Biscuit Tuesday - Oat & Raisin cookies

Normally I bake biscuits on a Monday but we only got back from our amazing cruise on Monday afternoon so no time to whip anything up.

I got my copy of the Hummingbird Bakery back from my mum's. She's had it for ages as the two things I've made from it didn't turn out as well as I'd expected but I thought I'd give it another bash so got it out to see what biscuit recipes it had. Even though I've made oat and raisin loads before (last blog entry was a chocolate version), I had all the ingredients in, so off I went to start.

I used half the recipe which makes enough for 12 cookies. Randomly however I got 15 out of half the recipe so I guess the ones they make are bloomin huge!

This is half the original recipe amounts:

135g Stork

80g caster sugar

80g soft dark brown sugar

1 egg

190g plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

55g rolled oats

80g raisins 

Preheat the oven to 170c

Put the butter and sugars in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment and cream until light and fluffy. Add the egg mixing well and scraping any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and oats and to the butter mixture and beat until well mixed. Stir in the raisins until evenly dispersed. 

Arrange equal amounts of cookie dough on the prepared baking trays. I used a very heaped teaspoon for each. Make sure that the cookies are spaced apart to allow for spreading while cooking. 

Bake in the preheated oven for 12 minutes, or until golden brown and firm.

Check them regularly to make sure they are not burning. When you are happy that they are cooked through, remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly on the trays before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely. 

They puff up while cooking but settle back down a bit when cooled and harden up slightly.

And the best bit ...... Max actually likes them!

I'm not going to give this book away yet. These are lovely, it's a nice recipe and I'll try something else again from the book soon 

Chocolate and Oat Cookies

• It's biscuit Monday and seeing as Max doesn't like my biscuits (or any non chocolate biscuit) I thought I'd try chocolate and oat. Max won't even eat chocolate chip biscuits. The biscuit itself has to be brown. I was dubious about the oats but thought I'd try it and if all else failed, I knew Hayden would eat them.
• 
  
• So here's the recipe:
• 100g plain flour
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 95g margarine or butter
• 95g dark brown soft sugar
• 85g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 90g porridge oats
• 
  
• Preheat oven to 180c
• Cream together the margarine/butter, and sugars. Add the egg then the dry ingredients followed by the oats

Drop in small spoonfuls onto baking sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes and leave on the baking sheets to cool.

Max asked for one (good start), ate it. Asked for another, ate it. Then had another later. Yaaaaay a biscuit with oats in that he'll eat :D

And of course Hayden likes them too 

I even got to use my new biscuit barrel 

Viennese Fingers & Melting Moments

It's Monday and there's no biscuits. Considering Hayden woke me up shouting on the monitor "I wa bic-it", suffice to say my little Cookie Monster can't go too long without a snack of the biscuit variety.

So I've decided Monday mornings will be biscuit baking morning so we can have fresh biscuits once a week to (hopefully) last the week.

I couldn't decide what to do so chose two from Jo Wheatley's book "A passion for baking". Now, I don't actually get on with this book, as much as I love Jo. I find that with a few. Nigella for example is foolproof. I love watching Rachel Allen but can't get on with her books either. 

But I thought I may as well have another bash at a few more of hers before I throw in the towel.

First recipe I chose was Viennese Fingers. I only had a bit of icing sugar so substituted the rest with caster and I had no cornflour either so did without. Yes yes I hear you saying "this is why your recipes don't work for her". But anyway....... Here's my amended recipe:

100g softened unsalted BUTTER - only butter

10g icing sugar

15g caster sugar 

100g plain flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

Makes 10-12

Preheat oven to 150c fan

Beat the sugar and butter until pale and light. Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and combine thoroughly. Add about a tbsp of milk. The recipe uses 1tsp vanilla extract but I've just run out so omitted, but even with it in the mixture just is too hard to pipe which is why I added the milk.

Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe 10cm long lengths. Bake for 10-15 minutes until pale golden. Remove from the oven and cool on the sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack.

Once cooled melt some chocolate, dip the ends in and cover with sprinkles. Leave to set.

They're incredibly delicate, light and buttery.

Second recipe I chose was chocolate melting moments. I substituted the icing sugar for caster sugar and again didn't use any cornflour. I also used drinking chocolate instead of cocoa as haven't got any in.

I only used half the recipe which made about 12

125g unsalted butter

60g caster sugar  

130g plain flour

35g drinking chocolate

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift in the cornflour and drinking chocolate and beat until smooth. I additionally added 1tbsp of milk again. 

Spoon into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe swirls. Chill the baking trays for 15 minutes then bake for 12-15 minutes until hardened. Leave to cool on the baking trays so they can harden a little more.

The recipe uses mousse for the centres but I wanted to use my fail safe filling which doesn't even have a name - I don't even have quantities but its roughly half melted chocolate to half margarine which is stirred until melted and combined then put in the fridge to set. I then used this to sandwich two biscuits together.  

Despite my recipe changes, both worked. I'll keep Jo a while longer 😜

Yorkshire Pasties

Because they're made in Yorkshire!

As my usual style dictates, I just made it up as I went along. So here goes at a guesstimate:

Makes 11 pasties

500g minced beef

2 large carrots

3 potatoes 

1 onion

1tbsp Hendersons relish

Salt and lots of white pepper 

I cooked my filling by parboiling the potatoes and carrots, softening the onion and browning the meat with the relish then mixing together and leaving to cool 

Pastry:

500g strong white bread flour

20g trex

40g margarine

1 egg yolk

175ml cold water

1 tsp salt

Mix all the ingredients together in a food processor then add the water until a dough is formed. Chill for 30 minutes

Preheat oven to 180c fan.

Roll out the pastry and cut round a small plate. Fill with filling and crimp. Pierce air holes with a knife. Brush with beaten egg and bake for 40 minutes until golden 

Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

I need to write down my Rhubarb & Custard cupcake recipe while I remember it, so here goes.

My mum grows her own Rhubarb and its actually naturally quite sweet. So there I was in the rain, rooting around for 400g worth of rhubarb. I thought I had it but once I'd chopped the huuuuuuge leaves off I only had 200g. Typically, Sod's law, it really started to wang it down as I trudged back outside to get more rhubarb. So these cakes were made with super super fresh rhubarb. I swear it made them better :D

These cupcakes are one of the sweetest cupcakes I've ever made so if you've got a sweet tooth and you like the taste of those rhubarb and custard sweets, then you're in for a treat!!

For the rhubarb filling, chop up 400g of rhubarb and add 200g caster sugar to a pan over a gentle heat, give it a stir then leave to simmer for 15 minutes or until the nice pink colour and the rhubarb has softened and broken up.

Sieve and leave to cool - I used the sieved rhubarb juice to make rhubarb granita

The cupcakes include corn flour in the batter. I'd never used corn flour before but hey ho, give it a go!!

150g margarine
150g caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
10g cornflour
3 medium eggs
2 tbsp milk
Pinch of ground cinnamon

I cooked them in the aga but for ovens, preheat to 160°c

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and
fluffy. Add the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar one at a time along with 1/3 of the flours and the cinnamon. Mix until just combined. Repeat until all the eggs and flour are combined.

Bake for 20 minutes

To make the frosting, add all the ingredients into a bowl and beat for 4 minutes until smooth and shiny. Colour half yellow and half red to make those infamous sweetie colours.

Once the cupcakes are cool, remove the middles (I've got a fancy schmancy cupcake corer) and fill with rhubarb. Fill your piping bag with the icings so you've got two tone icing in one bag and pipe on the cupcakes.

Et voila!

A Yorkshire Tea

Tonight we had deconstructed Toad in the Hole. I don't like to cook TitH as it's intended to be, I prefer to cook the sausage and Yorkshires separately - it means you get properly cooked Yorkshires and not raw bits.

My fool proof Yorkshire recipe:
Makes 8 muffin sized Yorkshires.
Preheat oven to highest setting. Add sunflower oil to the muffin tin. Beat together
285 ml full fat milk
115 g plain flour
Pinch of salt
3 eggs

Let it rest for ten minutes in a jug. When the oil is ready / oven to temperature, pour into the muffin tin - see this is why I let the mixture rest in a jug! Get back in the oven quick and shut the door, keeping it shut for around 20 minutes. Don't open the door too early.

I also made Onion Sauce to go with it (and gravy of course). My mum always served Onion Sauce with it, from a packet, so I decided to try and make my own:

1 large onion chopped
About 350ml milk
Bring the onion and milk to the boil then simmer over a low heat for 15 minutes. Strain the onion out and put the milk back on the heat, adding flour and butter to make an all in one white sauce. When thickened, add 3/4 of the chopped onion back in with seasoning and serve

Yum yum!!!!!

It's World Baking Day

So how could I resist baking today?!

But what to bake? I don't have much in but having spied the chocolate Teacakes at Costa, I've felt inspired to try them. I was originally inspired to make them after watching them on GBBO, but as I didn't have a spherical mould, I put that thought to the back of my mind.

The Costa ones however are made without a mould, so I knew it was possible and for some reason, I decided to have a go at these today.

I looked at a few different recipes and methods (including the GBBO one of course), but me being me, decided to combine all of them into my own recipe.

A couple of notes: if you have a hand whisk, then use it or if not follow my method for using the Kitchen Aid. If you have neither, prepare for burning yet toned biceps and triceps.

I didn't measure how much chocolate I used. I gauged by sight as we still have loads of Easter chocolate left. At a rough guess maybe 300g is needed.

So here goes:
Biscuits:
50g wholemeal flour
50g plain flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
25g caster sugar
25g butter
2 tbsp milk

Mix the flours, salt, baking powder and sugar together, rub in the butter and add the milk to form a dough.

Roll out to a 5mm thickness and cut rounds (I think mine are about 5cm diameter)

Refrigerate for 10 mins while preheating oven to 150 fan.

Bake for 10 minutes and cool on a wire rack

Melt chocolate and cover the cooled biscuits in them, both sides then leave to set on the rack - they stick but push the underneath and they pop off.

Make the marshmallow:
2 egg whites
100g caster sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl over simmering water. The idea is you whisk with electric mixer for 10 minutes until it doubles and turns white. I don't have a hand mixer and the thought of 10 minutes continual whisking filled me with fear so I had my own plan. Heat over the simmering water and whisk for two minutes. Transfer the bowl (therefore you need to use the Kitchen Aid bowl) to the mixer and whisk on a high speed for a couple of minutes. Return the bowl to the pan and hand whisk over the water for another minute or two then finish off by letting the stand mixer do the work and you "should" end up with perfect mallow. I did. But could have been a fluke of course!

Spoon into a piping bag, no nozzle required and pipe onto the set biscuit bases. Aim to pipe so it almost reaches the edges then pipe up as if you're attempting to make a dome shape.

Melt the chocolate and spoon over the mallow. It will drip a little down the sides so tease it down adding more chocolate to the top and covering it down until the whole teacake is covered. Leave to set

This should get you 12 teacakes. Recipes I read said best eaten the same day but I bet they're fine for a few if there are any left!