Finally...

...It seems that maybe, just maybe, Britain might get some summer. For some reason it hasn't felt like there's been much summer here yet, despite the slightly depressing fact that it was apparently the solstice yesterday. Perhaps I missed it all being stuck in the office, whereas in previous years I have been blissfully at home and therefore able to appreciate each and every day when the sunshine peeks out and the temperature creeps above ten degrees Celsius.

I'm sure it was Molly who once mentioned that bloggers can have a habit of posting less during the warmer sunnier months. I think particularly for those of us who are less used to all this gorgeous weather, and who only get about three days of it a year (yes, I am indeed a jaded Brit), it is imperative to leave the computers behind and head out and frolic.

That's not quite what I've been doing. I would definitely be up for some frolicking in principle, however I have mostly spent the last week and a bit working. The shop I work in has been moving to a larger premises (hurrah!), but being a small business the shifting of boxes was done by us. There is part of me that relishes being back to physical work after months of being in a office. It reminds me of when I was working on the market and shifting palettes of bread every morning. It is a wonderfully satisfying way to spend a day.

But my muscles the following day were not amused, especially when I hauled them out of bed to do it all again!

However, despite the aches and pains and exhaustion that seem to be following me around, there is a huge plus to all this dashing around. You have full license to eat as much as you like! On the actual moving day, when myself and the lovely M shifted box after box and bag after bag from the van to the new shop, dodging pedestrians as we went, I probably ate my body weight in baked goods (and then we discovered the amazing local frozen yoghurt place! I LOVE our new location!), and that's not an insignificant amount. And yet, when I got home, I was still ravenous! Total result. I can once again bake my heart out and stuff my not-so delicate little face with cookies, cakes and tarts and totally justify it (did I mention that the new stock room is on the top floor...I've got a new love affair with all those stairs!)

With all this in mind I decided my co-workers and co-box-sifters might need a little sugar rush to keep the spirits lifted. On our first day open in the new shop I brought everyone cinnamon rolls, topped with my amazing new-found (Thanks Rosy!) cream cheese icing. The days before this, there was a endless supply of cookies.

Why? Because thanks to the advice of a certain young American, who knows her cookies, I was finally pointed in the direction of the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I shall forever be indebted to her, and her French source, for what will quite possibly now always be my go-to cookie recipe. It's crispy yet still chewy, better on the second day, and held up to some adapting. I made them last week, and we ate the remainder today (the recipe makes a LOT) and they were still good. In my eyes, that's the perfect cookie. They even stood up to what is my high water mark of cookies, the pecan and chocolate chip ones from Ottolenghi.

Go, bake and be sated...nom.

The almost-Nestle Tollhouse cookie - Makes enough to feed an army of movers.

2 1/4 cups strong white bread flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups dark chocolate (I used 70%) chopped into chunks
1 cup chopped nuts (I'm a pecan gal myself, but walnuts, hazelnuts etc would work fine)



Preheat the oven to 190C and line all the baking trays you have in the house! No, seriously I used all four of mine a couple of times over as you only really want about six on each sheet in case of spreading. 


Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. In a mixer, or by hand beat together the butter, sugars and vanilla until light and fluffy. Then gradually beat in the eggs one at a time. Gradually add the flour mixture and combine. Then stir in the chocolate and nuts. 


Place rounded teaspoons of dough on the baking sheets a couple of inches apart. Bake for aprox. 8 - 9 minutes until they are just golden brown at the edges (this tip was thanks to M, who pointed out this would maintain a chewy centre. mmmm...)


They will keep for quite a while in a air tight box, but I would recommend them either just warm, or the next day with a nice cup of tea.

Would you like another cookie?

I increasingly find myself baking cookies these days. I think because working six days means I have lost my lazy Sundays of baking, and my weeknights are taken up with either frantic knitting to finish projects (I've become newly obsessed, and last week stayed up until 2am and got up at 8am just to finish something in time to wear for work! - more on this in another post...) or crashing out on the sofa trying to keep my eyes open and my cat happy with some cuddles.

As time has become precious, I want quick fixes. I still want to bake and cook, but am aware that the window for doing so is a lot smaller, especially with all the other things that also get missed and need doing in my snatches of time.

Cookies are perfect, you can whip most recipes up in one bowl, and either cook then and there, or rest the dough in the fridge overnight and pop them in the oven the following day.

This is one of the reasons I chose today's cookie. It meant I could whack it all together last night at ten, and get home to ready mixed deliciousness to be formed into balls and baked. Perfect. There is nothing quite like the smell of cookies baking after work, with the late afternoon sun gently dipping across the garden, and a breeze coming in through the open patio doors. It would be completely idyllic if it wasn't for the stack of washing up on the side, the drying clothes on the rack (and still piles of dirty ones loitering in the bedroom) and the mountains of fur that are beginning to taunt me as I'd rather be baking than hoovering!

Cookies are also a great little gift, a nice homemade thing to say thank you. This weekend I shall be sharing them with a lovely girl I work with at my new job. She makes brilliant cups of tea, humours my love of sport, helps with my knitting disasters and is the perfect company on a rainy Sunday afternoon when work is quiet and we are knitting and nattering. She rocks.

Some shall be going to someone else too, who's husband very kindly presented me with a Ottolenghi cookie a few weeks ago, as he didn't want me to miss out. How lovely is that?! I shall pass on a batch for her and the family as a thank you (She's also the wonderful woman who got me the job, there will be a lot of cookies (and the curd I promised) going her way!)

I borrowed the recipe from Nicole, who adapted it from the ever-great David Lebovitz.

I made a few changes, mostly due to necessity than will. I couldn't bare to part with my entire chocolate stash, so only used a scant two cups (200g) and I used only one cup of nuts, pecans, as I didn't have any more. I also sprinkled them ever so lightly with salt to balance the flavour. I won't pass on my version as Nicole and David have already done such a good job and deserve the credit. I have to admit too that I still found these a little disappointing, and I wonder if my changes are the fault (which is the most likely reason frankly). Don't get me wrong, they are a very good cookie (*nods and munches from the background*), but I still feel like I am searching for my "perfect"  chocolate chip cookie. Perhaps I should just give in and buy the book so I can give the original a go? And really, I don't mind having to bake a few more cookies in the quest for the perfect one. We're troupers in this flat, we'll do out best to try as many cookies as it takes!

The Lazy Sunday Cookie

There is nothing quite like stepping out of the shower at ten past five on a Sunday afternoon and being greeted by the smell of cooling chocolate cookies. I think that's exactly what Sundays should be about.

Yes, I admit it, I did not get out of my pyjamas and dressing gown until after five pm today. And it was wonderful. I'm afraid the day just did nothing to encourage it. We did the hard stuff yesterday. We spent time in the garden, taking our lives in our hands skidding around on the wet slippery decking in order to re-mulch soil and clear up the winter carnage in the vague hope that it won't be long before we're planting and making new veg plans. Then N went out to see some dear friends who have been coping with much tougher battles, while I held the fort here.
It was a late late night, and so when we stumbled out of bed this morning, foraged for food (which seems be somewhat lacking this weekend - how can we have found ourselves without tinned tomatoes, olive oil, and bread in one fell swoop, along with the only vegetables in the house being celery (eurgh!) and a lone aubergine!) and guzzled enough tea to rouse us (thank goodness there is always milk and tea bags!) we discovered it was time for the match, and then it was time to make cookies, and then and only then, was it time for showers.

But the cookies, oh, the cookies! I have just polished off two with another cup of tea, and am worried that if I return for a tea top-up another couple of cookies might disappear. They were a whim. I was going to be good and not bake (yeah, right) and then I was going to be slightly good and make carrot cake, because at least that uses vegetables. But by the time I fished out the recipe and started poking around our cupboards I realised that we were missed more than a few ingredients, and suddenly grating carrots seems like too much effort.

So I decided to make some cookies. I have many many cookie recipes, and two are my standard "go to" plan depending on the specific type I am looking for (the first is a "cakey" plain cookie with chocolate chips, my second a more "cookie" cookie which will handle almost any addition and has a lovely almost caramely base). In the end I used neither. As I was admiring the mess of the baking cupboard a bag of hazelnuts caught my eye, and in a flash I was online digging out a Nigel Slater (who else?!) recipe I'd spotted last week.
They came together in a flash, baked in less time it took to throw them together, and boy did they smell (and taste) amazing. They are slightly crisp on the outside and soft in the middle. They are the epitome of the lazy Sunday. You still have time to make them, go on....

Soft Sunday Cookies (I am renaming them this as it seems very appropriate)

100g dark chocolate, melted
38g soft unsalted butter
112g light muscovado sugar
1 egg
vanilla extract
25g hazelnuts, lightly toasted and ground (coarsly, not too fine)
75g Self raising flour

Preheat the oven to 180C, line two baking sheets with either parchment or silipat stuff.

Cream the butter and sugar together, and then beat in the egg and a dash of vanilla extract. Then add the hazelnuts, flour and chocolate and combine well. If you're doing this in a mixer don't forget to scrap down the sides.

Place dollops of the mixture onto the baking sheets (I used about 2tsp dollops and got 14nice sized cookies) Bake for exactly ten minutes and then remove from the oven. Allow to rest on the sheets for about five minutes, until they stop being too soft to move, then carefully transfer onto a wire rack to cool.

They will be slightly chewy/crisp on the outside and nicely soft in the middle.

p.s. Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments about the marmalade. I'm so pleased that I might have inspired some people to have a go making it themselves. However, I'm probably not helping my business prospects as now everyone will be doing it no-one will buy mine, oops! Seriously though, I hope you're all having as much fun with it as I do. There will be more preserving to come believe me!

Lady Marmalade

Oh yes, it's marmalade season again! Last year I got a little bit "marmalade-herical." There were oranges everywhere, jars filling every surface, and more than one little tearful moment as I feared (again) that my precious batch wouldn't set.

This year? Well, I'm having to be a bit more realistic. There are only so many free hours in my weeks now, and mass marmalade production, although wonderfully fun, can't actually fill all of them when there is laundry to get through, a hungry cat and boyfriend to feed, and several knitting projects waiting to be finished and given as presents. I am scaling down a bit.Well, I say that now. I have a hunch that in a weeks time we'll be drowning in dirty washing, eating toast for dinner and I shall be up to my elbows in jars, sugar and sticky jam funnels.

I love preserving. Why don't more people do it? Okay, I know it's coming back as a "cool" pastime, but seriously folks, I can barely express the joy I get at putting stuff in jars! The thought that this summer if I fancy a spot of marmalade on toast I can reach for, and crack open, ajar of my very own, months after the seville season has finished. I know, I'm gushing, but I just can't help it. Get thee to the grocery, bag yourselves some oranges (sevilles if you can) and start whacking that golden stuff in jars.

You know what marmalade is also good for? Getting your baking mojo back. I kid you not. This week, over tea and cake with a wonderful new friend, I confessed to feeling like I not only don't fancy baking, but even if I did I can't think of anything to make. A shocking admission from a self-professed baking obsessive. Then a little recipe in a magazine caught my eye. Marmalade and ginger cream sandwich cookies. It's marmalade season, and I adore ginger. I had to do it.So yesterday, in a quest to renew my mojo, I made these little cookies with last year's marmalade, while a new batch was on the stove. I am so glad I did. These are a lovely little treat, which go perfectly with a hot strong slightly sweet cup of tea. The marmalade (because I used the bitter seville type) stopped the cookie from being too sweet, and the sweet slightly hot cream in the middle balanced the marmalady kick of the cookie. Plus, as N said,"they feel almost like they should be healthy" because they are packed with oats.

I only made one change to the recipe, I didn't add any water to the cream. They suggest you add a tablespoon of boiling water to thin it out and make it spreadable. Frankly I don't think it needs this at all, and fear that doing so would actually make the cream too thin. Oh, and I used lemon zest where they suggested orange, as I had lemons on hand.Marmalade and ginger cream sandwich cookies (makes aprox 15 little cookies)
From, the Sainsbury's magazine.

cookies:
50g unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
50g light brown soft sugar
zest of one lemon
1 large egg yolk
50g thick cut marmalade
50g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
50g rolled oats

filling:
250g icing sugar
75ml double (heavy) cream
50g soft unsalted butter
75g stem ginger, drained of syrup and finely grated

Preheat the oven to 170C and line two baking sheets with parchment.

Cream the butter, sugars, zest and egg yolk until smooth, and then beat in the marmalade. Mix in the flour and soda, then stir in the oats.

Place rounded teaspoons of the mixture on the baking sheets, allowing space for them to spread. Make sure you have an even number! Bake for 15-20 mins (mine took 20 in a fan oven) until the edges are just golden. Remove and cool on a wire rack.

To make the filling, cream the butter and sugar until smooth and then add the ginger.

When the cookies are cool sandwich two together with a generous amount of ginger cream. Put the kettle on, make a nice pot of tea, and enjoy!

(I stored mine in the fridge overnight to stop the cream from becoming too soft, then removed them for half an hour before eating two for breakfast, oops!)


p.s. I made the crumpets (or rather pikelets,as I didn't have crumpet rings) they were lovely, but refused to photograph well. The recipe is over here, I recommend it...

p.p.s. Turns out my last post was number 300! Hurrah!

O Hai-cookie!

Today, my cookies exploded. Or rather, they decided to spread across the baking sheet as if making a bid for freedom. While this was going I also got distracted by searching for some tracing paper, that I know I have put somewhere safe. So safe it eludes me. As a result we have some rather sad looking dark brown flat cookies cooling on the side. They overspread and in my revenge I over cooked them.

To top it all off I have also managed to break yet another mixing bowl today. The last one was lost whilst cleaning the windows (don't ask...) this one did at least have a baking-related death, albeit involving pitching itself off a radiator whilst the mixture inside it was proving. Suicidal crumpet mix anyone? It's at times like these that I am very pleased that Molly came into my life. I think either I need to move to Alaska or Molly needs to get her butt to London because I know we'd have the best time together drinking beers, browsing cook books, cooing over notepaper and stamps and generally gadding about town. She makes me laugh from all the way across the world. And she is also the creator of the Hai-cookie exchange.

It is through this that I exchanged cookies and haiku with Helen. The deal? Send a dozen cookies and a haiku to whoever you got paired with. I totally lucked out. Not only did Helen's seriously good cookies arrive on my birthday (bonus present!) they also hit the spot exactly with two of my favourite flavours, cranberry and white chocolate and oat and raisin. Mmmm....I can tell you that I waited all of two seconds before devouring them. Delicious. I also got a great baking themed card, and the following haiku:

It's nearly New Year

Time to make resolutions

For the year ahead

Helen in return also got white chocolate and cranberry cookies (mine having macadamia nuts in them too as I can't resist them) and some of my festive stars. I also put in a small bag of homemade marshmallows and some peppermint bark as an extra treat just in case Helen didn't like the cookies. My haiku was:

Festive Happiness

Mulled wine with a dash of spice

Knitting and my cat

Thank you Molly, for being coerced into holding yet another exchange!

I shall post another time with a recipe as I don't think I'll be sharing the one for the cookies I made today, I'm sure none of you need rebel cookies. That is unless they taste amazing, in which case I shall forgive them and show them off another time. Hopefully the crumpet batter has survived despite the cracked bowl and radiator tumble, I'm off to test them now. Updates to follow!

Meyer lemon time!

I don't think it was a Meyer lemon that Nicole sent, but sunshine. Nicole has commented in emails that when her Meyer lemons arrive from her Lemon Ladies it is like a box of sunshine has arrived on her doorstep. I think this is exactly what the Meyer lemon brings, and in the case of this little doorstep it seemed to happen quite literally, upon the arrival of Nicole's package the sun has begun to shine and there has been a definite hint of spring in the air. Hurrah!

Armed with sunshine, a lemon burning a hole in my mixing bowl, and N working from home, I decided on Thursday that it was time to tackle the difficult question of what to make with my yellow bounty.

Having eagerly read all the lemon posts on Nicole's blog I decided that if I could get as much zest and juice as possible from the lemon I could probably make two things. Lemon bars and lemon butter cookies. So I set about very, very carefully zesting my lemon.

I don't think a lemon has ever been so carefully and methodically zested in history. I was determine to get every single last bit of usable zest, and I think I managed it. I was so impressed at how much I managed to get, that I will be more precise in all my lemon zesting in future!

Once I'd done that I rolled the slightly warm lemon (from being in my hands) along a chopping board a few times and then cut it open to juice it. The warming and rolling trick is one from my Mum, she uses it when making lemon curd (yet another thing on my "to make" list this year) and she says that if they are slightly warmed in a microwave or in your hands and/or rolled on a counter top they give more juice. Once again I very carefully got every possible drop out of the lemon, and it turned out to be just enough for the lemon bars. Perfect.

I stupidly didn't save the seeds to plant my very own tree, but given my history of killing off perfectly good fruit trees (my lemon from last year didn't make it through the winter) that's probably for the best.

Having gotten as much as possible from the lemon it was time to get on with the baking action. I did indeed have enough to make both the bars and the cookies! I was so pleased. I adapted the recipes ever so slightly, taking the sugar in both cases, mixing it with the lemon zest and whooshing with my hand blender. This little trick is supposed to get as much oil from the zest as possible (and the oil is where the flavour is) and impart it into the sugar for a stronger flavour. It's not something I've tried before, but wanted to get the most from my Meyer lemon I figured now was the time to try. I have to say both recipes were very Meyer lemony so it probably worked.

I think my bars were a little shallow, probably because I didn't have an 8" square tin and so had to improvise. I also think I might have either over-mixed the topping, or cooked it too long, because it had a slightly white, crusty, almost merengue top. I have to say that I rather liked this about them, as it was very slightly like eating a Meyer lemon version of my Mum's lemon merengue pie (which is delicious in case you were wondering).

The cookies I made in two half batches, one vegan and one non-vegan. I have tucked the dough for the non-vegan away in the freezer so we can draw out our experience of the Meyer lemon for as long as possible (ie until my Mum gets here in a few weeks) and I baked up the vegan version for immediate indulgence. Due to the vegan margarine they were a lot softer than expected, even with a bit more flour added. Even after chilling the dough didn't really firm up enough to slice cleanly, and would probably have benefitted from being rolled and cut with cookie cutters. They also didn't have the short-bready quality that the ones Nicole sent me at Christmas did, again I think because of the marg. They were slightly soft in the middle even after baking and cooling. I still really enjoyed them though, and the flavour was lovely. I'd definitely make them again with ordinary lemons (or Meyer of course if I can source them here) and can't wait to try the all butter ones.

I'm not going to post the recipes because they're there on Nicole's blog and you should head over there an see all the other lovely things she's made with Meyer lemons too.

I will however have another lemon recipe of my own appearing soon which I think would be equally good with Meyer lemons, and that I plan to serve with Nicole's Meyer lemon jelly to celebrate my Mum's visit (can you tell I'm a bit excited about some mother-daughter time?!)

Goals, finally (and a quick-fire cookie too)

Last night we went to the Arsenal vs Cardiff FA cup match. I was pretty confident about it, right until we entered the stadium, then I got nervous. Which is what usually happens. All thoughts about home advantage go out of the window and I get jittery and jump up and down lots (and not always because of the cold). But last night I saw some of the most beautiful football I've seen from us in a very long time, why? Because our long lost striker Eduardo is back. He was horrifically injured last year when he has his leg broken whilst tackled, and his return has been a long time coming. Worth the wait though, oh yes.

But, I know, you're not really all that interested in Eduardo's amazing performance, and the lightening connections he made with the midfielder, Nasri. You want to know about these:
It's become tradition to have something to keep us going at half time, and at five last night I suddenly realised I hadn't baked anything and had to leave in an hour and a half. NO! I frantically threw on an apron and began opening cupboards, and browsing blogs for inspiration. I came across these. They sounded pretty simple, but tasty, and easy to throw together with few ingredients and little time on my hands. So I propped the laptop on the side, whacked the oven on and began assembling ingredients. That was when I discovered I'd used up the last of the plain flour over the weekend when making pancakes (recipe coming I promise). I had also used up all of the strong white making bread (which sometimes sneaks into recipes when I use up the plain flour). What now?

Improvisation is my friend. Since I can't help but adapt any recipe that crosses my path I decided to do the same with this one. I only needed a half batch (I am desperately trying to cut down the tempting treats in the house...then again, when am I not!) so I only needed a cup and a half of flour, problem is, I didn't have this of any one flour. The result? A mixture of wholemeal, self-raising and ground almonds! I have to say I think the result was rather nice, and at least made it a teensy bit healthy with the wholemeal in there. They were more moist though, and since I didn't have time to chill the dough before rolling (except about ten minutes in the freezer) it did need more flour than usual when rolling out, and needed a palet knife to get them onto the baking sheet in one piece.

They still need a bit of work (probably with the flour ratios, I don't know, I'm just guessing, hehe), but they went down well last night and I packed some up for friends today and they seemed pleased. I'd like to experiment with adding spices too. So many ideas, so little time.

Brownie Cookies - Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

My mix made about 20 medium cookies.

1/2 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup ground almonds
pinch baking powder
pinch salt
1/2 softened butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 180C and line two baking sheets with parchment.

Whisk together the flours, almonds, baking powder and salt. Then, in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the egg, butter, cocoa and vanilla until combined well. Gradually add the flour mixture and continue mixing until the mixture is smooth and combined. It might be a bit wet, so feel free to add a bit more flour - I would have added plain. Chill the dough for an hour in the fridge, or fifteen minutes in the freezer (I recommend the fridge if you have time, I didn't). Roll out the dough on a well-floured surface and cut into shapes. I used circles. Place on the lined baking sheets and bake for about ten minutes, or until the edges are just hardening and they've risen slightly. Cool on a wire rack, then enjoy.

I will probably return to this recipe and fine tune it...




p.s. coming soon perhaps? The "From a North London Kitchen" shop. *ponder ponder ponder*

Better late than never; or, amazing post spoilt us at Christmas

Long ago, in a time far far away - December that is - I signed up to take part in a Christmas cookie and ornament exchange. Having had so much fun sending my jam across the world I just couldn't resist. Plus, this is something I could already do. No more crying over boiling fruit and setting points, just good ole' fashioned cookies and some nice ornaments.

I sent mine off with great excitement, having been a bit carried away and packed not only two types of cookie (cranberry and white chocolate biscotti, and gingerbread) and technically two types of decoration (the gingerbread was also designed for hanging on the tree), but a mini-Christmas pudding and some sneaky spiced apple caramels.

Then I did what I did when I made the jam, I forgot that in the whole point of "exchange" is that you get something too! So off we went to France the weekend before Christmas and I completely forgot about it.

We got back late after a delayed flight and a drive. I staggered through the door with our bags and there waiting was a suspiciously large box with "perishable" and "US Postal Service" all over it. Cookies!

I couldn't wait to get it open, and there was barely enough time to give the cat a quick hug before I was eagerly tearing past the sellotape. I had to giggle when I opened the card, it was from Nicole, the women I had sent the jam to! Luck of the draw meant that this time she randomly got me, talk about fortuitous. She'd been very naughty too and totally spoilt us, it wasn't just cookies and ornaments that awaited us, but some delicious coffee, chai chocolates, marshmallows and blondies! Isn't that just amazing?! And all in the most beautiful and yet practical festive packaging.

It was as if she'd read my mind too, the ornaments were the adorable handmade birds seen here perched in our Christmas tree (just at the weekend in France I had commented to N that I wanted to get some fabric handmade ornaments to start a collection for our Christmasses), and a moose! I am more than a little fond of moose, some might say obsessed, and this relaxed fellow was the perfect addition to the growing collection of mooses in our flat (and was quickly made at home with fellow mooses on the tree).


The other element of mind reading came in the form of the cookies. Meyer lemon butter cookies to be exact. Lemon is one of my all-time favourite flavours, and I have been jealously admiring all the Meyer lemon recipes on Nicole's blog (and others) and so to have a little package of this special lemon-y goodness arrive on my door couldn't have been more perfect. They are were so delicious. I said she should rename them Meyer melting moments as they were melt-in-your-mouth cookies with a delicious creamy yet citrusy flavour. Although I loved the spiced indulgence of the persimmon blondies she sent, the lemon cookies were my favourite. (I should add that the blondies were gobbled up so quickly that I didn't get a chance to take a picture! But you can seem them here... and she's right, they are really good!)



The final part of the package, the princess marshmallows (explanation of the name here), were another aptly coincidental gift and so I waited to try them until Christmas eve. Why? Because in the tradition of having something small to open and indulge in on Christmas eve I had bought N some posh proper hot chocolate from a special local chocolatier. How pleased I was to unwrap the final box from our parcel and discover marshmallows! The perfect accompaniment. The chocolate was spiced and I thought the princess flavour would compliment it really well. It did. We managed to be restrained and only have two marshmallows each so we could have them in the next batch of hot chocolate. It was hard though, those fluffy delights kept melting away and making me want more!


A massive, massive thank you to Nicole for sending such lovely things (and being so patient with me for not posting until now), it was the most wonderful surprise. Also a huge thanks to Molly for organising the event. I just don't know how she manages the logistics of things like this, especially not so close to Christmas, I aspire to that level of organisation. I can't wait for the next event, oh please let there be one!

Deck the halls with bows of cookies

I think I got a little carried away with the gingerbread tree decorations. No household of two people (and one cat) can realistically get through as many as I found myself making. Of course I could have made a half batch, but did I? Oh no, I just steamed ahead and in a few hours found myself surrounded by piles and piles of dark spicy gingerbread in all shapes and sizes!

Fortunately the biscuits should last a little while, and I'm off to visit the lovely lady K this evening and I'm sure she'll help me polish some off. The rest are destined for the tree (and lunchboxes). I am just hoping that Sniff doesn't suddenly decide that he not only likes gingerbread, but also wants to climb up the tree to get some.

I had great fun playing with my new royal icing that I picked up in the gourmet food store near my parents. I may like experimenting, but making my own seemed like far too much hassle, so I was very pleased when I stumbled across some. Be warned, there may well be a profusion of iced things coming out of the kitchen in the next couple of weeks because I had so much fun with it!

When I made up the recipe, which I adapted from the one I found here, I was a little unsure. It sounded good, but as I started I realised that actually 2/3 of a cup of molasses is rather a lot, and I'm not really that much of a fan. The treacly smell coming off the dough was a bit much for me, and I was a little worried that it wouldn't mellow as it baked and I'd be stuck with mounds of cookies I wouldn't want to eat. Fortunately, once the dough had rested and the spices in it developed a bit it smelt lovely, and then again, when baked the molasses moved to the background and allowed the ginger and other spices to shine through against a mild toffee background. So yes, there's no fear, I shall be scoffing many, many of these over the next few days! I'm pleased I made the little stars because then I can eat five and not feel too guilty. Not that I'm the kind of girl to eat five cookies at once, oh no, that would be too crazy *looks sheepish.*

So I guess now you want the recipe? I did adapt it slightly, and next time might tone down the molassas even more, adding some golden syrup instead. But this definitely makes a strongly spiced dark gingerbread, that isn't too hard, but will hold up for tree decorations.
Gingerbread for decorations - makes, well, rather a lot really! If there isn't a large family to help you out you might want to half this.

3 cups plain flour
pinch of salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp finely ground pepper
1/2 cup butter
1/2 sugar
1 large egg
2/3 cup molassas

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, salt, soda and spices. In another large bowl cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg, beat until combined, add the molassas and stir well. Gradually add the flour mixture until you get a stiff dough. Leave to rest for two hours, or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line baking sheets with parchment (I used four in the end). Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into whatever shapes you like. If you want to use them to hang on the tree make sure you remember to make a hole at the top for the thread to go through. I used a skewer for this. Gently place the cookies on the lined baking sheets and bake for 8-12 minutes depending on the size of the cookies.

Allow to cool fully on a wire rack, and then ice. Once the icing has set, thread with string or ribbon and hang on the tree.

Gingerbears

Gingerbears hibernate in tupperware,
where they sleep until teatimethen out come the gingerbears,
out from their tupperware
with spiced winter warmth to share...
...and then the cupboard was bare!

We don't do gingerbread men in this house, as you might have noticed. Just bears. Or moose, or cats. I whipped these up last night when I realised that N didn't have a nice little something ready to go in his lunch. Plus, I was in the mood for something cute like cut-out biscuits. I only made a half batch, and even though I didn't half the ginger they still felt like they were missing something. I might have to track down a different recipe and give it a go. Then I'll get to cute out more sleepy bears, yay!

Motivational cookies

Okay, so it's still a bit early to get all Christmasy on you, but I couldn't resit making these cookies today. I had a pact with myself: finish my thousand word target and I could leave the laptop behind and make a dash for the kitchen.

I managed it...but I got a bit ahead of myself. The pull of the mixing bowl was too strong. I made these at the five hundred word mark. Oops! I like to think of them as motivational cookies, because I did at least get the words done, if with a little pause in the middle.

I went out and did a shop today, and finally broke the no supermarket resolution. It turns out that there are just some things you can't find unless you give in. Oh well. As N reminded me, we've managed right up until the festive season, and we constantly support our local community, so don't think anyone will begrudge us a sneaky trip to Tesco for dried cranberries, veggie sausages, soya milk and pecans.

Anyway, with that guilty confession out of my system let's get to the good stuff: cookies! In celebration of having dried cranberries in the cupboard again I decided to try out and idea I had for a dried cranberry, white chocolate and ginger cookie. In a little while I should be participating in this, and wanted to test out some ideas. I took the basic idea of what should be in a cookie and experimented. I used grated white chocolate and less sugar than usual, to spread a subtle creamy sweetness through the cookie to combat the tartness of the berries, then added some ginger for a bit of festive heat.

They're untried as yet - they're cooling on the side - but yet again we're off to a match tonight, so no doubt they'll get tried at half time. I'll report back of course.


In the meantime here's the recipe:

Cranberry, white chocolate and ginger cookies - Makes 21 small cookies

100g unsalted butter, softened
75g brown sugar
175g Self-raising flour
1 egg
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
50g dried cranberries
50 white chocolate, grated
2 tsp ground ginger

Preheat oven to 180C

Beat the butter until soft and then add the sugar and cream together. Add the egg and vanilla essence, then the flour, cranberries, chocolate and ginger. Finally add the milk and make into a stiff, but sticky dough. More milk can be added if it's too stiff.

Place tablespoons of dough on lined or greased baking trays and place in the preheated over for 15 mins, rotating the trays half way through cooking.

Cool on a wire rack before eating - if you can wait that long!

VERDICT: So we tried these at half time as I anticipated. My response? They're "alright". Not bad or anything, just not what I was hoping for. The ginger is barely there, and the grated white chocolate didn't work as well as I'd hoped. They're a nice cookie, but I will work on them before making again. I reckon just chunks of chocolate and a whole load more ginger might be what's needed.

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!

Black and white cockney leit-motifs

As I have pointed out before the cockney leit-motif of "have a banana" has seeped into the cookie experience in Our Lovely Flat. Now I cannot make the aforementioned baked item without N and I referring to it as a ba-cookie, not only is it a ba-cookie, but it is said using the tone of the song, you know what I mean, I know you're doing it in your head now. Once it's there it just can't be removed, which is much the same as the wish to make ba-cookies. The idea gets into my head and cannot be shifted until I've got a batch cooling and the bowls soaking in the washing up. It's a dangerous situation.

I can't remember how ba-cookies came up this week, but they did. I think because I was craving something sweet and N asked if we had any biscuits in the house. Needless to say we didn't - why would I buy some when I could use not having them as an excuse to get the mixing bowls out?! - but that put the itch in my mind. I had spotted a recipe for white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies on a blog I read. I'm not one to usually fancy cookies - as you will have seen I am much more likely to make muffins or cakes - but the recipe tempted me. I think I liked the idea of a pure white cookie, with the sweetness of the chocolate and buttery nuts. Then N got the ba-cookie idea in my head and I knew the inevitable was going to happen.

I stopped at a fruit and nut stall whilst in town on Thursday to pick up the nuts and was distracted by the fact that they had dried sour cherries. Now I LOVE cherries, and dried sour ones are so delicious. I have fond memories of first discovering them in Italy on a market near Florence. I could eat them by the handful all day. When I saw them I just couldn't resist, I had to buy some. As I was asking for them an idea suddenly popped into my head, I could make dark cookies with cherries in too! Then I would have black and white ba-cookies to accompany our trip to the Oval to watch the cricket.

So suddenly I had managed to persuade myself to once again bake at the weekend, and to make not one thing, but two. So much for my "eat less baked things over summer" resolution, so much for my "only bake on baking day" idea. Black and white ba-cookies it was.



I found a recipe for dark chocolate cookies and adapted it to suit the cherries (adding melted chocolate to the batter as well as cocoa to make it darker and richer, and adding large chunks of dark chocolate along with the cherries so match the idea of the white chocolate and nut recipe). I then adapted the white chocolate and nut recipe to use plain (rather than roasted and salted) macadamia nuts, to cut down on the salt in the recipe.

Although both ba-cookies turned out well it was the white chocolate and macadamia nut that were the real winners. They were perfectly indulgent, yet not too sickly - a worry I have with white chocolate. They also coped well with being stored, whereas the dark ba-cookies became slightly too chewy after a day in a tupperware. I think this was because the batter was too dry, N pointed out that if they had rum in they'd be much better so next time I will be dutifully soaking the cherries in rum! The darker ba-cookies were a slightly larger batch so I have frozen a bunch of them and plan on serving them warm with a rum sauce at some point in the future. I'm sure that'll help them be more moist!

Here are the recipe's I used for the ba-cookies:

I made really large ba-cookies, so my baking times were almost double those for the tablespoon sized ones:

White chocolate and macadamia nut ba-cookies.
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup light muscovado sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white chocolate, chopped into large chunks
1 cup chopped macadamia nuts

Preheat oven to 180C

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

Beat butter and both sugars until creamy. Beat in egg and vanilla until well combined. Add flour mixture and stir just until blended. Stir in white chocolate and macadamia nuts.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoons, 2 inches apart, on two ungreased cookie sheets. Bake until golden around edges, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating cookie sheets between upper and lower oven racks halfway through baking. With wide spatula, transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

Dark chocolate and sour cherry ba-cookies:

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup golden caster sugar
1 egg
1 ounce melted dark chocolate
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 chopped dark chocolate
3/4 cup dried sour cherries (feel free to soak these in rum overnight!)

Preheat oven to 180C, line two baking sheets with parchment.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cocoa and salt.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg, vanilla and melted chocolate until combined. Slowly blend in the flour mixture until combined, stir in the cherries and chocolate. If the batter is too stiff add a little milk to thin it slightly - or if you're using rum soaked cherries add a very little milk and a little rum!

Place tablespoons of dough a few inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes; until cracks form on the top of the cookies.

The best cookie ever?

Could this be the best cookie in the world?


It seems that everyone is talking about chocolate chip cookies these days, thanks to a New York Times article and recipe. I have to admit I was sceptical, and there was no way I was going to leave cookie dough in the fridge for 36 hours. I need to space for fruit and veg, and I don't have that kind of patience. However, I did fancy giving the recipe a go, partly because I wanted to have something easy but nice to leave for the Kat-Doctor who is coming to look after Sniff this weekend. You can't go wrong with cookies, right?

Another reason I wanted to try them was because the cookie recipe I usually use - from the Bero Flour Cookbook courtesy of my Mum - is more cakey than cookie and I fancied something wider, shallower and more like an American cookie. Don't get me wrong, cakey cookies are good, very good, but sometimes you just want something different.


So I halved the recipe from the Times, chilled it for about four hours and then made this uber cookies. I seriously doubt that it's going to be the best cookie in the world, but it's a cookie, it has chocolate and I think it'll be just the trick when we've half-way up the country with two hours driving still to go.

I'll report back when we've scoffed and let you know what our verdict is.

The verdict: We stopped at some services near Sheffield at about 10.30pm for a coffee to keep us going for the final two hours driving, and out came the cookies. The verdict was that they are good cookies. Not the greatest in the world, but good and definitely exactly what was needed at the time. I shall probably stick with this recipe for a while to get flat (rather than cakey) cookies.

"Have a ba-cookie!"

Bill Bailey has a lot to answer for in this house. N can't eat a banana without one or both of us launching into the "cockney leitmotif" of 'have a banana!" Now, it's seeping in to other things as well...

This afternoon we had my PhD supervisor over for drinks and a general catch-up and de-brief of the LA trip. (okay, okay, I know I still haven't posted much about it.) It was a wonderful afternoon with the wine and conversation flowing very freely indeed. I'd made a batch of fig and white chocolate cookies to keep the hunger away for us all, and soak up some of the wine. I'd bough a packed of very moist dark delicious looking figs before going away and hadn't found the appropriate recipe for them. When we got back I suddenly found myself craving figs. Which is odd considering that I very very rarely have figs in things, have never cooked/baked with them, and, I shall admit somewhat shame-faced, have never had a fresh one! So why I would crave them is anybodies guess. But I did, and there was a packet of them in the cupboard teasing me every time I reached in for the condiments.

Although I planned to make fig and orange bread like the stuff I adore from Mildred's, and was fully planning on cutting down my baking tendencies once we got back (to save our waistlines and curb what is fast becoming a total obsession), I did want to have a little something as nibbles on the table to go with the wine if people wanted it. I decided that in order to cut through the dryness of the wine a sweet small sized cookies would be more suitable than bread. I also knew that if I made nice bread we'd gobble up the whole loaf and none of us would want any dinner!

As an aside; I do fully intend on trying fig and orange bread later this week, so watch this space!

So I adapted a recipe, dug some white chocolate out of the cupboard, opened the sumptuous packet of figs and off I went.


I was really pleased with how they turned out. Crunchy around the edges, soft in the middle with the gooeyness of the figs and the sweet slightly harder chunks of chocolate. Unfortunately I made them nice and small which meant that polishing off three or four in a sitting seemed perfectly reasonable. It certainly satisfied my fig craving, meant I got to do some (at least vaguely justified) baking and definitely helped soak up some of the wine. I think the only difference I would make next time it to chop the chocolate into finer pieces and perhaps even add more figs.

Since we'd had cookies in the afternoon we decided to be good and have a smaller dinner, using up a vegetable lasagna from the freezer. Unfortunately, this righteousness just meant that at midnight N decided that a cup of tea and a snack was in order. There, sitting temptingly in the cupboard were the final few cookies of the batch. We tried to resist, we really did, but what is more tempting than a midnight snack of tea and cookies.

N, trying to be at least slightly good (I had written that off altogether) reached into the fruit bowl and plucked out a banana. We were both already giggling as we burst into song; "have a banana!" He offered me a bite, (knowing I wouldn't want one, but being chivalrous all the same) and as I shook my head he held out the box with the cookies in and instead said "have a ba-cookie!" We both fell about laughing and it has, of course, already become something of an in-joke.

There is no way I will be able to make any form of cookie now without it being a "ba-cookie." Oh dear.

And so, without further ado, here is the recipe for fig and white chocolate "ba-cookies"

Makes between 10 and 20 depending on how big you want them.

1.1 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
50 g white chocolate, finely chopped
50 g dried figs, chopped
112 g butter, at room temperature
1/3c sugar
1/3c brown sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla extract

Mix flour, baking soda and salt. Add the chocolate and the figs, and mix well.

Beat butter with both types of sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg, and beat well. Add the vanilla.

Gently fold in the dry ingredients, and mix carefully. Cool the finished batter for at least two hours. If it's not cold enough, the finished cookies won't be as soft.

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Roll walnut-sized balls and place with plenty of room in between on a lined cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes.