Cookie Monsters!

I’m talking about me and my boyfriend… we can munch a whole tray of cookies with no problem and when you start using this recipe I bet we won’t be the only ones!

I love this recipe I have used it countless times and it never fails except one time where I added a little bit too much salt… but they were okay on the second day when everything had set properly. So please note they are very sensitive to salt don’t add more than it says, don’t make my mistake!

It is the BBC Vintage Cookie recipe. You start off blending the butter and sugar I like to put in the muscovado sugar first and whisk it with a fork to break up all the lumps then whisk in the granulated sugar so that it blends smoothly.

Then I microwave the butter in a separate bowl and add it to the sugar mix and blend away, usually for three minutes but at least two.

I add the vanilla and egg and mix together.

Same with the bicarbonate of soda and flour.

Then comes the fun bit choosing the extras! We threw out the recommended suggestion a long time ago we’ve had mixed fruit, dark chocolate and brazil nut ones, pecan and milk chocolate ones, milk, dark and white chocolate ones! The options are endless but we do always have some chocolate in there. I think dark chocolate is our favourite and we just buy a block rather than the chips and cut it up, then you get some massive pieces and little flakes in the mix it’s delicious.

This time we have gone for pistachio and dark chocolate. Ummm super tasty!

We make them a little larger than the recommendation and so only need two trays making twelve cookies, start off with small dobs then go back and add more to each.

They will spread out while in the oven but if you want them to spread less just chill the dough either before you have placed them on the tray or after, or both! Go crazy!

Done, soooo tasty and sooo easy! We can get a hot plate of cookies ready in 30 minutes now. Oh and trust the timings they will come out squidgy but firm up as they cool. If you like them really squidgy in the middle use the times on the recipe even though the cookies are bigger, if not add on two minutes. If you can try and leave them for five minutes on the trays, they will still be warm when you eat them but come off the tray better and stay together while you munch.

Let me know the combos you try!

Thanks for Reading xx

Coffee and Walnut Cake

It was my turn for Wednesday bake! I always sort ideas for what to do as what is the most practical for getting into work with. A cake always wins out for me! It’s just so much easier and I want all the presentation work I do at home to still be okay when I get in to work the next morning I tried transporting cupcakes once and it was a massacre. Then I went with coffee and walnut because I’ve found it is a real crowd pleaser, it’s got the right balance of sweetness and it has nuts, everyone loves nuts!

This recipe from the bbc is really easy, another good one for after work baking. I’m not gonna lie after getting back, having dinner and showering this pretty much takes up the rest of your evening but you still get in bed for the normal time so every once in a while its fine to do.

So after I had got my ingredients ready I got started on lining the tins. I drew around the bottom of a tin with a pencil on to some greaseproof paper, mine is just Sainsburys own brand, then cut them out and slotted them into the three tins. Yep I’m going for the three layer again its just that little bit more impressive and it means you get more icing in!

I microwaved the butter for 30 seconds (20 secs then 10 secs) and creamed with the sugar.

Then I added my eggs one at a time and beat till it wouldn’t get any smoother.

I then added what is fast become my favourite and most frustrating thing, my favourite because I love seeing the little specks of vanilla and it smells so good and I get to use my birthday present 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon, my most frustrating because I can never get the damn lid open! It always cements itself shut no matter how much I wipe the top or not dribble the paste so I always have to go crawling to the strongest person in the house who is clearly not me!

Next up the coffee, I find the coffee taste disappears quite a bit once the cake has been cooked so I make mine really strong, as in three tablespoons strong. It smells so nasty I suggest you mix it in really quickly. It curdled pretty badly when you pour it in but don’t worry that flour saves it and after a little beating its back to what you would expect. Have faith! I also add a little bicarbonate of soda into mine to give it a slight rise and lightness.

Nut chopping time, this again is another of my favourite things its meant for chopping up herbs, which it is really good at, but I use it for pretty much anything I want roughly chopped and as you can see it works a treat on walnuts!

After all that I separated into three tins and baked in the oven at the recipe time and temperature.

For the icing never and I repeat NEVER follow the one Simon gives you he is completely leading you up the garden path you shouldn’t ever add that much liquid to your icing unless you would rather pour it on and have a thin lining of it, it will pretty much all slide off. Make up the coffee as strong as you would like it I went for just a normal coffee strength so the icing would still be sweet. Then add three teaspoons of the coffee to your creamed icing sugar and butter. If you want it a bit creamier and lighter add some more coffee or milk to your taste but add it gradually.

All that’s left now is to assemble and decorate as I did below, you of course can decorate it which ever way you wish!

Let me know if you give it a go! Thanks for Reading xx

Homemade Pizza

Last weekend I really, really fancied pizza and seeing as how I haven’t made any bread for ages we decided to make our own! 

We found this dough recipe on bbc and didn’t change a thing, it was so easy and came out light but crispy at the edges. It was meant to make six but I just divided it into four and it was a very healthy portion. After dividing I rolled out each piece with a rolling pin to half a centimetre thickness and then chucked them on the baking tray. I did them square so we could fit all four on the tray and in the oven at once.

While I was working on the base the toppings were being prepared on the other side of the kitchen. For the tomato sauce some chopped tomatoes got mixed with some fresh thyme and parsley that I had left out from my creating herb and oil ice cubes experiment. Then for the real toppings garlic and onion started off in the frying pan first then sausages, frankfurters, chorizo and lastly some smoked paprika was sprinkled on.

I spread a thin layer of the tomato sauce on to each slab of dough then we divided the toppings on to each and spread them out and sprinkled over grated cheese. The oven was on at 200 and they took around 15-20 minutes. Ours took a little longer as we had to turn the pizzas around to get the other side brown as they overlapped slightly in the middle of the tray.

I would really recommend this recipe, it was fun, you got to make your own toppings and it felt a lot better for you than normal pizzas! You need to plan ahead a little as the dough does need proving time but the rest is really quick and they take nearly no time in the oven. Plus they are a crowd pleaser and make up feel very good about your baking skills!

Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Thanks for Reading xx