Smarties Cookies

My last two posts have been "egg white only", so I thought I should even the odds a bit and post a "yolk only" recipe. To be honest, I actually made these cookies on the same day as the Creme Egg mousse, so as not to waste the yolk! These cookies are soft, sweet and chewy - which provides a nice contract to the crunchy shells of the smarties. Needless to say, they are SUPER tasty.

The cookie recipe is based loosely on this one here. (I used it to figure out quantities of butter and sugar). I was still in birthday mode when I made these, hence the sprinkles. But let's be honest, who doesn't love sprinkles?

Ingredients:
75g margarine
125g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g self raising flour
1 tub smarties
15g chocolate chips
Sprinkles (if desired)

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 18 minutes
Makes 12 cookies

1. Preheat the oven to 180 and line a baking sheet with grease proof paper.
2. Beat the margarine and sugar together until creamy, then add the egg yolk and vanilla extract and best until fluffy.
3. Add the flour, smarties and chocolate chips (and sprinkles!!) to the bowl, and mix together until a soft dough forms.
4. Roll the dough into 12 balls (around 30g each) and place these onto the prepared baking sheet. Make sure to leave plenty of space between the cookies, as they will spread!
5. Bake the cookies for 18 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven but leave to cool on the baking tray for another 5 minutes - the cookies will firm up as they cool. Once firm enough to move, transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Taste one, just to make sure they are OK. Then taste another, just in case that first one was a fluke. ;-)

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Cake'n'Bake Club: Peanut Butter Cookies

I know I usually post Cake'n'Bake recipes on a Wednesday, but since I struggled to post anything at all towards the later part of last year, I think I'm going to start posting these on a Friday instead. I have a lot of Cake'n'Bake recipes to type up and catch up on too... I was just seriously bad at blogging in 2013!

For Cake'n'Bake Club's January 2014 meeting, our theme was "free-from", so I knocked up these vegan and gluten free cookies. Originally I had used gluten free flour, but they didn't hold together too well so I remade them last weekend using oats and they were much better! The recipe below started it's life over on this blog here, but with a few tweaks from me ;-)

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 8-10 minutes
Makes 18 cookies

Ingredients:
150g rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder

250g crunchy peanut butter

150g dark muscovado sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp water

1. Preheat your oven to 180 and line a couple of baking sheets with grease proof paper
2. Pop 100g of the oats into a blender, and whizz to a fine powder. Don't worry if there are a couple of rough bits. Stir in the remaining oats and the baking powder and put to one side.
3. Beat together the peanut butter, sugar, vanilla extract and water until well combined. Stir in the oats until a crumbly dough starts to form, then knead this gently with your hands until the mixture comes together. 
4. Roll the dough into balls and pop on the baking sheets, leaving a little space in between. Press down with a fork to make a criss cross pattern on top.
5. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown and starting to get crisp on top. Don't worry if they are still gooey when you take them out of the oven, they will firm up as they cool. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking tray for a minute or two before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Enjoy!

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Autumn Spiced Cookies

I promised you a recipe for halloween... so here it is! These cookies are quick and simple to whip up, and great to give out to trick or treaters! These cookies are autumnal in flavour due to the spices, and the pumpkin seeds give a lovely crunch!

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 12-15 minutes
Makes 14 cookies

Ingredients
75g margarine
90g golden granulated sugar
50g golden syrup
1tsp vanilla extract
100g self raising flour
3tsp mixed spice
50g pumpkin seeds
50g white chocolate chips

1) pre-heat the oven to 180 and line a baking tray with grease proof paper
2) cream the margarine and sugar, then add the golden syrup and vanilla extract and continue the beat until combined.
3) fold in half of the flour and all of the mixed spice. Stir through the chocolate chips and pumpkin seeds, then add the rest of the flour to the dough.
4) split the dough into 14 pieces and roll into a rough ball in your hand. Place on the baking tray making sure you leave at least an inch between each, and pop in the oven until golden brown.
5) allow the cookies to firm up on the tray for a minute or two before transferring to a wire rack to cool
Note, when you take the cookies from the oven they'll still be super gooey! Don't worry,  they will set as they cool :-)

I'll return to weekly posts in December, but until then, my friends -

Happy thoughts
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Choco-Nana Cookies

Be still my beating heart, these cookies are AMAZING!

I'm not overly fond of fruit, but I do love bananas, so bananas are my "go-to" fruit of choice. I always buy a big bunch of bananas on my way to work on a Monday and keep them in my desk drawer for snacking on throughout the week, but this means that by Friday I often have one or two leftover bananas that I need to use up. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about this - just an explanation for the sheer number of banana recipes that turn up on this blog!

Here, have another photo of the cookies:

Anyway, my leftover bananas usually go into making my favourite Banana Oat Muffins, which I wrap, freeze, and use for pack-up during the week. However, this time I fancied a change. I really, really fancied cookies. I don't often bake cookies and biscuits, so I decided to scour the Internet for recipes to use. Originally I was looking at healthier banana and oat cookies, but then I came across this recipe for Nutella Banana Cookies. Nutella. Banana. Cookies. What more could a girl ask for on a rainy Saturday afternoon? After baking though, I think I'd describe these more as a drop-cake, rather than a cookie, as they have a deliciously spongy texture. (I'm eating one RIGHT NOW. It is amazing.) Maybe they should be called cakies? I haven't changed the original recipe too much, so all credit for this goes to Chef in Training. I did make a couple of tweaks to the method, and made the measurements UK friendly :-)

Ingredients:
2 medium, ripe bananas
1 medium egg
200g plain flour
175g light brown sugar
125g rolled oats
1tsp baking powder
75g slightly salted butter
75g vegetable shortening (Trex)
2 tbsp Nutella

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 10 - 12 minutes
Makes 18 cookies

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a baking tray with grease-proof paper.
2. Break the bananas into a bowl, then mash with a fork. Beat in the egg, and put this to one side.
3. Tip the flour, sugar, oats and baking powder into a bowl and mix. Add the butter and shortening, in cubes, to the bowl, and then rub in until the mixture resembles a coarse crumble. 
4. Stir the banana and egg into the dry mixture until they combine to form a sloppy dough. Plop the Nutella into the middle of the bowl and then swirl through the mixture with knife to create a marble pattern.
5. Dollop the mixture onto the prepare baking tray in tablespoon sized blobs, leaving enough space in between each blob for the cookies to expand slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the cookies are golden brown all over and firm to touch. 
6. Allow to cool on a wire rack, if you can resist the banana, chocolate, nutty goodness.

Happy Thoughts
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Mini-Egg Cookie Bars

So, today is Good Friday, and whilst I'm not a religious person, I could not pass up the opportunity to take advantage of all of the seasonal chocolate goodies currently available, so I decided to bake up something Eastery. This is a very quick and easy recipe, and I imagine that if you had children, they'd like to play along.

Cookie bars are what happens when you start making a cookie dough at 6:30am, before realising that you'll be late for work if you baked the dough in batches,so you improvise. It's a really tasty, gooey, chewy wonderful improvisation.

I also learnt in baking these cookie bars that Cadbury Mini Eggs are virtually indestructible. I tried bashing them with a rolling pin - it barely dented them. I then put the into the blender -I ended up with a few chipped eggs and a bit of sugar shell. Finally,I crushed each egg with the flat of a knife,which seemed to do the trick!

Ingredients:
150g butter
300g golden caster sugar
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 egg, plus 1 yolk
300g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
100g Cadbury Mini Eggs
50g dark chocolate chunks
50g white chocolate chunks

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 20-25 minutes
Makes 24 bars

1. Preheat the oven to 170.gas mark 3, and line two square baking tins with greaseproof paper.
2. Put the butter into a large microwavable bowl, and melt in the microwave.Stir in the sugar and vanilla,and set to one side to cool slightly. Beat in the egg and egg yolk.
3. Sift half of the flour and all of the baking soda into the bowl and beat in.
4. Crush your mini eggs into smaller pieces by any means possible, then tip the mini eggs and the chocolate chunks into your cookie dough and mix untill evenly distributed. 
5. Sift in the remaining flour and stir until the mixture all comes together.
6. Put half of the mixture in each baking tin, and flatten with the back of a spoon, being sure to push the dough into the corners. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown all over. If you press the cookie lightly with your finger, it should feel firm on top.
7. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, before transferring to a chopping board. Cut each square cookie into 12, then leave to cool on a wire rack.
8. Eat at least one whilst it's still warm. You can thank me later :-)

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