I have loads of peanuts hanging around after last week’s cupcakes so have made up yet another recipe to use them. I’m still much loving the combination of sweet and savoury. Very very pleasing.
It goes:
250g butter, softened
50g caster sugar
100g light brown sugar
300g self raising flour
175g milk chocolate (the fancier the better), broken by hand
50g peanuts, halved roughly
Makes 16
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan oven 160C. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper.
2. Beat together the sugars and butter until fluffy.
3. Stir in the flour and milk. Combine and then add the chocolate and peanuts.
4. Seperate the mixture into 16 pieces and roll in to balls. Place on the baking sheets and flatten slightly so the dough is about 5cm across but don’t squash too much. Leave space between pieces to allow for speading.
5. Bake for 7 mins and then turn. Bake for another 7 mins.
6. Leave to cool on the tray for 5 mins and then transfer to a cooling rack.
Filed under: baking , chocolate, cookies, peanut, salty, sweet
This is another one from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook and I am still not impressed.
The quantities are odd and hard to get right and they give you no guidance on how much dough to include in each cookie.
The first batch were too small and rose instead of spreading. For the second batch, I decided to use more dough and press them down slightly to get a good size cookie. Somewhere in between the two would have been best – a heaped desert spoon pressed to a diameter of 5cm will be about right I think.
They do taste good though and they are a present for my mate Cai. You earnt them! ;-)
Filed under: baking , cinnamon, cookies, friends, hummingbird, oatmeal, raisin
the tuesday just gone was my mum’s birthday and sadly I couldn’t make it down to south to see her. I thought it only fair that I push the boat out and make amends with a proper afternoon tea.
so out came the tea set and the brand new pink teapot and we ate a floral inspired spread all washed down with black earl grey tea.
rosemary scones topped with cream cheese, white grapes and parma ham
take an ordinary scone recipe, replace the sugar with flour, add 2 tsps of chopped fresh rosemary and a pinch of fresh ground black pepper.
violet petal shortbread
a basic vanilla shortbread recipe with a small piece of crystallised violet pressed in to the top whilst they are cooling.
lemon and rose drizzle cake
taking this recipe as a starting point, use 2 tbsp of rosewater for the cake mixture instead of lemon juice. For the drizzle, use a mixture of 2 tbsp rosewater/1 tbsp lemon juice to prevent too strong a perfumey taste and add a little pink food colouring. decorate with rose petals instead of lemon zest. It needs baking for 50 – 60 mins max though – not 1hr 15 like the recipe suggests.
Perfect for a beautiful sunny day. Happy birthday mum!
Filed under: baking , birthday, cake, lemon, rose, summer, tea, violet
