Perishables.

A perfect start for curbing winter chills this October was taking part in my sister Tamzin's cookie exchange. I was so excited when I received a box labelled perishables and opened it to find the delicious parcel from Alissa containing layers of chocolate, hazelnut and lemon biscuits. Plenty to share with friends and family and even enough left over to brighten a rubbish day at work. I wonder if they will actually miss me or just the baked goods when I leave?

Thank you again Alissa for such a s scrumptious gift.

Double chocolate freckles

Everyone is sure to love a pretty biscuit. I took a batch to work and my colleagues descended on them like a locust storm! So I thought I'd share the recipe. I found this in an M&S cookies book. Still available if you are in the UK. They look so cute and dark topped are best for grown ups. For kids I would probably top them with melted white chocolate.

Double Chocolate Freckles

125g butter softened
165g firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
225g plain flour
35g self raising flour
35g cocoa powder
200g dark eating chocolate
(for a sweeter version you could use white chocolate instead)
sprinkles

1 Beat the butter sugar and egg in a bowl with an electric mixer until combined. Sift together the dry ingredients then stir half at a time in to the sugar, butter and egg mixture.

3 Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth, roll dough out until 5 mm thick. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5 Preheat oven to 180c/160c fan assisted. Grease oven trays and line with baking parchment.

6 Using 3 cm and 5 cm rounds cut discs from the dough. place 3 cm rounds on one tray and 5 cm on another. Bake small cookies for 8-10 minutes then larger ones for 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

8 Melt the dark/white chocolate and spread on top of cooled cookies. Top with sprinkles. Leave to set at room temperature.


Yay! I just heard that one of my friends has had a sweet baby girl. So it looks as though I will be baking again very soon!


Recipe from Marks and Spencer.

Day off

My perfect monday. Baking these:

Oat and seed cookies.
Set oven to 190 degrees or gas mk 5
lightly grease baking tray.

250g self raising flour
75g whole rolled porridge oats
175g soft light brown sugar
Handful of sesame seeds
handful of sunflower seeds
good pinch of salt
125g unsalted butter cubed
2 x tbl spoon golden syrup
3-4 tbl spoon milk

In a bowl mix together the flour, oats, sugar, seeds and salt.
Then rub in the butter so mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Stir in syrup and enough milk to form a stiff dough. Knead well.
Form dough into small balls then flatten onto baking tray with a fork.
Bake in batches for 10-15 minutes until golden.
Once cooked transfer to a wire rack to cool and crisp.

Talking with a friend, pouring over interior magazines, taking tea. I even made a sale on etsy. How was your monday?