S'mores and more ...

Before moving to the UK I was fortunate enough to work in a Summer Camp in America two years running. It was hard work, mixed with lots memories like when we shared a platform tent with a skunk and the swimming pool with a snake one morning but I also made some of my strongest friendships while I was there, camp is very much a ying and yang type experience and at the end of the day I wouldn't change any of it for a second!

One experience I was really looking forward to was the all American campfire complete with S'mores. I confess my first experience was a huge disappointment. Hershey's chocolate is an acquired taste, not the milky-creamy-melt-in-your-mouth-sweet chocolate I was used to - although I did develop my fondness for cookies and cream Hershey bars at this time, oh the shame! And continuing in this vein Graham Crackers didn't really do it for me either, it may have been the texture, not sure. But the marshmallows in America are amazing, HUGE fluffy things that positively goo all over your hands and face when biting into said S'more.

So I was resigned to the fact after two summer's worth of S'mores that the two of us just weren't designed for each other but then Donna Hay came to my rescue. Thank you Donna! These are amazing, moreish, addictive - you get the gist?

Chocolate and Oat S'mores

125g butter, softened

220g brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

1 egg

225g plain flour, sifted

1/2 tsp baking powder, sifted

100g dark chocolate chips

100g milk /white chocolate chips

30g rolled oats

20 pieces of dark chocolate

20 marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 180C. Place the butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 8-10 mins or until light and creamy. Add the egg and beat until well combined. Add the flour and baking powder and beat until just combined. Fold through the chocolate chips and rolled oats. Roll tablespoons of the mixture and place on baking trays lined with non stick baking paper, leaving space between them to spread. Flatten slightly and bake for 10-12 mins or until golden. Cool on trays.

To assemble, place the biscuits bottom side up on a tray. Top half with a piece of chocolate and the other half with a marshmallow. bake until the chocolate and marshmallows are starting to melt. Sandwich the halves together and serve.

Makes 20

Taken from Donna Hay Magazine, Issue 39

When the girls got these in their hampers I had used a snowflake chocolate mould to shape white chocolate for the S'mores. As it is meant to be 'summer' snowflakes won't do for today so I've made chocolate bark, hope it works!

Barefoot Contessa's French Chocolate Bark

270g white chocolate, broken into squares

225g white chocolate, finely chopped

150g whole roasted, salted cashews

160g dried apricots, chopped

70g dried cranberries

Melt the first portion of chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. When melted, add the finely chopped chocolate top temper.

Meanwhile, line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Using a ruler and a pencil, draw a 9 x 10 inch rectangle on the paper. Turn the paper face down on the baking sheet.

Pour the melted chocolate over the paper and spread to form a rectangle, using the outline. Sprinkle the cashews, apricots and cranberries over the chocolate. Set aside for 2 hours until firm. Cut the bark into 24 pieces and serve at room temp (or to accompany S'mores!)

Makes 24

Adapted from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Recipe

I found that the fruit and nut topping has overwhelmed the chocolate base, and I didn't even put it all on. Next time I'll reduce the topping quantities by half I think.

Passionfruit Gems

How do you spend your Sunday night's?  Personally, I like to try and escape the enveloping darkness of doom (i.e. returning to work!) by picking a book from the shelf and loosing myself in its pages for a few hours.  Not a 'novel' kind of a book either, not a page turner of a book with characters and storyline's, no siree, its always a recipe book!  Yes I am one of those people who has a pile of cookbooks beside my bed and I feel no shame in admitting that ;0)

So this recipe comes from one of my Sunday night musings, a book my Mum sent me for Christmas last year called quite simply 'Cookies'.  Its an Australian Women's Weekly publication and is stuffed full of amazing looking cookies.  It comes as no surprise that the ones to catch my eye use Passionfruit which has got to be one of my all time favourite flavours ever.

Passionfruit Gems
150g plain flour
75g SR flour
2 tbsp custard powder
110g icing sugar
90g cold butter, chopped
1 egg yolk
60ml passionfruit pulp (about 1 1/2 passionfruits)
Butter Icing
125g unsalted butter, softened
240g icing sugar
2 tbsp milk

Process the dry ingredients and butter together until crumbly; add egg yolk and passionfruit pulp, pulse until ingredients come together.

Loving that colour!

Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth.  Roll between sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick; refrigerate for 30 mins.

Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C.  Grease oven trays; line with baking paper (I hate greasing oven trays and as I had run out of baking paper I floured the tray's instead).

Using a 4cm round flower shaped cutter, cut rounds from dough.  Place about 3cm apart on oven trays.

Bake for about 10 mins.  Cool on wire racks.

Make the butter icing; beat the butter in a small bowl with an electric mixer until it is as white as possible.  Gradually beat in half the sifted icing sugar, milk, then the remaining icing sugar.  (I still had half a passionfruit left over so I added this to the icing and reduced the amount of milk accordingly).

Spoon the icing into a piping bag fitted with a small fluted tube.  Pipe stars onto cookies.

Makes 70
'Cookies' Australian Women's Weekly

These are yummy!  However, I have a few points to highlight.  I got far less than 70 cookies from the dough, which I am prepared to admit is probably down to me [ahem] firstly I need to readdress my idea of what 5mm looks like, secondly the smallest cutter I have is 48mm so my cookies were not only thicker but bigger too - I don't mind this though.  And then I discovered that along with running out of baking paper I also had an empty packet of piping bags sat in my draw, very helpful!  So I had to spoon the icing onto the cookies, they don;t look as pretty as they should but thankfully that doesn't affect the flavour at all ;0)

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

I've always wanted to try a Strawberry Shortcake for dessert.  I remember watching a black and white movie one rainy Sunday afternoon when I was maybe 9, don't ask me the name of the movie or for the general plot or end result because I can't remember!  What I can remember is that the heroine of the piece had been hotly pursued by the hero (who was very handsome and had me swooning from the start!) and about half way through finally consented to a date.  She had strawberry shortcake for dessert which I thought was ever so elegant and grown up and I vowed to myself that when I was old enough to go out on a date I too would have strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Of course that never happened, I think my first date was probably to McDonalds!  So when I saw this recipe recently on Martha Stewart's Cookie Of The Day site I knew I had to try them.

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies
275g strawberries, hulled and cut into 1cm dice (chopped weight)
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
115g caster sugar
355g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
85g cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
165ml double cream
sanding sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat the oven to 190C.  Combine strawberries, lemon juice and 30g of the caster sugar.  Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and remaining caster sugar in a large bowl.  Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, or rub in with your fingers (I actually did this in the food processor), until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Stir in the cream until a dough starts to form, then stir in the strawberry mixture.

Using an ice cream scoop (Martha says to use a 1 1/2 inch scoop, I used a regular ice cream scoop which was a lot bigger) or a tablespoon, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with baking parchment, spacing evenly apart.  Sprinkle with sanding sugar, if using, and bake until golden brown, 20 to 25 mins.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Cookies are best served immediately but can be stored in an airtight container at room temp for up to 1 day.

Makes about 3 dozen (I got 18 cookies, using a much larger scoop)
Martha Stewart's Cookie Of The Day

These were delish, although I think calling them a cookie is maybe a stretch too far.  They are more scone like than cookie.  Martha says these are best eaten immediately, but I think they are equally as nice the next day.  These will definitely be made again.

Express Rocky Road

I know I said the last recipe from Nigella Express was going to be the last recipe from Nigella Express ... but this one managed to sneak in to my kitchen this afternoon!  Work has been particularly insane lately, hence the lack of blogging but Hubby made a request last week for Rocky Road (and brownies and ice cream and a whole string of other chocolate related food stuff!) and I promised him I would make some.  A hectic week at work usually means I want to do nothing more at the weekend but potter in the kitchen, but I'll confess to having lost my baking mojo.  I tried to make Chocolate Fudge Cookies through the week, they were such a disaster that I have vowed to stay away from cookies for the foreseeable future, there was a loaf of bread that was also quite spectacular in its failure ;0(

So the long and the short of it is that Nigella's Express Rocky Road was about as much as I could summons today!  I'm hoping the mojo returns by tomorrow though as I have a Fresh From The Oven Challenge to bake - eeeeeeeek!

Nigella's Express Rocky Road
125g soft butter
300g chocolate (I used milk but Nigella used dark)
45ml golden syrup
200g rich tea biscuits
100g mini marshmallows (I only had regular sized so I cut them up with scissors)
2 tsp icing sugar, for dusting (optional!)

Melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a heavy based saucepan.  Scoop out about 125ml of this melted mixture and put to one side.

Put the biscuits into a freezer bag and then bash them with a rolling pin.  In Nigella's words you are aiming for both crumbs and pieces of biscuit.

Fold the biscuit pieces and crumbs through the melted chocolate mixture in the saucepan and then add the marshmallows.

Tip into a foil tray (24cm square); flatten as best you can with a spatula.  Pour the reserved 125ml of melted chocolate mixture over the marshmallow mixture and smooth the top.

Refrigerate for about 2 hours or overnight.

Cut into 24 fingers and dust with icing sugar by pushing it gently through a tea strainer or a small sieve.

Makes 24
Nigella Express

I found the mixture for this Rocky Road quite dry once all the biscuits and marshmallows were mixed in, for this reason mini marshmallows are defo recommended, they would have been much easier to mix through evenly.  Also, although Nigella says you're looking for both biscuit and crumbs, i would suggest more crumbs than anything else, if the biscuit chunks are left too large then the finished Rocky Road is very crumbly.  I think next time I will bulk about the amount of chocolate [shame!] and maybe add some nuts of some description, I think brazil's or macadamias would work really well.

I love the use of the foil tray to set the Rocky Road in.  Not only is there no washing up afterwards but it makes it portable to, this would be great for a picnic ;0)

Mary Berry's Double Chocolate Cookies

This is one of "those" recipes.  You know the ones I am referring to, the ones you cut out of a magazine and then store away to make when the opportunity arises.  For weeks, months and (unfortunately!) in some cases years, the page serves as nothing more than an inconvenient reminder that you haven't made the recipe yet.  Then it starts to breed and is joined by others!  And before you know it you can't close the third draw down because of all "those" recipes!!

Double Chocolate Cookies
50g butter, plus extra for greasing
200g good quality dark chocolate (minimum 50% cocoa solids)
397g can condensed milk (I used a non branded variety for ethical reasons, worked a treat!)
225g SR flour
65g milk or white chocolate buttons

Lightly grease 3 baking trays.  Break up the chocolate and gently melt it along with the butter in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally.  Stir in the condensed milk, then take off the heat to cool.

Mix in the flour and chocolate buttons and chill the mixture until firm enough to handle.  Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C.  Place large teaspoonfuls of the mixture, spread well apart, on the prepared baking trays.  Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 mins.  The cookies should still look soft and will glisten.  Don't over cook them as they soon become very hard.  Carefully remove the cookies with a palette knife and cool on a wire rack.

Makes about 35 cookies
Delicious Magazine (don't ask me from when!)

OMG!!!!  This is one recipe I should have just made straight away!  A-Mazing!  They got rave reviews from everyone Hubby we could bare to share with, its one of "those" cookie recipes that are the best of both worlds, crunchy on the outside for all the crunchy cookie lovers, while chewy and gooey on the inside for all the people like me who prefer the softer cookie.  Mmmmmmmmmmm, Mary Berry rocks!

The only down side to these cookies is the gym time required to burn them back off again.  Spin class here I come ;0(

PS - Jac from Tinned Tomatoes has suggested I send this along to her new blog event called Bookmarked Recipes, an idea founded by Ruth's Kitchen Experiments.  So I have!  If you want to take part too, please head over to Jac's blog to find out all the details and submit your enty via a linky.

All In White Whoopie Pies

When it comes to the new Whoopie Pie craze I concluded that I had resisted long enough.  As much as my loyalties lie with cupcakes I kinda felt it was time I should make an informed decision.  Cleverly disguised as part of Hubby's anniversary present I have ventured into the world of Whoopie Pies and .... I think I really like them!  OK, I'll admit these guys are a little on the 'rustic' side of pretty but as far as taste goes I was pretty impressed and Hubby loves them.  I expected them to be more cake like but they are more of a cross between a cake and a sweet soft biscuit with a very definite sugar rush.  And as far as presentation goes then I reckon practice will make perfect!

I have done a bit of research on the Whoopie Pie phenomenon and apart from reading the usual facts and figures, made by the Amish from leftover cake batter and when the lucky recipients opened their lunchboxes they exclaimed 'Whoopie!' I also found that they are traditionally made with vegetable fat.  This put me off a bit.  I'd rather eat a block of butter than a block of vegetable fat any old day!  When Dan Lepard's recipe for Whoopie Pies appeared in last months Sainsbury's Magazine vegetable fat free things were looking up.

All In White Whoopie Pies
The Vanilla Whoopie
75g unsalted butter
1 large egg
150g caster sugar
125g soured cream
25ml cold milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
275g plain flour
The Marshmallow Cream
100g mini or regular white marshmallows
50ml milk
125g very soft unsalted butter
The Icing
200g icing sugar
Sugar balls, or sprinkles, to decorate

Line a large baking tray with non stick baking paper and preheated the oven to 180C.

Melt the 75g of butter and set aside.  Using an electric hand mixer, whisk the egg until light and fluffy.  Beat in the sugar, a third at a time, until thick and glossy.

Beat in the melted butter, soured cream, milk and vanilla.  Sift the bicarbonate of soda and flour into the bowl and beat until smooth.  Using a wide piping nozzle or spoon, pipe or spoon the mixture on to the tray in small walnut sized balls, 3-4cm apart.  You'll need to bake in batches.

Bake for 13-14 mins until almost evenly golden on top.  Leave to cool for a few mins, then transfer to a cooling rack and bake the remaining mixture.

For the cream, heat the marshmallows and milk in a saucepan over a low heat, stirring until smooth, then cool.  Beat the butter until creamy and soft then gradually beat into the marshmallow cream.

For the icing, mix the icing sugar with 2-3 tbsp of cold water.  Spread a little on each whoopie.  Decorate with mimosa balls and leave to set.  They will keep for up to 6 hours once filled and iced.

Makes 28 individual whoopies or 14 sandwich whoopies
Dan Lepard, Sainsbury's Mag, June 10

Dan has noted that the cakes can be made up to 2 days ahead or can be frozen (unfilled).  I also popped over to his website and he has a slightly different recipe for a Marshmallow Buttercream that I would quite like to try.  The magazine has quite a few variations to the basic recipe that I can't wait to try, first on the list is the Passionfruit Whoopie. 

I used a small-ish ice cream scoop to measure the mixture out onto the trays.  Even with this though I still ended up with sizes ranging from extra large to petit.  Next time I'll try piping the mixture.

Gratitude Cookies aka 'Nigella's Chocolate Mint Cookies' - CBC 11

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

-- Melody Beattie

One batch of these babies and you will be very grateful for the time and care you have taken to make them!  One mouthful and all the stresses and rages of the work day will fade away and you will be thankful you don't have to live in your office ... although if my office was my kitchen I reckon I would be pretty happy right about now!

Gratitude Cookies
100g soft butter
150g light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
150g plain flour
35g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
200g dark chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate)
For The Glaze
75g icing sugar
1 tbsp cocoa, sieved
2 tbsp boiling water
1/4 tsp peppermint extract

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Cream the butter and brown sugar in a freestanding mixer, then beat in the vanilla extract and the egg.

Mix the flour, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl and gradually beat in to the creamed mixture.  finally, fold in the chocolate chips.

Using a rounded tbsp measure (I used an ice cream scoop), spoon out scoops of cookie dough and place on a lined baking sheet, leaving a little space in between each one.  (They will spread!)

Bake in the oven for 12 mins and then let them sit on the baking sheet for a couple of mins before moving  them to a cooling rack, with some newspaper on the surface underneath to catch any escaping glaze later.

Put the glaze ingredients into a saucepan and heat until combined.

Using a teaspoon, zig zag the glaze over each cookie.

Makes 26 cookies for Nigella and 23 for me
Taken from Nigella Express

Raspberry and White Chocolate Cookies

Technically known as 'Raspberry and White Chocolate Cookies' these little delights have also been named;

1. The Business
2. Da Bomb .... and
3. A Bit Of Alright!

And I would probably have to agree with all three descriptions!  I don't think there is any further introduction I can make for them that would serve any justice (especially when there is a plate of them sat on the table calling my name!) so here is the recipe ;0)

Raspberry and White Chocolate Cookies
225g unsalted butter, softened

225g golden caster sugar

170g condensed milk

350g SR flour

150g white chocolate, chopped
175g raspberries

Heat the oven to 180C / fan 160C.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale and then stir in the condensed milk.  Sift in the flour and then work into a soft dough with your hands (good luck - the temptation to lick your hands is intense!)  Mix in the chocolate.

Take a small ball of dough and flatten with your fingers.  Place 2-3 raspberries into the centre of the cookie and fold up the sides of the dough to encase the raspberries.  Repeat with the remaining dough.

Put onto parchment lined baking trays, spacing well apart and bake for about 15-18 mins or until golden brown at the edges but still a little soft.

Leave to cool slightly and set before transferring to a cooling rack.

The dough without the raspberries will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days or for about 1 month int he freezer - freeze in small slightly flattened chunks and bake as required.

Makes 20-30 cookies

Olive Mag, November 09

I used fresh raspberries but only because I picked some up at the shop today - I know they aren't in season yet but they smelt so good and it has been such a lovely day here that I just had to do my bit to will summer on!  I would imagine that frozen ones would be perfectly fine too and a tad easier to work with.

I also started out by being very prim and proper with them and rolling them into neat balls;

which resulted in neat looking cookies like this;

But juicy pinky red raspberries need to be seen!  So I started making rustic cookies;

which resulted in pretty looking cookies like this!  (Not only do they look prettier but you can also fit more raspberries in this way too - not that I'm being a pig or anything!)

A Bit Of An Oops!!!

In my last post I did say that normal baking service would be resuming soon.  This is not an example of what I would like to consider my normal 'service'.  In fact, it is a bit of an oops!  I was catching up on my blogs the other day when I noticed that Cooking with Christine had posted a rather delish looking recipe for the May Cookie Carnival and is hosted by Tami's Kitchen Table Talk.  As is so often the case with me, one thing lead to another and I am now a member of the Cookie Carnival crew too - I blame Christine myself ;0)

Anyhoo, this meant that I also got to try out the recipe for May ... well actually there were two recipes to choose from for May but only one had chocolate in it and we all know where my priorities lie!  It isn't the rip roaring success that I was hoping for but I think most of the blame lies with me.  I used milk chocolate in place of the dark as we aren't the biggest fans of the bitter-ish flavour that comes with the later.  This has resulted in an anemic looking cookie that is just way too sweet ... even for me and that is saying something!  I'm not quite sure what caused the next problem but these cookies just kept on spreading so now I have dinner plate sized cookies that are as flat as pancakes and far too sweet for anybody to eat all of one in a sitting - although Hubby is giving it a pretty good shot ~ I am expecting him to go into a hypoglycemic shock any minute now!

I've posted the recipe below but to be honest I'm not sure I would bother making these again.  (Now I've typed those words I feel instantly mean!)

Outrageous Chocolate Cookies
225g chocolate, roughly chopped
60g unsalted butter
2/3 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
340g chocolate chunks (I used white chocolate)

Preheat oven to 175C. Melt chopped chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla on high speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; beat in melted chocolate. Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks.

Drop heaping tablespoons of dough 2 to 3 inches apart onto baking sheets. Bake until cookies are shiny and crackly yet soft in centers, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on sheets 10 minutes; with a thin metal spatula, transfer to racks to cool completely.

Makes 2 dozen cookies

Martha Stewart Website

ANZAC Biscuits for ANZAC Day

The Ode:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

http://www.anzacday.org.au/

Today is Anzac Day.  It is a very important day to all Australians and New Zealanders, although this point escaped me pretty much until my teenage years.  Before then the 25th April was my big brothers birthday, which drove me demented because he always got a public holiday for it!

ANZAC Biscuits are made by many people in the lead up to ANZAC Day.  It is believed that in WWI the mothers, wives, sisters and partners of the soldiers made these to send in their care parcels to the trenches.  The biscuits were supposed to be able to stay fresh long enough for the long journey - I can't verify this though, I'm lucky if mine last a day before being hovered up!  Last year I made about 16 batches of these cookies so everyone in my office could have one to commemorate ANZAC Day.

ANZAC Biscuits

1 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup caster sugar

3/4 cup desiccated coconut

2 tbsp golden syrup

150g unsalted butter, chopped

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

Preheat the oven to 170C. 

Place the flour, oats, sugar and coconut in a large bowl and stir to combine. 

In a small saucepan place the golden syrup and butter and stir over a low heat until the butter has fully melted.  Mix the bicarb soda with 1 1/2 tbsp water and add to the golden syrup mixture.  It will bubble whilst you are stirring together so remove from the heat. 

Pour into the dry ingredients and mix together until fully combined.

Roll tablespoonfuls of mixture into balls and place on baking trays lined with non stick baking paper, pressing down on the tops to flatten slightly.  Bake for 12 mins or until golden brown.
 

 
Makes approx 24 biscuits
Taste.com
 

 
Lest we forget.
 
..... And happy birthday to my Big Bro ;0)