it out. Brilliant. But was chocolate going to be enough?

A quick trip to the local shop later gave me some marshmallows to complete the mixture. There isn't really a recipe here, just some lessons. If you make Fruit and Nut bars use flame raisins. Most things can be improved by chocolate and marshmallows.

Chocolate Cake in a Mug

This should have been a photo of the cake but it all went rather quickly at work

Yes you read that right. Cake you make in a mug. It’s not a new thing but I’ve finally tried it and it’s a success. The main thing is eating it when it’s warm as it doesn’t cool down well. You’ll also need a really big mug as it does rise up and can spill over or instead just divide the mixture between two mugs. 

This obviously isn’t going to be the best chocolate cake in the world but it isn’t half bad for something that comes out of the microwave.  You could also make it in a bowl and spoon it out to have with ice cream.

Ingredients

4 tbsp self-raising flour

4 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1 egg

3 tbsp vegetable oil

3 tbsp chocolate hazelnut spread (basically Nutella)

3 tbsp milk

Optional – squirty cream 

1.    Put all the ingredient in a mug and whisk together with a fork. Be sure the get everything mixed well.

2.    If making one mug put into the microwave on a plate and nuke for 2-3 minutes on your highest setting.

3.    If making two then pour half the mixture into another mug and nuke each one individually for 1 ½ - 2 minutes.

4.    Top with cream if you want.

Bacon and Chocolate Chip Cookies (Primal/Gluten Free/Dairy Free)

Primal – sounds fairly basic and maybe a little bit cool huh? It’s apparently a diet. Not a ‘less not eat anything until we need to pass out and then have a small piece of cheese’ diet but one that looks at what we evolved to eat. Or something like that. It’s probably like the Paleo diet and the Caveman diet and anything else that basically doesn’t let you eat anything fun or anything that was invented in France – French bread, pastries, macaroons, croissants (some of these things may not have been invented in France but I can’t be bothered to research in this for the sake of this). 

I’m slightly suspicious of these kinds of restrictions on what you eat, mainly because it stops me eating chocolate and bread. The Thew follows a Paleo-esque diet. He eats an incredibly healthy diet so he can drink lots of alcohol and maintain fitness. Currently he is spending most evenings upside down in a handstand position against one of our walls. Hey – whatever works for you! 

My good friend Claire shared this recipe with me and, while I’m not sure about trying to recreate recipes using paleo/primal ingredients in place of good old butter and sugar, it was intriguing enough for me to give them a try. The original method I read is a bit lacking on details and the one thing you need to do with these kind of recipes is a good methodology if you have any hope in hell of making something that looks like the ‘real’ thing. Many people at work liked these, and they are ok, but I’d just rather eat a chocolate chip cookie made with brown sugar and wheat flour. I’m not sure what the bacon adds, other than a bit of salty taste, but I guess it’s to add protein. Anyway, if this is your thing, go knock yourself out! 

Ingredients

5 rashers of streaky bacon (I used M&S)

60ml of maple syrup (plus 125ml – see below)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

125ml coconut oil (make sure it’s fairly well melted so room temp or melt it first)

125ml maple syrup

1 tsp bicarb of soda

1 tsp salt

300g ground almonds

200g dark chocolate chips 

1.    Preheat the oven the 190°C/GM 5.

2.    Dip the bacon in the maple syrup and bake for about 25 minutes. It may need longer. Put them on foil to save mess. Turn half way through and ignore how burnt the foil gets from the run off maple syrup. Cool, ideally on fresh foil or greaseproof paper. They are very sticky! Chop into bits.

3.    Whisk the eggs, vanilla, coconut oil and 125ml maple syrup together in a bowl. You want to goof frothy mixture as the eggs will add air to the mixture and help keep them light.

4.    In a large bowl mix the bicarb, salt and almonds. Add the egg mixture and whisk together.

5.    Add the chocolate chips and bacon bits stirring to incorporate.

6.    The put heaped teaspoons of mixture on a baking tray, leaving space between them. Flatten them out with the back of a spoon or spatula so they resemble a cookie shape.

7.    Bake for 11-12 minutes – you want them turning golden brown. Cool completely before serving.

Makes about 30.

N.B. I made these afterwards without the bacon and they worked well. The bacon definitely gives a good savoury/salty edge but it's not necessary.

 

Chocolate Cookies

I almost didn’t bake this week but then decided to. I ran home from work last night, as part of my training for a half marathon, and was exhausted by having to dodge out of the way of people who somehow failed to see me barrelling towards them. They’re happily walking along, minding their own business, when all of a sudden they realise that they could be not minding their own business and get in the way of someone running if only they moved about two feet to the left. They swiftly action this movement and cause me to have to jump into the road while yelling ‘I’m running here’ in a Brooklyn accent (that last bit is said in my head as per Sandra Bullock trying to glide in Miss. Congeniality – ignore me if you haven’t seen it). 

Anyway, while I have successfully taken out a few people while running (once in a particularly epic way) it’s not my preferred way of dealing with it. Run around and rack up some karma (minus whatever comes off for yelling at them in my head). Due to the running home I hadn’t picked up supplies so had to work with what was in the fridge and my cupboard. I haven’t stocked up in a while but luckily these use basic ingredients that I tend to have. 

Be warned. These are a little messy to make as you’re rolling sticky dough in your hands. If you have small children that need to be kept busy (and you’re not concerned about the hygiene of them licking their hands and stuff) get them to do it. The final result is worth it though as these are lovely and chewy. Almost brownie like if that makes sense.  

Ingredients

125g butter (ideally soft)

175g caster sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

125g plain flour

35g cocoa powder (use a good one)

Generous ½ tsp bicarb of soda 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Cream together the butter and sugar. If you can’t be bothered to let the butter get soft, cut it into small pieces and whizz it on its own for a while. Then add the sugar.

3.    Add the egg and vanilla, mixing well.

4.    Add all the dry ingredients, remembering to sift the cocoa powder in (I just measure both the flour and cocoa in the same bowl and sift it together).

5.    Then comes the messy part. Roll heaped teaspoons of the dough into balls. You’ll get about 23-26 depending on size. So walnut size I suppose.

6.    Line a baking tray/sheet and place well apart as these spread like anything. Place the balls of dough on and bake for about 10 minutes. They’ll come out looking puffy but will settle down flat.

7.    Keep on the baking paper while they cool a bit and then take off and cool completely on a wire rack. (Obviously eat one while they are still warm!)
 

Nigella's Clementine Cake

The Thew has informed me that he sends people to my blog to get the recipe for the Clementine cake that I make and that they can’t ever find it. Well that is because it hasn’t been on here until now. I thought I should rectify the matter as it’s a great cake and one of those dairy and wheat free ones that rock (it’s not vegan because it uses eggs). 

I don’t think that you can get this wrong. It’s so easy and don’t be put off by the long time needed to poach the clementines. It’s very low intensity and fills your home with the most wonderful smell. The addition of chocolate to the top makes this a kind of massive Jaffa Cake. 

Ingredients

375g clementines (now you want to go over not under on weight so don’t worry if you’re at the 390g mark)

6 large eggs

225g sugar

250g ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder (use gluten free if you want to keep non-wheat eaters happy)

100g dark chocolate (I sometimes use Maya Gold Green and Black as it has orange oil in it) 

1.     Fill a large saucepan with water and put the whole clementines in. Bring to the boil, cover and let simmer for 2 hours. By covering the saucepan the water won’t evaporate so you won’t need to keep topping up to ensure the clementines float throughout the poaching process.

2.    Once done, remove from the water and cool slightly. Cut in half, remove the pips and whatever is left of the stalk and pulp everything left including the skin.

3.    Preheat the oven to 190°C/GM5 and line a springform tin, greasing with oil to keep dairy free. I’ve used both a 20cm and 23cm tin so whatever you have.

4.    Beat the eggs well – make sure they get light and foamy. Add the sugar, almonds and baking powder, mixing well before adding the clementine pulp.

5.    Put in the tin and bake for 1 hour. Check after 40 minutes as it does brown and cover with foil for the last 20 minutes if it’s got dark.

6.    While that is going on grate or whizz up the chocolate into little pieces. Once the cake comes out of the oven sprinkle all over the top and watch it melt into a lovely topping.

7.    Cool completely before serving.

Chocolate, Fruit and Nut Bars

 

 

Why couldn’t my mum be from the Maldives? I hear it’s the flattest country in the world. Very flat, no big hills, level. But no. Ireland it is and not just any old part – Connemara with its hills, bogs and lashing of rain. Now on a good day Connemara is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s also good on a bad day when you’re in a car or a pub. When it’s not good would be when you’re running for two miles up a fairly hefty gradient knowing that it’s only the start of the half marathon, or so I imagine. Soon I won’t have to imagine and will actually be experiencing this joyous event for myself. 

 

For some reason I agreed with The Thew when he said that when visiting my family we should time it so we could do the Connemarathon. Ok I agreed to half but still, the course looks brutal. This now means that I have to actually train for it. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have to train for a normal one but it would be so much easier training for one in say the Maldives, than building hill training into my regime and thinking about waterproof clothing. I’m not the biggest fan of running at the best of times so I’ve decided to try and be a bit healthier so I have less of me to drag around the course.

  

So I’m afraid that today’s recipe is fairly healthy (although the dried fruit has a ton of sugar in so not that great – yay!) However it’s very easy and doesn’t involve putting the oven on. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while as The Thew eats a lot of Nakd bars and I think that they are dry and horrible. However when looking at the ingredients the bars should be moist so I decided to try them myself. I’m guessing that Nakd have to dry theirs out more in the cold pressing process they use so that they stay more rigid and can be packed easily. These bars retain the juiciness of the dried fruit used and are fairly sweet with the cocoa adding a nice touch of chocolate.  I actually enjoy these and they have gone down well in the office. Also gluten and dairy free, along with being vegan!

 

Ingredients

290g dried dates (stoned)

175g cashew nuts (not roasted or salted)

100g flame raisins (so I didn't use flame raisins once. You can read what happened here)

10-30g good quality cocoa powder (it’s more to taste and depends on how chocolately you want it. You can always add more so start low and just add more if you think it needs it.) 

 

1.    Whizz the cashews buts in a food processor until they are in tiny pieces.

2.    Add the rest of the ingredients and whizz into a mush. You’ll see what I mean.

3.    Turn out into a silicon or lined tray. I used a 20cm x 20cm silicon tray so something of similar dimension. Smooth out with the back of a spoon.

4.    Cover the top with baking paper and top with heavy books. Ideally the first book would roughly fit the dimensions of the tin to give an even press. Put it in the fridge for anything from 3 – 48 hours.

5.    Remove from the tin and cut into whatever size pieces you want.



Chocolate Chip Cookies

The fear of electrocution finally became too great. I decided to buy a new electric hand whisk as my current one requires me to jam a knife in the top to start it (do not tell The Thew that is what I have been doing). Not the greatest way to start a baking project. I hate shopping but took myself along to John Lewis where the cheapest, and lightest, hand whisk wasn't available (why is it on the shelf then?!) but one 2 ½ times more expensive and about eight times as heavy was. I left. I mean who (Kenwood) makes a really heavy hand whisk? Yes it was very pretty but I have to hold the thing and cream butter and sugar together. Luckily my local Tesco had a nice cheap and light hand whisk so I was saved from electrocution. 

I decided to celebrate by finding a recipe that required a lot if whisking. However while looking for this I found my chocolate chip cookie recipe I thought I had lost. It’s brilliant and simple, making a crunchy, yet chewy, cookie. You can freeze it and cook from frozen as well as make giant cookies if you have a pizza pan to bake it in. The recipe makes a lot of dough but that was fine by me as I had need of a lot of baked goods. I’m on film shoots (not as glamorous as it sounds) all this week and I like to bring baked goods with me. I’m bad with names and faces and on shoots I meet so many new people, forget all their names and rely on being the provider of tasty treats to smooth things over.

Apologies for not converting into grams. It’s based on a US recipe and there is something about using cups and basically shoving all the ingredients in together that is so wonderfully easy that I think the experience should be preserved. I also realised, while typing this up, that I used baking powder, not bicarb, which explains why they didn’t come out chewy. They still taste good so have added an option here to pretend that I meant to do it. 

Ingredients

1 ½ cups of butter at room temperature (important!)

1 ¼ cups of granulated sugar

1 ¼ cups of soft dark brown sugar, firmly packed (if you have light then fine but the dark given them a caramel edge)

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

4 cups of flour

2 tsp bicarb of soda (or 2 tsp baking powder if you want them crisper and more biscuit like)

1 tsp salt

300g chocolate chips (whatever you like best – I did a mix of dark and milk) 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM 4.

2.    Put the butter, both sugars, vanilla and eggs in a big bowl. Whisk together. This is why room temperature butter is important as you need it soft otherwise dough will start flying.

3.    Stir the bicarb of soda and salt into the flour.

4.    Alternate adding the flour mixture and chocolate chips until it’s all used up (do about thirds).

5.    Take a rounded tsp of mixture and roll into a ball. Do this for all the mixture – yes it takes a while but watch something on TV.

6.    Cook what you want for 9-12 minutes on a cookie tray and freeze the rest in bags. They cook from frozen in about 18 minutes.  

Makes about 60-80!

Millionaire’s Shortbread

There was very little drama this week in the picking of a recipe. I just did what I’d planned to do last week as I remembered to buy the ingredients I needed. This does not help me with a blog post at all. Therefore I’m not going to waffle on and get straight to the recipe. However I’ll use this space to recommend a couple of plays to read that I've read lately. I get that they won’t be everybody’s cup of tea but then what is?

• August: Osage County by Tracy Letts – excellent play about a family coming together after a death. Lots of different relationships at play, interlinking and exploring what family is. It’s being made into a film so quite excited to see it. 
• A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (free on Kindle) – I randomly came across this on a link to a reading list F. Scott Fitzgerald had given to someone. It explores a woman’s role in marriage and her identity within it. I didn’t realise until I had read it that it was highly controversial at the time of publishing in 1879. The writer had the belief that "a woman cannot be herself in modern society," since it is "an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint." The thought is still sadly relevant over 100 years after first being published so worth a free download and read.  

Ingredients

55g butter, melted

250g shortbread, smashed (either whizz in a food processor or put in a sturdy sandwich bag and whack it with a rolling pin)

150g soft dark brown sugar

150g butter

1 x tin condensed milk (397g)

200g dark chocolate (you can use milk if you prefer)

1 x packet white chocolate buttons (if you want pretty patterns on the top)

1.    I highly recommend using a silicon baking tray thing if you have one. Mine is 20cm square and you'll need to rest it on a chopping board, as you need a solid base when using silicon baking things. If not line a 20cm square tin (or of similar size), making sure you have plenty of grease proof paper over the edges so you can lift the finished product out.

2.    Mix the biscuit crumb into the melted butter. Once mixed press into the bottom of the tray, even out and let set for an hour.

3.    The caramel takes about 10 minutes to get ready. Put the butter and sugar in a saucepan. Melt and mix together on a low heat. Then add the condensed milk, turn up the heat and stir sluggishly while it comes to a rapid boil. This will take about 3-4 minutes. Once boiling keep stirring vigorously for about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir until it stops bubbling when you stop stirring. I know that doesn't quite make sense but stir a bit, see if it bubbles, stir etc etc. You want to cool it a bit.

4.    Pour the caramel over the set base and then let set for another hour or so. I know this seems like a long time to make something that is a pimped up Twix but most of it is leaving it to set and you can make it over a whole day if you have places to be.

5.    Once the caramel is set melt the chocolate in separate bowls. Pour the dark chocolate on first and spread evenly. If using the white chocolate put dollops of it on top and swirl it using the tip of a sharp knife to make pretty patterns. Let set in the fridge.

6.    Now to cut. If using silicon turn it out on a board and if not lift it out using the paper. Then take a long sharp knife and a kettle of boiled water. Pour hot water over the blade of your knife. Wipe off excess water and then rest the blade where you want to cut. The chocolate will melt allowing you to cut through so it doesn't splinter. Repeat after each slice, cleaning the blade. A bit long winded but it works! Makes about 20-25 depending on how many slices you can be bothered to cut up.

Grown Up Cookies (including basic cookie recipe)

Sometimes inspiration strikes in the weirdest places. I found mine this week in a health food shop. I’d sauntered into Holland and Barrett looking for some quinoa flour as I’d seen it in a gluten free recipe. They didn’t have any but I saw some crystallised ginger. Now I’ve never eaten this but one of my friends loves it. In fact ginger is his favourite root. This little gem was gathered when we lived together at university, had clearly run out of conversation and had started on the ‘what’s your favourite …?' game. 

For some reason crystallised ginger has always struck me as a fairly grown up thing to like. Maybe because my friend looks fairly sensible and is now an Accountant. Maybe. Anyway, I picked the packet up and augmented it with a bag of broken brazil nuts (way cheaper than unbroken ones and as I’d probably be chopping them up it made sense). I knew I had chocolate at home but how to bring them all together?!  I was fairly busy at work so hadn’t given it much thought until I struck on one word – ‘COOKIES’! 

So what follows is a basic cookie recipe that you can either use immediately or store in the fridge and cut slices off as and when you need it. Then you just place your extra ingredients on top so that they squish into the cookies while they are in the oven. These cookies have a high butter content so are very crumbly and also tend to spread while baking so leave them space. I think that they are a more grown up type of baked good due to the more advanced flavours of ginger, dark chocolate and nuts. However Smarties, marshmallows and sprinkles would put an end to that.

Ingedients

250g butter (well worth softening it first but otherwise you could grate it to speed up the prep time)

150g granulated sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract (you could add spices for extra flavour)

1 large egg

225g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt (if not using salted butter)

Some chopped toppings – I used dark chocolate, brazil nuts and crystallised ginger 

1.    Cream the butter and sugar together until pale. This is very butter heavy I find it might take a bit longer than usual.

2.    Add the vanilla extract and egg, mixing until it’s combined.

3.    Add the flour and baking powder (along with salt if using) and mix until smooth.

4.    Now put the dough on a large piece of cling film and manipulate into a sausage of dough. I’m sure there is a great method for this but I just make sure I have a lot of cling film and a large, flat surface. It gets there somehow. Key is twisting the ends once it’s roughly 7cm in diameter as this helps get a good shape.

5.    Put the dough in the fridge for an hour or so, or pop in the freezer until you need it.

6.    When you are ready to bake them preheat the oven to 200°C/GM6.

7.    Cut 1cm slices from it and arrange them on a baking tray, allowing space for them to spread out.

8.    Sprinkle on your toppings at this stage. You could just have vanilla butter cookies but shoving extra things in is better! Any chocolate would work, also any chopped nuts. Just experiment with whatever you have hanging around.

9.    Bake for 8-10 minutes (I’d go 10 if the mixture was frozen). When done cool for a couple of minutes and transfer to a cooling rack. If you leave too long they’ll stick (although less of an issue if you’re using baking paper).