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!

Yee ha, Cowboy!

Today, Chris left Edinburgh's cozy surrounds for the bright lights of London. But all pioneers and fortune seekers need some tasty morsels to accompany them on their travels, so we baked up some Cowboy Cookies from our current favourite cookbook, All Cakes Considered. The quantities given in the recipe turned into around 35 cookies in all, so I had to do the decent thing and eat some of them myself before he took a batch for the car. One tip for next time would be to add more chocolate chips as there didn't seem to be enough to spread through the whole mixture. But they were deliciously soft and nutty flavoured regardless. Two days on, there is 1 left!

Ingredients (baking conversion tables)


2 cups golden caster sugar

1 cup vegetable fat for baking (shortening/ Stork)
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups of plain flour
1tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 and a half cups of almonds and chocolate chips mixed together - or any combination of nuts, chocolate, cherries etc that you like.

1. preheat the oven to 180 degrees (350F). Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.
2. Combine the sugar and vegetable fat until well blended. Add eggs and beat until blended. Add vanilla extract and beat briefly.
3. In a separate bowl dry whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the creamed mixture and beat slowly until blended.
4. Add the oats, beating until they are mixed into the dough.
5. Add the nuts and chocolate and mix well.
6. Drop the cookies by the tablespoon onto the baking sheets (about 6 per sheet)
7. Bake each sheet for around 10-12 minutes. You may need to repeat this for several batches but you can reuse the same parchment paper until it browns at the edges. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before moving the cookies onto a plate. 
8. Savour them with a cup of coffee, a glass of cold milk or some root beer. Yum!

Lostalgia

So, Lost, the show that so many millions of people all over the world were hooked on for 5 and a half years ended this week. What better way to celebrate everything we love about the show, and mark the finale, than to hold a lostalgic party - dress up as characters from the show, and of course eat some themed snacks. Andy came as Oceanic 815, Margaret was Sayid and I was Ben in teacher mode from the 16th episode of season 6. And to accompany it all I made these yummy biscuits decorated like the dharma fish biscuits from season 3 and the dharma logo. The recipe is a simple biscuit recipe from Asda.com:

Lost Biscuits

Ingredients

• 175g butter, softened
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 medium egg yolk
• 250g plain flour
• 1 pack writing icing

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C Fan/Gas 4. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in the egg yolk and add the flour and mix to a smooth dough. Gather together with your hands, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.
2 Roll out the dough between two sheets of clingfilm to the thickness of a £2 coin. Be quick with the cutting or get someone to help as the dough becomes a bit unworkable as it heats up in your hands (pop it back in the fridge for a while, without clingfilm, if this happens). Cut out shapes with a dharma or fish template (I made my own on card and cut round it on the dough) and put in the oven for 15 mins. Allow to cool completely before decorating. Yum.

The people shaped ones are Boone, Hurley in 1970s jumpsuit, and Jacob.