Fat Friday #45 Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've finally sorted out my recipe book and finally found an old recipe I've never tried before. A cookie recipe that I found jotted down on a sticky note was hidden in the recipe book page. If its worth writing down, then its worth a try, right? It actually worked out really well. The perfect cookie, just chewy in the middle and crispy around the edge. Great to start a weekend, or ruin a diet. 

Recipe: Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 12-15 cookies (Found in my recipe book, not sure where it came from) 

Ingredients:

• 250g plain flour
• 2g baking powder
• 170g unsalted butter
• 220g brown sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 335g chocolate chips (I used a mix of white, dark and milk chips)

Equipment

• Baking sheets lined with baking parchment x 2 
• Sieve
• Bowl x 2
• Microwave
• Wooden Spoon
• Wire Rack 

1. Preheat the oven tp 325f/165c/ Gas Mark 3. Grease and line the cookie sheets. 
2. Sieve the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Set aside. 
3. In a separate bowl, melt the butter in the microwave until a liquid. 
4. Add both sugars to the melted butter and mix throughly. 
5. Beat in the egg, the egg yolk, vanilla extract until fluffy.
6. Mix into the dry ingredients into the batter until combined. 
7. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand.
8. Flour your hands a little, then roll the batter into 1 inch balls. Space them 3 inches apart on the baking sheet. 
9. Bake for 15-17 minutes in the oven or until the edges are lightly toasted. The middle should be soft but not gooey. 
10. Once you remove the baking sheets from the oven, leave the cookies to cook for a further 10 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool. 

Happy Baking!

Japan Candy Box Video *Giveaway Closed*

Who doesn't love sweets and candies? The blog was created with a love of sweet treats in mind! So when I was approached by Japan Candy Box to do a review of the latest box, I was delighted too!

They sent me the August 2015 box which arrived beautifully wrapped in some very kawaii purple paper! I have a list of the candies that was sent to me:

1.Kracie Tsunagete DIY Chain Candy-

Orange and bubblegum flavoured chain sweets, which were delightfully chewy. Also, they are fun to put together but I prefer to just to eat them. 

2.Kracie Neru Neru Nerune DIY Candy-

Yikes, I hated this! The texture of the drink of terrible, the flavour wasn't too bad however. It was fun to make but I wouldn't get this one again!

3.Rilakkuma Cookie Sticks-

These are so sweetly packaged. The cookies taste more like rich tea biscuits rather than cookies but they are so more-ish! Definitely one of my favourites in the box.

4.Puccho Watermelon Chewy Candy- 

Chewy, yet gummy and fruity. They truly taste like watermelon.  

5.Shigekix Super Sour Grape Gummies-

Wow! Talk about sour! These were so tasty but very strong. If you love sour sweets, you'll fall in love with these!

6.Yaokin Sour Grape Paper Candy- 

This 'paper candy' was leathery and way too chewy for my palette. However, the sour and grape flavour are spot on. 

7. Meiji Yan Yan Biscuit Sticks- 

I've had a similar product before and I do like this sweet too. The strawberry, for me, need to be stronger in flavour. Its still very enjoyable to moonch on!

8.Bourbon Petit Choco Filled Cookies-

These are so addictive! The vanilla and chocolate really complement each other.

9.Tohato Anpanman Caramel Corn- 

These have the texture of crisps but have a toffee flavoured sweetness. 

10. Moominvalley Biscuits-

I really like these chocolate biscuits and the design is quite detailed on each biscuit. 

Overall the candy box was really enjoyable. I loved most of the sweets, with a few exceptions. I would like to say a big thank you to Japan Candy Box for sponsoring the post. Do you like the look of the Candy Box? Well you can win one yourself by entering the competition link below. 

A Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck! and Happy Baking!

*This post was sponsored by Japan Candy Box. They sent a candy box to me for free and are giving away a candy box to my readers!* 

Fat Friday #27 Aztec Cookies

 Its been coffee mania at our house. My boyfriend and I have been consuming our weight in coffee, thanks to my new coffee machine. We've been trying to find excuses to make lattes and cappuccinos. So in honour of all things coffee related were making coffee cookies for Fat Friday. Not just coffee however, but with additional dark and white chocolate. Why the name? When you think of Aztec's dark chocolate and gold comes to mind, as well as the Road to El Dorado film. Also because why not? Its Fat Friday and cookies are what Dr Penny is prescribing after a hard week.

You can increase the caffeine hit, by adding an additional teaspoon of instant coffee or omit it all together if you don't like coffee.

Recipe: Makes 18 cookies (Recipe adapted from The Great British Bake Off Showstoppers by Linda Collister, Marry Berry & Paul Hollywood)

·       140g dark chocolate

·       2 teaspoons of instant coffee

·       65g unsalted butter

·       2 eggs

·       ½ teaspoons of vanilla extract

·       130g golden caster sugar

·       185g plain flour

·       1 teaspoon of baking powder

·       100g white chocolate, roughly chopped

·       Gold paint/glitter/dust

Equipment:

·       Mixing bowl x 2

·       Wooden spoon

·       Sieve

·       Saucepan

·       Heatproof bowl

·       Baking sheets lined with baking parchment x 2

·       Wire rack
·       Paintbrush (optional)

 

Method:

1.Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl.
2.Break the dark chocolate into pieces with the butter and instant coffee into a heatproof bowl.
3.Place in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Stir occasionally until completely melted. Set aside to cool for about 5 minutes.
4.While the chocolate is melting, put the eggs, extract, salt and sugar into a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until combined. Add the melted chocolate mixture and stir.
5.Sift in the flour and baking powder into the cookie dough and mix in with the wooden spoon.
6.Throw in the white chocolate and roughly mix in. (At this stage you can add the gold paint and mix a little)
7.Leave the mixture to firm up for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160c/325f/Gas Mark 3.
8.Drop heaped tablespoons of the cookie dough onto the baking sheets (put 5 lumps of cookie dough on each sheet), well spaced to allow for spreading.
9.Bake for 15 minutes, when the cookies come out leave on the tray for about 5 minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
10. Once ready to serve dust the cookies with gold glitter or dust for real Aztec feel. Or paint MORE gold paint on.

Have an excellent caffeine filled weekend!

Fat Friday #4 Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Its the end of the working week and you know what that means right? You don't? Well here on Cupcakes, Cake and Passion its my favourite day of the week its Fat Fridays!! The only place to gorge yourself with 'good for the soul' food. This week its a pretty simple recipe, all the credit goes to Mary Youngkin, who writes Barefeet in the Kitchen Blog, for coming up with this amazing recipe. I've just translated the recipe from cups to grams. These cookies are accidently gluten-free and are full of peanut butter. I mean this is peanut butter on steroids. Its peanut butter overload....What I'm trying to say is its reallllllyyyyy peanut buttery.  

 

Also another bonus for these cookies is that they take 5 minutes to make and about 20 minutes to bake. 25 minutes, so you've got no excuse not to bake!



    

Recipe: Makes 18 cookies (Recipe Adapted from Barefeet In The Kitchen)

• 1 egg 
• 250g Smooth peanut butter
• 200g Golden caster sugar

Equipment:

• Bowl
• Wooden spoon
• Baking sheet lined with silicone paper
• Fork
• Wire rack

1. Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/Gas Mark 4. Line the baking sheet with silicone paper.

 2. Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl with a wooden spoon, until smooth .

3. Smooth into 18 small balls and place on the baking sheet. 

4.With fork press down gently in one direction. 

 

5.Press the fork in the other direction to create a criss cross pattern.

6.Bake for in the oven for 22 minutes until firm but not crispy. Leave on the tray for about 3 minutes and transfer to a wire rack.

Have a great weekend and Happy Baking!

Raspberry and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Its been a little difficult to do some baking at the moment as I'm still getting settled into London again but I really wanted to bake some snacking cookies with a difference. Its a twist on a traditional chocolate chip cookies. With the addition of raspberries into the batter gives the cookies a sweeter Summer taste. 

Recipe: Makes 15 cookies (Recipe inspired by Cookies Galore Book)

        100g white chocolate chips
        100g milk chocolate chips
         150g raspberries 

         200g unsalted butter, at room temperature

·       150g golden caster sugar

·       1 egg

·       200g plain flour, sifted

·       1 teaspoon baking power

·       1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Equipment:

·       Electric hand-mixer/Wooden spoon
        Bowl x 3 

        Sieve

·       Teaspoon

·       Tablespoon

·       Masher
        Knife
        Baking Sheet x 2 lined with baking paper/silicone paper

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180c/350f/Gas Mark 4 and grease the baking sheets with the light oil spray/butter and line with silicone paper.

2.  Take 100g of raspberries and mash them in a bowl until a pulp. Set aside. 
3. Roughly chop up the rest of the raspberries (50g) and set aside. 
4.Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.

5. Beat in the egg and vanilla to the creamed mixture. Add the raspberry puree at this stage and mix well. 

6. Sift the flour and baking power together and then beat to the cookie batter. 

7.  Add the chocolate chips and roughly chopped raspberries and mix well. Drop rounded tablespoons onto the baking sheets. Make sure sure you space them well apart as they will expand.

8. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Leave the cookies on the baking sheet for about 3 minutes and remove to a wire rack. 

Your cookies should have still be a little soft but not raw. If you do find they are a little raw, don't freak out like I did when I first made these cookies. Simply pick them up carefully and place them back on a baking tray and into the oven for 5 mins. Keep an eye on them because cookies are temperamental and them will burn. 

Anti Valentines Gluten-Free Zombie Cookies

It's a little late in February for a Valentines post but I don't like Valentines so there you go. I like the idea to dress up in red and eatting chocolates and sweets but thats it. I don't fancy overpaying for a meal that costs less any other day, but because its Valentines day its £60 for a sub-par 3 course meal and a cheap glass of plonk wine... Yeah no thanks... 

But I appreciate that people think its a real holiday and people really go above and beyond to celebrate. I made my feelings about Valentines clear last year in this post. 

Yet last year, I still fell into the trap of making treats for Valentines day. I caved into the pressure!! Damn you Valentines! Actually the truffles and biscuits were very tasty and it was nice to have the boyfriend around to fight over them with as well. 

So what happened this year? The weekend before Valentines I spent with my boyfriend because I have too many university deadlines and we don't really do Valentines. We prefer to make anytime we spend together special rather then just the one day. 

I had spent Valentines weekend alone eating chocolates and baking of course! This year I decided to channel my distaste for Valentines with these horrors:

They want your heart and your brains!!! 

Using the dough recipe and icing recipe on last years Valentine heart biscuits by using Fred biscuit cutters (which I got as an epic Christmas present. Thanks Ben and Lucy!) I was able to create some yummy biscuit creations, however they became really wet. At first I thought: Must have made the icing wrong. But I found out that one of my family members had stored the biscuits in a moist environment (it was stored in very cold conservatory). So that's why the biscuits ran but they just look more horrific, which is the look that is really on trend, well it is for zombies. 

My advice when you start these biscuits:

• Bake your biscuits and make sure they are cold or your icing will warp.
• While your biscuits are baking draw how you would like to decorate your biscuits. I really went to town with my doodles.
• Stick with 3-4 colours for your zombies. I used 5 colours and it got fiddley and annoying as I wanted it done by colour 3. 
• Do one colour at a time, one zombie at a time. I tried to fill in all the greens on all the zombies. That doesn't work and it will cause a mess. This is why 2 batches were made so you had the outlines icing and the filling icing

Recipe: Makes 20 biscuits

•     125g unsalted butter
•     125g caster sugar
•     1 medium egg
•     1 tsp vanilla extract
•     250g Doves Farm plain flour, sieved plus a little extra to flour your work surface.

Equipment:

•     Electric whisk
•     Bowl
•     Sieve
•     Undead Fread Cookie cutters
•     Speech Bubble cookie cutter (I don't have one so I used a paper template)
•     Whisk
•     Cling-film
•     Baking sheet lined with parchment
•     Rolling pin

   1.    In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy.

   2.    Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix together.

3.    Sift half the flour into the bowl and mix in, then sift in the other half and mix again.

   4.    Knead the dough until smooth, then wrap in cling-film and let it rest in the freezer for an hour at least. 

   5.    Pre-heat your oven to 180c/350f/Gas Mark 4.

   6.    Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to around 4mm thick and cut out into zombie shapes.

   7.    Place on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly golden brown. Allow to cool before decorating.

Recipe: Stiff peak royal icing

•     1kg icing sugar/confectioners’ sugar
•     4 medium egg whites
•     2 tsp lemon juice
•     Green, blue, black and red food colouring paste (you can leave a little icing white if you prefer)

Equipment:

•     Electric whisk
•     Bowl x 5
•     Sieve
•     10 disposable piping bags
•     Scissors
•     Forks x 5
•     Toothpick
•     Tissue
•     Tablespoons x 5
•     Zombie decorating sheet

1.    Sift the icing sugar into a bowl.

2.    Add the egg whites and the lemon juice to the icing sugar and mix together for about 5 minutes.

3.    The mix should look smooth and shiny. If it looks a little dry then add one drop of lemon juice and mix for a minute.

4.Once your icing makes a stiff peak put it in 4 clean bowls (5 if you keeping a little white icing).

5. Colour the different bowls different colours using the food colouring. (Leave one of the icing bowls coloured white)

6. Quarter fill, 4 (or 5) of the piping bags with each colour. Snip a small hole in the top of each bag.

7. Take a biscuit and starting from the top centre, pipe an different coloured outlines around the inside edge of the biscuit to the tip of the zombie. 

8.    Make sure there are no holes or missing gaps in the zombies, if there are fill them in with the correct colour.

9.    Once all the zombies have been outlined, add a teaspoon of water to each of the colours until the consistency of each icing is runny. Keep adding water, carefully, until it reaches running consistency but not watery.

10.  Fill each 4 (or 5) more disposable piping bags and cut small holes in the ends.

11.  Flood the inside of the biscuit starting at the edge and zigzagging up and down until completely flooded.

12. Once your speech bubbles are completely dry (AND ONLY WHEN COMPLETELY DRY!!) write your beloved a message.

Messages such as:

I love you for your brains

I fancy a bie... out of you...

Want dinner...want you!! BRAINS!

You can be very creative with this of course.

Happy Valentines!

Happy New Year and Pizza Chunk Biscuits

Happy 2014 baking lovers! I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas, a happy new year and a hazy hangover recovery on the 1st of January. 

This is a very delayed post, it has been a crazy busy Christmas and New year. I just got back from Dorset after spending the New Year with my boyfriend and his family. 

Which was a earthing experience, spending the new year with a guy that you've been with for almost 3 years. Yeah we've been able to stand each other for that long! The fact is our endless love of food and stuffing our faces has kept our love strong. 

I'm joking darling. But we are obsessed with food. 

Then I caught a horrid cold just after New Year, so I've been snuggled up with a hot chocolate set that I got for Christmas trying to recover before going back to uni, and so all the posts are all delayed. 

My Bad...

So back to the recipe below, this a competition entry for Slow Food on Campus Portsmouth. The object of the competition was to use grana padano cheese in a recipe. Of course it had to be something to do with baking. Bring in the Pizza Chunk Biscuits! A whole pizza flavour in a single biscuit. Anyone in the UK can enter, if you would like to enter please email:

Your name, your age, your email address and phone number (and twitter username if you'd like to be featured on twitter) to sfoc@upsu.net  

This recipe is also featured on the Slow Food on Campus Portsmouth blog 

Recipe: Makes around 24-30 (Adapted from Cookies Galore by Jacqueline Bellefontaine)

·       150g unsalted butter, at room temperature

·       180g Plain flour, sifted

·       25g grated grana padano cheese

·       20g grated mature cheddar cheese

·       1 tablespoon tomato paste

·       25g sun dried tomatoes, roughly chopped

·       1-2 teaspoons dried mixed herbs

·       1 egg yolk

·       1 tablespoon water

Equipment:

·       Food processor

·       Bowl

·       Sieve

·       Teaspoon

·       Tablespoon

·       Baking paper

·       Baking sheet

·       Rolling pin

·       Fork/pastry

·       Wire rack

1.    Pre-heat the oven to 180c/350f/Gas Mark 4.

Step 2. Put all the ingredients together in a food processor and blitz!

2.    Put all the ingredients into a food processor and process, using the pulse button until the mixture just come together.

Step 3. Roll out dough in between bits of baking paper

3.    Roll out the dough between sheets of baking paper to a large rectangle shape.

Step 4. Place on a baking sheet

4.    Remove the top piece of baking paper and lift the dough, using the bottom paper, on to a baking sheet. Leave the bottom paper in place. Using fork to pastry wheel, mark lightly into squares or bars.

5.    Bake in the oven for about 10-15 minutes until lightly browned.

6.    Cool on a wire rack on the baking paper and then break into pieces along the perforations.

Have a great weekend!