Linzer Biscuits

So even though I made a large batch of Flapjacks for the office, they were all eaten in one day!? So as it's turned out, I did end up baking some more 'Christmas-y' biscuits (Well they have red in them).

I made these last year and I think they went down well, I was too busy eating them myself! They are individual hazelnut shortbreads with raspberry jam in the middle - a posh jammy dodger if you will.

Ooo I do like a jammy dodger and a cuppa tea (yes there is an 80yr inside trying to get out)
Anyway, my Dad very kindly made me some boxes this year - He runs a box company - makes boxes for the Queen, don't you know! ;) It's quite funny actually, recently I was near Green Park with a friend. You know near Buck Palace. It dawned on me that there might be a Buck Palace gift shop near by. So mid conversation, I yelped with excitement (I do make myself laugh)  and proceeded to drag the individual over the park into the shop. It was full to top with all my Dad's boxes!?

Now, even though I've known he's made boxes for them for a while, to see them on display in the shop, in Central London, Outside Buck Palace!!! Well was rather RUDDY exciting! Ha! It was like having a famous box making Dad!! (Took me a while to explain my sudden surge of crazy antics) LOL

(Just had re-read what I had written, cause couldn't remember how I got from biscuits to Buckingham Palace - lol) This will be down to the fact I was up till 1.30am baking last night (got a bit carried away - as I always do).

So yeah, the boxes. My Dad, originally designed me these beautifully fabric coated, bright coloured boxes, that if I wanted could be lined with fabric, so on and so forth. They were truely great! So he was a bit perplexed when I asked for basic basic boxes, just brown, no coating inside or outside. But I do love a classic brown box. There is a true beauty in the simplest of things.

Thanks for the boxes Dad ;)

I gave a couple of Boxes to one of our clients, Tim and his crew (also gave him a box of flapjacks, as he mentioned how much he liked them). A box to the Touch Crew (my work) and another to Anne at FUSS (it's her birthday this weekend).

Get such a buzz from baking these biscuits. I think it's because they look so smart when you put them together. Hmm. It's just such a great feeling that in a short period of time you can create something so delicate and pretty that will consequently be eaten and then gone forever.

Flapjack Cookies revisited

Did you know that the main reason people visit my blog is to read one of my first posts on my Mum's Flapjack Cookies recipe 239 people to be exact!?!

I haven't been home for a while and even though Christmas is on the horizon ( & tempted to make Christmas-y looking biscuits) I felt compelled to make a few home comforts. Ahh my kitchen smelt just like back-home when I was baking them. I grew up on these and will always consider them as proper flapjacks and not the slice variety that everyone else are used too.

This lovely new batch of flapjacks were for my clients and work colleagues.
Half the tin was eaten by midday!?

Victoria's Famous Flapjacks

170g Traditional whole rolled oats
140g Sugar
140g Plain flour
1 tsp bicarb of soda
2 tbsp Boiling hot water
170g block butter
1 tablespoon Syrup
(makes around 34 biscuits)

Preheat oven to 180oc

Mix the oats, sugar and flour together in bowl. In a separate bowl mix the boiling water and bicarb of soda, then mix into the oat mixture.

Melt the butter & syrup in a bowl over boiling water. once melted add to the oat mixture.
Roll into small balls and place on a baking tray covered with baking parchment, press two fingers into each blob. Make sure they are too close together as they will spread. If you're using one tray, do it in three batches.

Pop in the oven for around 12-14 mins, they won't take long.
leave to cool on the tray a bit to crisp-en up, then onto a wire rack to fully cool.
Package up and hand out to people to make yourself smile ;D

A blog called Constellations have blogged about my mum's recipe too, and it looks like they went down well. Lets just hope that the office and my clients like the oaty variety treats to the jammy linzer biscuits I made last year.

Questions is ... how should I package them?
Hmmm will post some photos once I decide.

Ginger Spiced Flapjack Cookies

 As we're nearing spring I thought what a better time to use up ingredients in my baking cupboard - the first one on the list was stem ginger! Black treacle and rice flour to be used up next, so all ideas welcome :)

So these are a slight twist to mum's original recipe for Flapjack Cookies I did previously on the blog. Whilst mentioning my mum's Flapjack recipe, did you know that is one of the main reasons people end up finding / reading my blog!?! It's because they type in 'flapjack cooie' into google and my link shows as the forth one down (yes just below the BBC - Ha!!)

Right sorry went off on a bit of a tangent then, back to the old recipe :))

Ginger Flapjack Cookies

100g Stork or Softened butter
1 tbsp Golden syrup
100g  Caster sugar
1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp Ground ginger
2 tbsp Finely grated stem ginger
100g Plain flour (if you wanna be ubber healthy use wholemeal flour)
125g Porridge oats

Pop the butter, syrup and sugar in a small saucepan and heat gently until just melted. Remove from the heat heat and add the bicarbonate soda, ground ginger and the grated stem ginger.
In a separate large bowl put in your oats and flour, mix. Then pour in the warm ingredients from the saucepan - mix well.
Now at this point I wrapped  the dough in cling and popped it into the freezer for half an hour to an hour, just to make it easier to work with. Roll into small balls and place on prepared and lined baking trays. Pop in an oven preheated at 180oc for around 10mins - I ended having to do this in three batches as only have 2 trays. Leave to cool on the trays once out of the oven for 1-2mins before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Oats & ginger? They must be healthy!?! :)

Cookies The Size of your Hand!!

February is here already and I'm desperate to see signs of spring...summer soon..please!!
Now I realise the start of the year is time for 'detoxing' and diets. Well personally I think that January and February are better known for being miserable and dowdy months... SO! I am encouraging "re-toxing" to help with the February blues :) Re-toxing as i read on another blog is a term used for eating foods that make you happy!! Now who could deny happiness!?
On that note I present the BIGGEST cookies I've ever made, courtesy off The Humming Bird Recipe Book.

White chocolate and Pecan nut Cookies Recipe
250g Unsalted Butter (yes I know - A whole block!?)
100g caster sugar
200g Soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
11/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
400g Plain flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Baking powder
100g white choc, chopped
100g Shelled Pecan nuts, chopped

Put the butter and sugars in a bowl and using a handheld electric whisk, cream until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraing any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a spatula after each addition. Turn the mixer down to slow speed and beat in the vanilla extract.

Add the flour, salt and baking powder and mix well until a smooth dough is formed. Stir in the chocolate and pecan nuts until evenly dispersed.

Divide the mixture in half and shape each half into a roll 15cm in length and 3cm in diameter.wrap the rolls in cling and put them in the freezer to set completely for a couple of hours.

Preheat the oven to 170oc.

Get the rolls out of the freezer and take off the cling. Cut the dough into disks around 2cm in thickness. Arrange the cookies on prepared baking trays with parchment. make sure the cookies are well spaced as they will spread to around double the size when baking. Bake in the preheated oven for around 10-15minutes, or until golden brown around the edges and quite flat. Leave the cookies to cool slightly on the trays before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

The cookies should be soft and slightly chewy :)
See if you can resist eating one warm with a glass of ice cold milk!!!

Enjoy!
I plan to do these again but using dark choc and hazelnuts, it has to be done and tried :D

 

BOURBON BRILLIANTS

So as it turns out my fav biscuits are bourbon biscuits and so I decided to have a go at making my own. Using the brilliant World Wide Web I found a recipe...which I followed...then tweaked by adding random handfuls of extra flour / sugar and an egg. In other words this recipe could be a little off.

I plan to make them again as they were a HIT. 

I promise to double check the measurements and post accordingly. But until then you'll have to do with this 'guess' of a recipe.. yeah sorry about that!! But hey who said 'creating art' was a precise science!?!

Note I say 'art' - I'm sure by classing anything as 'art' you don't have to follow any rules as it ruins your creative streak!! (well this is what I'm going with anyway - and who's gonna question that!?!??)
RECIPE:

125g Plain Flour
60g Caster Sugar 
25g Cocoa Powder
1/2tspn Bicarbonate of soda
50g Stork or Butter
1 Egg beaten
1 tbsp syrup

75g Icing sugar
50g unsalted butter - room temp
1 tbsp Cocoa powder
1 tbsp Camp coffee essence
50g of 70% dark chocolate to decorate

METHOD:

Pop the oven on at 170oc or 160oc for Fan assisted. Get out as many baking tray as you have and line with baking parchment. Prep done!Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix.Place the butter/stork in a saucepan with the syrup and heat until melted. Pour into the melted concoction into the the dry ingredients and stir. Then add the beaten eggs. Now get your hands in there and mix up up into a good ball of tasty dough.Pop in the oven for 12-18 minutes until golden brown. Once ready pull out the oven but leave them on the hot baking trays until the tray has gone cold, which at this point you can pop them onto a wore rack to finish cooling. *really important to leave on the hot baking tray as this will make sure they'll have that crunch!Once cooled you can melt off some delicious dark choc in a bowl over a pan of hot water. Then using a spoon or spatula, get some of the melted choc and squiggle over the top of the biscuits. Leave to set on the wire rack.

I've decided that is actually COMPULSORY to have a glass of ice cold milk whilst eating these. It makes the experience much more IMMENSE!
Enjoy & Merry Christmas for tomorrow. Hope you all have a festive food filled feast!!xx

Ginger Biscuits

These again are made using one of mum's fab recipes. My sister and I used to make them as kids...well get to the stage of eating loads of raw dough anyway...

Here is Victoria Tunstill's (my mum's) secret recipe for her famous ginger biscuits:

RECIPE:
 (this makes LOADS you may want to do just half the recipe to start with)
1 1/2 lb Plain Flour
1lb Caster Sugar
5tspn Ginger Powder
2tspn Bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt


1/2lb Stork or Butter
2Eggs - beaten
8 tbsp syrup
And if you're feeling extra naughty... 200g of 70% dark chocolate to dip them in after they've cooled.

Pop the oven on at 190oc or 180oc for Fan assisted. Get out as many baking tray as you have and line with baking parchment. Prep done!

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix.

Place the butter/stork in a saucepan with the syrup and heat until melted. Pour into the melted concoction into the the dry ingredients and stir. Then add the beaten eggs. Now get your hands in there and mix up up into a good ball of tasty dough. *

* This is the point I end up eating most of the raw dough mixture...*

Pull off small blobs of dough and roll into balls - no bigger than a 50p piece.
Place spaced out on a baking sheet and press your finger gently on the top to 'squidge it'. They will spread whilst cooking, I usually fit 12 on a square baking sheet.

Pop in the oven for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Once ready pull out the oven but leave them on the hot baking trays until the tray has gone cold, which at this point you can pop them onto a wore rack to finish cooling. *really important to leave on the hot baking tray as this will make sure they'll have that crunch!

Once cooled you can melt off some delicious dark choc in a bowl over a pan of hot water, and one by one dip in the biscuits and then leave to set on the wire rack.

DELICIOUS!!!

TOUCH Christmas Treats

I decided to take some of my baked goods to share at work this year... as you can see by the time I got round to taking photos, most of the biscuits had been eaten already!?!

Ginger Biscuits and Linzer Hazelnut Dodgers and the usual load of juicy clementines.

Off to bake more tonight to replenish the jars, and will be posting the recipes up soon.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Mum's Flapjack Cookies

So this weekend I decided to make a batch of my fav flapjacks!
Now these aren't the average flapjacks, these are made using my mums recipe, which is more of a cookie than a slice.

They are sooo moreish and not too bad on the hips :o)

Victoria's Famous Flapjack Recipe:
6oz Traditional whole rolled oats
5oz Sugar
5oz Plain flour
1 tspn bicarb of soda
2 tbsp Boiling hot water
6oz block butter
1 tablespoon Syrup
(makes around 34 biscuits)

Preheat oven to 180oc
Mix the oats, sugar and flour together in bowl. In a seperate bowl mix the boiling water and bicarb of soda, then mix into the oat miture.

Melt the butter & syrup in a bowl over boiling water. once melted add to the oat mixture.
Roll into small balls and place on a baking tray covered with baking parchment, press two fingers into each blob. Make sure they are too close together as they will spread. If you're using one tray, do it in three batches.

Pop in the oven for around 12-14 mins, they won't take long.
leave to cool on the tray a bit to crispen up, then onto a wire rack to fully cool.

Make a large cuppa tea and enjoy!