Chocolate Orange Sandwich Cookies

These gorgeous cookies are perfect for the cookie monsters in your life!

Hello! It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’ve been living very quietly – around two weeks ago I had a nasty fall and badly sprained my knee.  I’ve also had a very irritating chesty cough so I really haven’t been in the mood for doing much baking or proper cooking.

One thing I did manage to rustle up for my boys last week was these very yummy chocolate orange sandwich cookies from the April issue of Sainsbury’s Magazine.  I have to admit I do love the Sainsbury’s magazine – it’s such a good read and always packed full of yummy sounding recipes. I love curling up with the latest copy and a mug of tea – the simple things in life make me happy

This recipe is by Joanne Wheatley and lets just say it was a roaring success with my boys and their friends who happened to call by the house that day.  The cookies by themselves are so good – they are thick, chewy on the outside and soft in the middle. They taste of vanilla and are loaded with chocolate chunks (I used a large bar of Cadbury’s Milk chocolate).

What really takes these cookies to another level is the chocolate orange ganache you fill them with.  I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of the filled cookie sandwiches.  I did take one but I can’t find it right now.  But you’ll see them on the link below.  They really are gorgeous.  Wish I had one right now!

Want to try the recipe?  You’ll find it right here on the Sainsbury’s blog

Aero Bubble TrayBake

This is an oldie but a goodie!  It’s a very quick and easy no bake recipe that everyone loves. The trouble is, it tends to disappear extremely quickly! No-one can seem to resist it. I usually make this as a Malteser traybake but one day I decided to give it a try with Aero Bubbles.  It proved to be just as popular! This is definitely a very naughty treat – but if you want a very easy, no effort recipe that takes minutes to make yet will make you extremely popular with your family and friends  then look no further!

Aero Bubble Traybake
**If you are planning making this for a large crowd, I strongly suggest you double the recipe!**

100g Butter
200g Milk chocolate
3tbsp golden syrup
225g Finely crushed digestive biscuits
225g Aero Bubbles or Maltesers
100g Melted milk or white chocolate (optional)

In a large pan, slowly melt together the butter, chocolate and syrup then add the crushed biscuits and the Aero bubbles.
Stir together quickly then pour into a lined Swiss roll tin.  Using a wooden spoon, flatten it out as level as you can.  If using, melt the milk or white chocolate and drizzle over the traybake. Chill until set. Cut into squares and watch it disappear!

Just adding my site to Bloglovin, folks!

Phew, that took a while but I got there in the end thanks to this simple tutorial!  I’ve just been trying to figure out how to add my site to Bloglovin guys since Google Reader will soon be no more! If you’re on Bloglovin, please join me! I’ve joined yesterday and I love it. I’ve discovered so many great new blogs.  Hope to see you there!

Many thanks

Chocolate Brownie Cookies with White Chocolate & Macadamias/Buttered Popcorn Cookies

I was in a cookie making mood today.

I have found my perfect cookie.  These are brownie cookies with white chocolate chunks and macadamia nuts.  That’s three of my very favourite foods combined. This is, quite simply, heaven in cookie form.  They are crisp on the outside and fudgy on the inside like a good brownie should be.  Oh my are they good!

Brownie cookies with white chocolate chunks and macadamia nuts
From Joy The Baker Cookbook

222g Dark/bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small chunks
45g (3 tablespoons) unsalted butter
150g (1 cup) plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
150g (1 cup) granulated sugar
1 tsp instant espresso or coffee powder (optional)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs
125g (3/4 cup) white chocolate chips
125g (3/4 cup) macadamia nuts (roasted and salted)

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Set a heatproof bowl over a medium sized pan of simmering water. Place the chocolate and butter in the bowl and melt chocolate and butter together, stirring occasionally, until melted. Remove from the simmering water and stir until chocolate is completely melted. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Put to one side. Whisk the granulated sugar, espresso powder (if using), and vanilla extract into the cooled chocolate mixture. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated. Add the chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients and fold to incorporate. Stir in the white chocolate and macadamia nuts. The batter will be very thick.
Place tablespoons of batter onto the baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the tops look “cracked”. The cookies are better slightly underdone. Allow cookies to rest for 5 minutes before removing from the baking sheets and cooling completely on a cooling rack. The cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, although I doubt they will last that long!

 

 

 

I also made these buttered popcorn cookies.  The recipe is from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (Stunning book, more about that in another post!) but you can find the recipe right here on Joy The Baker’s site.

These cookies are so worth trying. They are crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.  They are buttery, sweet & salty.  The popcorn adds a fabulous crunch.  Word of warning though, they are addictive! I made mine with microwave popcorn and it worked just fine.  In my laziness, I didn’t even weigh the popcorn out – I just stirred the popcorn into the batter until it looked like I had enough! I’m not normally this slapdash when it comes to baking but these turned out perfectly! Gorgeous recipe! x

Related articles

• Macadamia & White Chocolate Chunk Cookies (jimmiesandsprinkles.wordpress.com)
• white chocolate macadamia nut (guyandhisgirl.com)

Cadburys Mini egg Tiffin/Mini egg cookies

I know, this week I have a real thing for using Cadburys Easter confectionery in my baking.  I’ll get it out of my system soon!  I hope you’re all having a lovely Easter Sunday.  I’m just checking in with a couple of my other favourite Easter treats using Cadburys mini eggs.

I’m not normally safe around mini eggs.  If I open a packet they don’t usually last more than  5 minutes.  But trust me, it is worth stashing a few packets away to make these recipes.   They couldn’t be easier to make – especially the tiffin which you can hardly call baking.  This is a good one to get the kids to help with – they love crushing the biscuits!

Mini Egg Tiffin

85g butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp cocoa
170g digestives, crushed (I used a mixture of rich teas and chocolate digestives because they were lurking in the biscuit tin)
170g mini eggs, lightly crushed (I cut them in half – a pretty painstaking process but if you want to make your life easier and have more common sense than I do you could place them in a freezer bag and give them a bash with the end of a rolling pin)
30g mini eggs, left whole

Gently melt the butter and golden syrup in large pan. Stir in cocoa, digestives/rich teas and crushed mini eggs.

Line a 1lb loaf tin with cling film. Press the mixture into the tin then press the whole mini eggs into the top. Refrigerate until set (about one hour.) Cut into slices.

 

Mini Egg Cookies

175g soft butter

150g soft brown sugar

120g granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

170g rolled oats

160g plain flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp bicarbonate soda

1 packet Cadbury mini eggs, chopped in half (this is the only fiddly part of the recipe!)

Preheat oven to 375 (180C.)

Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Beat in egg and vanilla until smooth.

Stir together oats, flour, baking powder & bicarb in a separate bowl. Stir the dry ingredients into the batter until combined.  Stir in the mini eggs.

Heap tablespoons of the mixture onto lined baking sheets. (I shape the dough into balls using my hands). Leave 2 inches between each ball of dough to allow room for spreading.

Bake until the cookies are golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

Cool cookies on sheets for five minutes, (they are pretty fragile when they just come out of the oven) and then transfer to a rack to cool further.

Hot Cross Buns!

I found it! A recipe for hot cross buns I’m finally happy with.  I couldn’t let Good Friday pass without making a batch of these spicy, fruity buns. I really love them but the trouble is,  I’ve had more than my fair share of disasters with certain recipes.  I don’t know why but they just never seemed to work for me.  I went from producing hot cross buns that were so rock hard I could have killed a seagull if I chucked one at it to buns that were ok, but nothing to really shout about.  Edible at best.  I was beginning to think I just wasn’t meant to make them but I don’t like to be defeated, especially when it comes to baking.

I watched The Great British Bake Off Easter special on TV earlier on in the week and watched Mr Hollywood make some pretty fine looking buns.  Having tried a few of his recipes before with great results, I thought I’d give them a go on Good Friday.

I’m very glad I did! They turned out beautifully – the dough was a dream to work with and the buns rose very well.  The only thing I did differently was to add 1 tsp mixed spice and 1/2 tsp extra cinnamon because I had heard a lot of people saying that they couldn’t taste the spices in the recipe.  You could certainly taste the spices but it wasn’t overpowering at all. The addition of fresh apple is really lovely.  I was tempted to leave it out but I’m glad I didn’t now.

You’ll find the recipe right here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2066661/hot-cross-buns

This is going to be a very short and sweet post, I had the most lovely day with my family – we went swimming, went out for lunch then had a nice long walk – I’m pretty tired out now! All that remains for me to say is I wish you all a very happy Easter! I hope it’s filled with people you love, laughter and CHOCOLATE!   X

Cadbury Creme Egg Brownies

With Easter fast approaching, this recipe has been causing quite a storm on Facebook and Twitter the past couple of weeks. It first caught my eye when a friend of mine posted the picture on my Facebook wall..and after that day different versions of this gooey treat was appearing on my news feed almost every day.

I tried Cadbury creme egg cupcakes last Easter and they went down a storm with my lot, so I couldn’t resist giving these brownies a try.

They are very rich, fudgy and gooey – possibly the naughtiest brownies I have ever made.  Dorie Greenspan’s quintuple chocolate brownies would come a close second, followed by Lorraine Pascale’s cookies & cream fudge brownies.

It’s not easy to cut these brownies into neat squares – I tried and gave up.  But who cares? Just grab a spoon and dig in!  Vanilla ice cream is a delicious accompaniment.

All that’s left for me to say is just make them – your family and friends will love you!

Cadbury’s Creme egg brownies

180g butter
180g dark chocolate, chopped
300g caster sugar
3 eggs
40g cocoa powder
85g plain flour
6 Cadbury creme eggs

Grease and line a 22cm tin with baking parchment or foil.

Slowly melt the butter and chocolate together in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Preferably using a mixer, whisk together the sugar and eggs for 5 minutes or until very thick and pale. It’s ready when the mixture is double its original volume. Gently stir in the cooled melted butter & chocolate mixture. Sieve the cocoa powder and flour over the mixture and gently fold in.

Pour into the baking tin and cook for 20 minutes then take them out of the oven and place the halved creme eggs on top, spacing them out evenly. Put back in the oven for 5-10 minutes. Leave to cool completely for at least two hours before turning out and cutting them.

If you aren’t a fan of creme eggs you can substitute them with Cadbury mini eggs or Oreos..or Reeces peanut butter cups would be amazing!