I heart biscuits!

Last weekend we baked these tasty chocolate iced biscuits that were suggested as a valentine's day recipe in the latest Asda magazine. They were quite quick to bake and the dough was very easy to handle and manage, which is not always the case with biscuit recipes. But most of all, they were soft and contained just the right amount of chocolate to make you want another one and not feel too guilty, as they were quite light. They don't look as pretty as they did in the magazine but they looked good enough and tasted great and were fun to make!

You will need:

150g butter at room temperature

100g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

vanilla extract

200g plain flour

25g cocoa powder (I actually used about 50g!)

300g royal icing sugar

Food colourings

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (gas 4) and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Beat the butter until soft. Add the sugar and beat until well mixed. 

Separate the eggs and add the yolks to the butter mixture along with the vanilla extract.

Sift in the flour and cocoa powder and finish mixing with your fingers. Form a ball with the dough and wrap in clingfilm - chill in the fridge for around 20 minutes.

Lay a sheet of clingfilm on the work surface and place the dough on top. Add a layer of clingfilm on top and roll the dough to the width of a £1 coin in between. Lift off the top sheet and cut out heart shapes (or any shape you want) and place on the baking tray.

Bake the biscuits for 12 minutes and leave to cool afterwards.

Mix the icing as per pack instructions (you want it to be quite thick so it doesn't run off the biscuits, as was happening on some of mine). Separate into small bowls and add the food colourings. Spread over the biscuits. Allow to set and then they're ready to eat. Enjoy!

Scottish delights - shortbread

Part two of my scottish baking bonanza involved the classic favourite, shortbread. I followed Maw Broon's recipe, which this time was much more straightforward, except that there was no suggestion as to how many this would make. I think it made around 12 - check the picture! It turned out well but was a little floury to taste, but nice and light and it did have a good texture that melted on your tongue.

• 200g plain flour
• 100g butter (I ended up using about 115g)
• 50g caster sugar (plus some extra to dust)

Mix the flour and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the butter and rub together with the fingertips at room temperature. Knead well until it forms a dough and roll out on a cutting board with a rolling pin. Cut out rounds or shapes with cookie cutters. Prick with a fork, for the authentic shortbread look, and bake on a lined baking tray for 15 minutes at 175 degrees or gas mark 4. Once baked, dust immediately with sugar and allow to cool before moving them onto a plate - or straight into your mouth!

Scottish delights - Tablet

With Burn's day this week, I decided it was the perfect time to get stuck into the Broon's Cookbook that I got from my parents for Christmas. And what better way to start than with some melt in the mouth tablet and a batch of sugar dusted shortbread?

However, this also highlighted some flaws in the cookbook's design concept. It's all very well being cute and quirky by pretending to be a collection of Maw Broon's notes and newspaper clippings, but not when it's at the expense of important details in the recipe! For the tablet, it missed out a major step, which almost proved fatal to my efforts, and it assumes in a lot of places that you already know roughly how to make these things (e.g instructions such as 'grain the mixture'?). The issue with the tablet was that it said to bring the mixture to the boil at 118 degrees. It didn't say that you had to keep it boiling for 15-20 minutes! My tablet looked pale and refused to set until I cross referenced it by looking up recipes on Google and realised that this needed to be done. After this it turned to a lovely warm, honey colour and became the deliciously soft, melt in the mouth vanilla fudge we know and love!

Helensburgh Toffee (Tablet)

• 500g granulated sugar
• 125ml milk (or water)
• 50g butter
• 1 dessert spoon of golden syrup
• 200ml condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla flavouring

Melt the butter with the milk in a large saucepan. Stir gently and add the golden syrup. When dissolved, add the condensed milk. Stir all the time and when it begins to boil, reduce the heat and allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and allow to settle and then add the vanilla flavouring.
Beat for around 5-10 minutes until it thickens, but not to the point where it is too difficult to stir (in the recipe it talks about graining, but I'm not sure what that means - perhaps so you can see the sugar crystals?). Pour into a greased tin, 15-20 cm in size.
Leave to set in the fridge for 3 hours and then cut into squares and eat them all up - but these are surely terrible for your teeth so it may be good to share!

Maw Broon's Kitchen Notebook

Following on from my recent lack of success with Macaroon bars, I now have the wise words of Maw Broon to guide me through some Scottish recipes through Maw Broon's Kitchen Notebook! I got this as a Christmas gift from my parents who must want me to remain true to my Scottish (if not culinary) roots through learning how to cook up tattie scones and shortbread, now that I'm in London.

This differs from other recipe books in that it is written in character, as though it really were a jotter compiled by Maw Broon from cuttings from the newspaper, cookery magazines and her own family recipes and tips. It also contains images from The Broons books and in character scribblings from other members of the family relating to the recipes.

More of an introduction to basic cookery than a true recipe book, it covers everything from boiling an egg, using up leftover potatoes and making soup to baking a simple cake and planning a party. While some of the main courses are a little lacklustre (pot roasted beef) and the vegetarian recipes particularly lacking in imagination (vegetable stew or casserole), this book really comes into its own when it comes to what Scotland does best - sweets and puddings!

All of the sweet recipes sound delicious and are surprisingly simple. I will definitely be dabbling in some tablet making and whipping up some easy shortbread on a rainy Sunday afternoon! For the more adventurous there are peppermint creams, carrot cake and some yummy jams to get your teeth into after some summer berry picking.

So, all in all a charming book with a good sense of humour and plenty of easy recipes, particularly if you have a sweet tooth!

Maca-ruin

So, today I tried to make some Scottish macaroon bars for St Andrew's day tomorrow but it has turned out to be my first failed effort at baking. I found the recipe online, followed it exactly (although it was pretty vague) and instead of a stiff fondant creation I got a sticky and unworkable blob. It's in the fridge just now, as part of a desperate attempt to get it to harden to a point where it can be salvaged, but I'm not hopefull. I wasted most of a 1kg bag of icing sugar so I'm reluctant to throw it out, but I don't see what more I can do. It tastes pretty sickly anyway. Oh well, I'll see what it ends up like but I'm not going to take it into work, as planned - I would be ashamed!

Here's where to find the recipe if you want to try it and tell me where I went wrong:
http://www.food.com/recipe/macaroon-bars-lees-version-227822

Treats from Moomin Valley

After something of a break from baking anything new or interesting, the perfect solution to my baker's block arrived through the door yesterday morning - The Moomins Cook Book! It's filled with 150 savoury and sweet recipes and is billed as 'an introduction to Finnish cuisine', which it certainly seems to be, as it covers breakfast, lunch, evening meals, summer meals, garden party foods, picnic foods, autumn and winter meals, and birthday treats. So, expect some updates over the coming months, particularly as it includes many seasonal recipes such as 'Cold Comfort' to warm you up when suffering from winter chills, and plenty of winter soups and spiced treats that will be perfect for the Christmas period. But, what makes this book stand out from other cook books is that it is peppered with wonderful illustrations by Tove Jansson showing the Moomins and their friends enjoying various feasts, campfires, picnics and baking activities. There are also selected quotes from Moomin books that show where the inspiration for the recipes have come from and highlight just how important fresh foods and baking are to Moomin culture. As one quote suggests, "everything fun is good for the stomach" - I think that should be my new motto!

Happy birthday to me!

Sorry about the delay in updating but I've been super busy having just made the meteoric move to London (!) and it's been my birthday so I've been celebrating. So far I love London, there is so much to explore that I'll never be bored and I haven't even been inside any of the attractions on my list yet, like the Tate, the Victoria and Albert and the hundreds of hidden gems and off the beaten track spaces yet to be discovered! eeeeek!

So, my birthday was on Monday and we baked this Key Lime Cake because I wanted something a bit different than the usual birthday cake that was still a simple, yummy cake. It was really good, especially when left overnight in a tupperware. It was lovely and moist with a bitter-sweet taste due to the lime drizzle over the top. Yum!

For now, here's a photo. I'll put up the recipe later. I start work next week so things may get more hectic but I'll do my best to keep baking and cookie capering!