White Chocolate, Spelt and Almond Cookies - A Blog Steal!

Continuing in my adventures with spelt flour I've stolen this recipe from The Ordinary Cook and amended it ever so slightly.  They looked far too good to ignore and jugding by how quickly they were hoovered up by Hubby and Uncle Frank I'm guessing my assumption was right ... I only got the one to eat myself!  Next time I think I'll replace the cocoa powder with some melted dark chocolate though as both my taste testers said the flavour was a bit too cocoa.

White Chocolate, Spelt and Almond Cookies
100g unsalted butter. softened
100g light brown soft sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g spelt flour
100g ground almonds
25g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
100g white chocolate drops

Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Add the spelt, ground almonds, cocoa, baking powder and white chocolate drops and fold in until the mixture forms a stiff dough.

Shape dessertspoonfuls into walnut-sized balls and place onto a baking tray. Leave plenty of room for each biscuit to spread. Flatten each biscuit slightly with the tines of a fork.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 10-12 minutes until firm to the touch. Leave to cool on the trays for 5 mins and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes approx 24 cookies
Stolen from The Ordinary Cook

Spelt, Raisin and Macadamia Bread

Recently I've discovered Spelt Flour, mainly due to reading The Ordinary Cook's posts and decided I would like to give this flour a whirl in some of my own baking.  Trying to locate the flour was a bit of a trial, its not as widely stocked as some of the other speciality flours, at least not in my neck of the woods, so it meant a special trip to one of the bigger shops to get a bag ... then I needed to have some spare time up my sleeve in order to get cracking (... and then in order to post this I needed my internet to be working which has probably been the biggest trial of all over the last month or so.  Touch wood everything seems to be going fine at the moment)!

Encouraged by The Ordinary Cook's adventures I've been keeping my eyes peeled for more and more recipes using spelt flour so I was delighted when this recipe turned up in one of my magazines recently.  The bread was delish and the addition of the earthy and oily macadamias helped to even out the sweetness from the raisins and honey.  I really enjoyed the bread, so much so that Hubby didn't even get a look in!  Its great as a change from the normal fruit bread if you are looking to vary things a bit.

Spelt, Raisin and Macadamia Bread
7g sachet, fast action dried yeast or easy bake yeast
2 tbsp honey
250g spelt wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp veg oil
125g macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
125g raisins

Put the yeast and honey with 200ml water in a large bowl and mix.  Add the spelt flour and salt, mix and begin kneading, adding a little more water if the mixture seems dry.

Add the vegetable oil to the dough and knead in well before kneading in the macadamias and raisins.

Cover the bowl with a cloth then leave the mix to stand for 1 hour in a warm place.  Tip out onto a floured board and knead briefly, then shape into a loaf and put in a 500g loaf tin.  Leave to stand for 45 mins.  The loaf will rise to fill the tin a bit more (its not a huge rising bread though).

Heat the oven to 200C/fan 180C.  Bake for 25-30 mins until the crust is dark golden brown.  Cool completely before slicing.

Makes 1 x 500g loaf
Olive Mag (can't remember which month but it was this year!)