Macaroons

I used to get my macaroons and macarons mixed up and then there’s the other kind of macaroon bar with the chocolate and coconut that also adds to the confusion! I’ve tried macarons once and wasn’t exactly successful, this recipe looks really easy and quick but I thought macaroons were meringue like biscuits with coconut and these are made with almonds!

This whole entire process was really quick, I started making these at 6pm and were out of the oven and tested by 6:50! The egg white is whisked until stiff and then the rest of the ingredients folded in, all mixed together in a matter of minutes!

I opted to pipe out the biscuits and the plain nozzle I have is under half an inch so I ended up with more than 10..

Each one was topped with half an almond..

Then they were brushed with egg white and then into the oven. After just about 20 minutes they were started to brown round the edges..

They turned out flatter than I expected, they have spread out quite a bit but I did think they’d still have a bit of height. Anyway I don’t care what shape they are because they taste blooming great! I love almonds and the extra essence in these is fab, they also have a lovely chewiness which is also great.

Would I make these again? Yes definitely!

Cherry and Nut Cookies

I have an abundance of multi coloured glace cherries in the cupboard so decided to make these today..

Nice and easy dough to make, first off the fat is rubbed into the flour..

Then the sugar, lemon rind and egg yolk is added..

I ended up using the full 4 tbsps of milk before I had a stiff dough..

I then rolled them into balls, and I ended up with nearer 30..

The recipe says lightly whisked egg white, so I barely whisked this for a minute or so until it was a bit frothy..

I used my food processor to blitz up the walnuts..

So then I dipped the cookie balls into the egg and then into the nuts..

I actually ran out of walnuts so I blitzed a few pistachios and rolled a few in them instead..

Then I topped each one with half a cherry of varying colours..

After 25 minutes they were slighty browned and firm and smelling quite tasty..

I left them to cool before trying with a cup of tea and are good! The lemon in them is really nice and the crunchy nut covering is great. The cherries on top have gone quite sticky which is good as well! I thought my daughter would turn her nose up at these as they perhaps don’t look like the kind of biscuit a child may eat, but after trying one she was back for more and more..

Would I make these again? Yes!

Easter Biscuits

So the schools have finished for the Easter holidays and I’m finished work now until Tuesday so we decided to do a spot of baking and these biscuits seemed very appropriate..

My little helper got started with the mixing of the butter, sugar and egg yolk..

Then we added the dry ingredients and fruit…

We used about a tbsp of milk to make a nice soft dough..

After a bit of resting we cut into shapes..

After 10 minutes of cooking we took them out of the oven and brushed with the egg white and then sprinkled with the caster sugar..

Then after another 10 minutes they looked nicely coloured..

Well obviously I had try one warm from the oven and they are pretty good! Lovely and light and love the pieces of fruit in them. I do think a pinch of cinnamon or mixed spice would’ve made even better! As they are though they won’t last long!

Would I make these again? Yes, great biscuit

Coffee Kisses

I love the name of this recipe, and I love coffee flavoured baked things..

I’ve not had much success with meringue based recipes so far. I know this isn’t exactly a meringue but does involve an egg white! I have lots of bags of egg whites in the freezer and I opted to defrost just one to make half this recipe.

First off I whisked the egg white to a stiff peak..

Then I folded in the sugar and almonds, and it doesn’t look great at this stage, almost like porridge!

I then literally dropped teaspoons onto the tray. I do think I need to try be a bit more refined with my cooking sometimes…

After 15 minutes in the oven they did even out a bit..

While they were cooling I made the icing and the filling. Both were easy enough and both have a nice strong coffee flavour, although perhaps a tad sweet!

I probably should’ve made more of an effort when icing half of them. I just poured it over using a spoon but I have a multitude of icing utensils and am wishing I’d maybe piped it on with more of a design..

Then I spread the other half with the filling and then sandwiched them together..

So not the prettiest looking things but they taste fab! The icing is more like a coffee slap than a coffee kiss but I like that! The biscuits are really light and have a nice chewiness, the icing is very strong with coffee and very sweet! We all loved them, even my daughter, although after eating one I made her come for a 3 mile walk after!!

Would I make these again? Yes, I’d make them smaller with maybe less icing next time..

Flapjacks

I think in this whole process I have paid way more attention to savoury recipes and have loads of sweet recipe still to do. So tonight I made these. I’ve made flapjacks a few times and every time they’ve ended up far too dry and end up completely falling apart. I’ve never managed to find a good recipe that makes a really nice chewy flapjack!

I think the last few times I made flapjacks I warmed the butter, sugar and syrup and then added the oats. This recipe starts with creaming the butter and sugar..

Then I added the warm syrup which resulted in a rather greasy looking mixture..

Then I started to add the oats and salt..

Once all the oats had been added I was thinking it looked really dry..

I was using an 8 inch tin so pressed the mixture into that and then in the oven.

After nearly 40 minutes it was looking nicely browned. I still have real photographic issues but it really looks much darker in real life!!

I left to cool slightly and then I marked into rectangles, then once it had cooled right down I cut them right out of the tin and as suspected they were pretty crumbly..

I did manage to cut out the whole lot in relatively decent rectangles but there was a fair amount of oats left in the tin!!

Well they are definitely not the soft flapjack I was hoping for! Doesn’t stop them tasting good though! I could just taste the salt and I did love the salty sweetness! Overall they are great with a cup of tea!

Would I make these again? Yes but will cut back to maybe 7 or even 6oz of oats to see how that turns out.

Pinwheels

This is more of a suggestion rather than a recipe! It comes just after the recipe for shrewsbury biscuits that I made last year, and is one of the many variations for that recipe. I haven’t made a biscuit in ages and fancied making these today..

You can find the basic recipe if you click on the link above. I did have to add more flour to the dough as it was really quite soft. I didn’t weigh out how much extra but was enough to create a firmer dough..

Then I halved that and kneaded cocoa into one half..

I found that the cocoa didn’t knead in very smoothly, I didn’t want to over knead so ended up with a bit of a marbled effect.

It is still a quite a soft dough and was starting to crack in places when I rolled it up.

I decided to leave for longer than 30 minutes, and I put it in the fridge for a while. Then I cut into slices..

I think I ended up with about 35

After about 20 minutes they were starting to turn brown and smelling fab!

We obviously had to try one or two warm from the oven and they are good! Simple to make, look good and taste great!

Would I make these again? Yes, great with a cup of tea!

Nut Refrigerator Cookies

Fancied a bit of midweek baking, but we started these and then realised they needed a few hours in the fridge to chill! I felt I couldn’t cut back on fridge time due to the name of the cookies so these were baked way after my daughters bed time, more cookies for me….

Once the flour had been added the dough did feel very dry, then adding the nuts made me start to think this was never going to come together..

I had to get my hands in and form into a dough, and that worked a treat. I did have to use the cling film to help mould into a sasauge shape but was looking pretty even going into the fridge..

After about 2.5 hours in the fridge I cut into slices. It did feel really firm and cut into slices very easily..

After 12 minutes in the oven they had spread out slightly and were a nice golden brown..

I had opted to just use walnuts for this, I did have both almonds and walnuts but fancied trying with just the one! I couldn’t wait for them to cool before trying..

Warm form the oven these are great! They obviously are still soft but once cooled they are still quite soft which I quite like. The walnuts in them are fab! Have to say these didn’t last long!

Would I make these again? Yes, fab cookie recipe!

Boston Brownies

I wasn’t sure if there is a differnce between a Boston brownie and a regular brownie so I did a search. I couldn’t really find a differnce and think the name just comes from where the brownie originate which is an 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Anyway I fancied making brownies and had a load of walnuts to use up..

The mixture is straightforward to make and was a nice looking consistency..

I did think that when I was pouring it into the tin that it wasn’t much, it looked really flat in the tin. I know it’s going to rise a but but did wonder if I should’ve used a smaller tin..

The idea with brownies is that they are meant to be a bit sticky in the middle, so I opted for 35 minutes cooking and hoped they would be ok. It had rised a bit but not massively..

I did leave to cool in the tin, which wasn’t easy as they smell so good and it’s very hard to resist warm chocolate brownie straight from the oven! I did manage to refrain from eating any and removed from the tin once cooled.

I didn’t cut into fingers, I opted for squares instead. I did worry as I was cutting them up that they were cooked just a bit too much. There is a kind of gooey layer but maybe not as much as I would’ve liked!

These were great! The walnuts in them are really good, I’ve made brownies in the past but never with walnuts. I do wish I’d just ignored the cool in tin instruction and had warm as I bet they would’ve been amazing! As they are with a cup of tea thought is great!

Would I make these again? Yes, quick and delish!

Cornish Fairings (Ginger Biscuits)

I love ginger biscuits and made the ginger nut recipe a few months ago which was great, was looking forward to these so much that I was up making these at 7:30am!

The ginger nuts I had made had a real crunch to them which was great but part of me was hoping these would be a touch softer. My gran used to make the most amazing ginger biscuits, I must ask her if she will let me share the recipe as they really are brilliant!!

So this recipe is really easy and had them ready to go in the oven in about 10 minutes

It says to leave 4 inches between them but if I did that I’d need another 3 trays and my oven is not big enough, so I opted for nearer 2 inches and crossed my fingers!

There’s not really enough room in my oven to have two trays at the top and then move to the bottom so I had to just swap them over, and after about 12 minutes they were looking a lovely dark golden and smell brilliant!

It was hard not to start eating these straight from the oven at 8am! It’s maybe not a good idea to encourage a 6 yr old to eat ginger biscuits for breakfast!

So after letting them cool slightly we couldn’t wait any longer!

Well these are quite possibly the second best ginger biscuit I’ve ever had! I can’t say they are better than my grans but a very close second! They do have a kind of soft chewiness to them which is just fab and has the perfect amount of ginger.

Would I make these again? Yes, this batch will not last long and it’s ok to have biscuits for breakfast at the weekend right?!?

Vienesse Tarts

I am quite partial to a vienesse whirl and are probably my husbands favourite biscuit, so this was going to be challenge!

Even on reading this recipe I can’t imagine how to pipe a flour and butter mixture. The only liquid to this is vanilla extract and that’s just drops. I had used butter and it was really soft when I was making this.

So the mixture was really really thick. It’s more like a pastry/dough and there was no way I could pipe it. I did try but was impossible. So I had to put the mix back in a bowl and added some milk to loosen it. I ended up repeating this process 3 times! In the end I think I added about 70ml of milk to get a consistency that I could pipe with out injuring myself. By this point there was mixture everywhere!

I maybe wasn’t as careful with the piping as I should’ve, was a but heavy handed so they are not particularly uniform! Once I put them in the oven I kept a close eye on them as I was worried that the addition of milk would change they way they baked. Not to worry, they looked fine, nice and golden after 20 minutes

I removed them from the paper cases, which I assumed was the correct thing to do? They feel really light which was surprising, and they did rise a bit. I had left a fairly obvious hollow when I piped them in but after cooking this had risen and they were much flatter.

After the dusting of icing sugar they were looking not bad. I kind of just plonked the jam on, again I maybe should’ve been a bit more careful and do wish I’d piped it on for a more uniform effect.

So how did these taste? They were light and buttery and quite lovely! Even my husband said they tasted just like shop bought, I think he meant to say the shop bought ones taste just as good as mine?!?

Would I make these again? Yes definitely!