White Chocolate and Cranberry Biscotti

I love biscotti! I know that traditionally it should be served with a dessert wine, but it’s just so great dripped in tea until slightly soft, but still with a bit of a bite!

I originally baked these white chocolate and cranberry biscotti to go into my Christmas hampers last year – I love white chocolate and cranberry as a combination, as you’ll see when we reach December and I start posting Christmas recipes again! (Oh, dear. It’s July and I’m already talking about Christmas. I really am turning into my mother!!)

One quick tip – be sure to use white chocolate chunks or thickly chopped white chocolate rather than chocolate chips. The biscotti is in the oven for a long, long time and chocolate chips are just a little too small to withstand that!

Ingredients:

200g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

100g light-brown sugar

35g dried cranberries

50g white chocolate chunks

2 medium eggs, beaten

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 50-55 minutes

Makes 16 pieces of biscotti

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 (around 170 degrees) and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
2. Put all of your dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix together. Create a well in the centre of the dry mix. Add the vanilla extract and the eggs to the well you created then start to beat with a fork, working in the dry mixture a little at a time until a rough dough forms.
3. Knead the dough lightly by hand until it becomes smooth, then break in into two pieces. Shape both pieces of dough into a sausage shape, then place them on the prepared baking tray. Make sure to leave plenty of space in between them as they will grow!
4. Pop the biscotti dough into the oven for 20-25 minutes until it is firm to touch and just starting to turn golden brown. Remove the biscotti from the oven and allow to cool on the side for 5-10 minutes, until cool enough to handle. Leave the oven on at gas mark 4.
5. Once the biscotti is cool enough to handle, slice into it diagonally with a serrated knife, to create pieces1-2cm thick. Put those pieces back onto the baking tray and bake for a further 25-30 minutes, until crispy and golden brown all over.
6. Allow the biscotti to cool on a wire rack before tucking in!

Happy Thoughts

x

Cranberry Jam

I've never made cranberry sauce or cranberry jam or cranberry jelly before, but I decided to make home-made Christmas hampers for my friends and family this year and thought that some sort of cranberry preserve deserved to be included. I'm calling it a cranberry jam, as it has a thick, jam-like consistency.

I used the recipe on the punnet of cranberry, with the addition of a couple of tangerines to make it even more Christmassy!

Ingredients:
2 tangerines
100 ml water
100g sugar with added pectin
350g fresh cranberries

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Makes 2 medium (200gish) jars

1. Grate the zest of the tangerines into a saucepan, and then squeeze in the juice. Add the water and the sugar and turn on the heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
2. Add the cranberries to the pan and allow the jam to simmer for around 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the jam from catching on the bottom. 
3. Meanwhile, sterilise the jars and lids by washing them in warm soapy water, rinsing in hot water and then baking on a low heat until completely dry.
4. After 30 minutes, the jam should have reduced to a nice, thick mixture. It will continue to thicken as it cools.
5. Carefully remove the jars from the oven, and spoon the cranberry jam into them - it's really important to be careful here as both the jar and the jam will be very, very hot! Place the lids on the jars and leave to cool to room temperature before placing in the fridge.
6. Keep refrigerated and consume within 6 weeks.

Happy Thoughts
x

A Cake?

Disney Pixar # 13 - Brave

For the final instalment of the Disney Pixar collection, we decided to take a family outing to the local cinema to watch Brave (after gathering at Angel's house first to scoff down our cakes!) - however, this meant I had no idea what kind of cupcakes to make for this movie. Originally, as the film is set in Scotland and has a whole lot of bright orange hair flying around, I was planning to make some Irn Bru cupcakes. But that felt like a bit of a safe option, especially as I'd made Inca Kola cake for The Emperor's New Groove (which tastes JUST like Irn Bru, might I add), and then Dandelion and Burdock cupcakes for A Bug's Life. So I did a google image search for "Pixar Brave" to see if I could get any inspiration from the images, and there was one that kept popping up which really caught my eye:

There seem to be various images of that little plate of baked goodies - most of which feature the Triplets naughtily sneaking away with them - so I figured they MUST be important, and decided to use those as my inspiration. I don't want to give any spoilers, but it turns out that cake is a pretty big deal in this film!

Anyway, the cakes looked to me to be either an iced bun, or a scone, and in the end I went with scones as they feature prominently in Scottish High Tea. So that was my next dilemma - this is a Pixar movie, and that means I should be making cupcakes, not scones. Unless, that is, I could make cupcake scones. So I decided to bake my little scones in cupcake cases! Yes, this is bending the rules more than a little, but I think it still counts. ^_^

Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Cook time: 15-20 minutes
Makes 12 cupcake scones (or 6 normal sized scones)


Ingredients:

225g plain flour
baking powder
pinch of salt
50g butter
25g sugar
50g white chocolate chunks
25g dried cranberries
Up to 100ml milk (you might not need to use it all!)
Beaten egg, to glaze

To decorate:
25g white chocolate
12 dried cranberries

1.  Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a bun tray with cupcake cases
2. Tip the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and mix together by hand. Add the butter and rub this into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the sugar, white chocolate chunks and cranberries to the mixture, and stir in my hand until evenly distributed. 
4. Stir in the milk a little at a time until the mixture comes together to form a soft, smooth dough. Fill each cupcake case with around 2tsp of the mixture then brush each cupcake scone with the beaten egg to glaze. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top.
5. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Meanwhile, melt the remaining white chocolate and drizzle this over the top of each cupcake scone. Place a dried cranberry on top of each cupcake scone and leave to cool before serving.
   

The white chocolate and cranberry make these scones very sweet, so they can be eaten without jam and cream. They can also be eaten with jam and cream, if you have a super sweet tooth like I do!

So that's the entire Pixar collection to date! I've had a great time doing this again, and hope that you've also enjoyed reading the recipes! Even though we're now out of Disney movies, the Princess will still continue to bake - all will be revealed in the next post! Until then, my friends,

Happy Thoughts
x