Not quite a caramel cupcake

I might have been a little rash this weekend when offering to make caremel cupcakes for N. I was sure I had a great recipe stashed away and all the ingredients. I was mistaken, no recipe, no frosting ingredients and in the end no inspiration.

It took me all day to figure out what to make, and when I finally did it was late, I was lacking ingredients and quite frankly couldn't be bothered. So I went for the fall-back option. A batch of caramely ba-cookies. I would have made the white chocolate and macadamia nut ones again (definitely the favourite in Our Lovely Flat (tm), but no-where round here seems to stock macadamia nuts. Instead I decided to use the base batter and add some golden syrup and fudge pieces to it in the hopes of producing a chunky chewy cookie with a nice caramel flavour.

Whilst doing all of this I managed to pursuade N into the kitchen. I was very impressed by his eagerness because the cricket as on the TV (yes, we finally cut the damn tree down and have TV signal again...too late to watch the Tour de France but just in time for the final cricket one day matches and of course, the premier league football. Hurrah!). Rather than baking wih me N very kindly took some pictures of me whilst making the cookies, so for once you'll have insight into just how messy I manage to be and how little space I allow myself to work in.The cookies didn't take long to come together, and although I baked them for slightly too long (forgetting that the ones I'd made previously had been much larger) they still came out chewy with only a slight crisp at the edge. N was impressed with them, and like the caramel flavour, but I'm not a big fan to be honest. They are "alright" but nothing more if you ask me, mostly because I want a big chunky cookie, and these are more a chewey biscuit because the fudge pieces aren't large enough to provide hunks in the batter.

Not a disaster by any means (I wrapped three for N's lunch today and he's not complaining) but I think they need some tweaking and next time I think I'll just make vanilla cupcakes and whack a hunk of fudge on top, or give in to normal chocolate chip ba-cookies!


Caramel ba-cookie biscuits.

1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 light muscovado sugar
1/4 granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp golden syrup
1 cup bake-stable fudge pieces

Preheat Oven to 180C and line two baking sheets.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. In a large bowl cream the butter and sugars until creamy and light. Beat in the egg and vanilla until well combined, then stir in the golden syrup. Add flour mixture, stir until just blended. Stir in the fudge pieces. Chill the dough for half and hour (to firm it up enough to form into balls)

Place walnut-sized pieces of dough on lined baking sheets. Bake for 10-15 mins.

ED's Note: In the process of writing out the recipe I have realised why my cookies turned out more like biscuits. I mis-read the ingredients and used baking powder rather than soda. Oops! No such a domestic goddess afterall! In which case they might turn out much nicer if you actually follow the recipe correctly!