Breaking Biscuits

I’m back!! I have had a break from proper blogging for a while, whilst i actually try and sort out my life and my multiple jobs and things what I should be doing yeah…? Post-uni life is hard and there are many rejections. Also, I smashed a jar of cumin at work today, and as I work as a cleaner in the mornings, there was both the gorgeous smoky scent and the billions of powders to contend with. How about a baking blog entry that stops moaning and puts the fun back into my life. Let’s do it.

So…biscuits! Biscuits have a lot in common with post-uni life….they’re tricky, fun, full of failure and sweet successes and they are totally doable if you’re brave enough!

I made two kinds this week, my own ‘kitchen sink’ cookies, and almond sugar cookies.

Kitchen Sink Cookies

These are inspired in part by Cake Boss and Green and Black. Cake Boss is my new programme, the gap between my jobs allows for a couple of episodes each time. It’s wonderful and you should go to TLC right now and check it out…..The Kitchen Sink cookie was a term I heard during one episode….a cookie with everything but the kitchen sink! I started with a wonderful recipe by Green and Blacks, which is an oatmeal cookie with huge chocolate chunks- however, my kitchen sink idea involved 2 huge tablespoons of peanut butter. The oats! The chocolate! The peanuts! oh baby.

Almond Sugar Cookies

These are altered from the Humming Bird book- 2 tsp of Almond Extract gives the biscuits a lovely marzipan flavour. The key with biscuits like this is to leave the dough alone! The more you manipulate it, the chewier it becomes. Gorgeous recipe though. Recipe here ❤ I iced them with royal icing.

http://www.ireland-guide.com/article/sugar-cookies.8169.html?

Enough of the stress yeah! On top of my biscuit adventures, I also got to ice a cake with my favourites! Nice job right?

I’m back!! I have had a break from proper blogging for a while, whilst i actually try and sort out my life and my multiple jobs and things what I should be doing yeah…? Post-uni life is hard and there are many rejections. Also, I smashed a jar of cumin at work today, and as I work as a cleaner in the mornings, there was both the gorgeous smoky scent and the billions of powders to contend with. How about a baking blog entry that stops moaning and puts the fun back into my life. Let’s do it.

So…biscuits! Biscuits have a lot in common with post-uni life….they’re tricky, fun, full of failure and sweet successes and they are totally doable if you’re brave enough!

I made two kinds this week, my own ‘kitchen sink’ cookies, and almond sugar cookies.

Kitchen Sink Cookies

These are inspired in part by Cake Boss and Green and Black. Cake Boss is my new programme, the gap between my jobs allows for a couple of episodes each time. It’s wonderful and you should go to TLC right now and check it out…..The Kitchen Sink cookie was a term I heard during one episode….a cookie with everything but the kitchen sink! I started with a wonderful recipe by Green and Blacks, which is an oatmeal cookie with huge chocolate chunks- however, my kitchen sink idea involved 2 huge tablespoons of peanut butter. The oats! The chocolate! The peanuts! oh baby.

Almond Sugar Cookies

These are altered from the Humming Bird book- 2 tsp of Almond Extract gives the biscuits a lovely marzipan flavour. The key with biscuits like this is to leave the dough alone! The more you manipulate it, the chewier it becomes. Gorgeous recipe though. Recipe here ❤ I iced them with royal icing.

http://www.ireland-guide.com/article/sugar-cookies.8169.html?

Enough of the stress yeah! On top of my biscuit adventures, I also got to ice a cake with my favourites! Nice job right?

 

The ears snapped off some of the bunnies, so I went alien.

Stay Unchained<3

Chocolate and Ginger Easter egg cookies

So, I admit defeat. My Easter egg defeated me. On Easter Sunday I began work on a very large 70% Green and Blacks egg….and by the following Sunday I still had the egg, and a bar of dark ginger. So I have reinvented a classic using my leftovers. The recipe is adapted from Edd Kimber’s The Boy Who Bakes. And I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but these are something special.

Chocolate and Ginger cookies

500g Plain Flour

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1 Teaspoon Sea salt

225g Unsalted Butter, at room temperature

220g Caster Sugar

220g Light Brown Sugar

2 Eggs, lightly beaten

1 Teaspoon Vanilla extract

100g 70% Dark Chocolate

100g Dark Chocolate with Ginger

 Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt

 Beat the butter and sugars together until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Add the eggs a little at a time, beating until fully combined, then mix in the vanilla extract.

 In three additions, beat in the flour mixture, mixing until just combined and fold in the chocolate.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees/gas mark 4,  and line baking trays with butter.

I used an ice-cream scoop to create equal balls. (hurrhurrhurr)

Bake until golden, about 18 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack and eat with a HUGE GLASS OF MILK.

Stay Unchained ❤

Chilli Chocolate and Oat Biscuits.(Diabetes-friendly)

After a trip to the new Cheltenham Wholefoods supermarket- essentially my new home over the last few weeks- I picked up an intriguing item. The reason I call these diabetic friendly, is that it completely replaces the actual sugar in the recipe, and the chocolate is a very high percentage. Even so, they are still a treat. ❤

Time for a little experimenting!

Livi’s Chilli Chocolate and Oat Biscuits

125g Butter

100g Sweet Freedom

1 Egg

1/2 tspVanilla

140g Plain Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

75g Oats

1 tbsp Cocoa

Milk

100g Chilli Chocolate- I used Montezuma 73%- the less sugar the better

Blend together the butter and the Sweet Freedom (great name no?) until creamy.

Add the egg and blend.

Add the flour, baking powder, salt, oats and cocoa- and milk if it’s too dry.

Chop the chocolate into chunks, and mix (by hand) into the mixture.

Bake for 25 minutes at 180c/ gas 4 until a skewer comes out clean.

Stay Unchained<3

10 Baking Likes and Dislikes….

Sitting on the train the other day, on the way back from the London library that has been my home for the past three months, I calmed myself with some train doodling. The theme of this scribbling was my baking likes and dislikes, and I’ve collated them here for you. Let me know if you agree or disagree…

…but before I begin, A  moment please to commemorate Ryan…

Likes ❤

1.Great British Bake-off. Obviously. I am writing this blog in the aftermath of a tragic episode. I began in good humours… And now I know. And its going to colour the whole blog, day, life.

However, I cannot tell you the beauty of this programme. There are no producers setting people up to fail, no horrible ‘celebrities’ judges, and the worst insult I’ve ever heard was ‘you’ve slightly overcooked your plums.’ I love bake-off and I loved Ryan damnit. next.

2.Baking Presents.

Baking for someone else is superior to baking for yourself. fact. I’m not talking about the 3am eating cake with your hands alone in halls of residence because you got dumpedwhateverdidn’thappen. I just mean that no-one ever looks sad when confronted with cake.

I presented my wonderful parents with this, to say thank you for the postgraduate support. Focaccia, duo chocolate ginger hearts, hazelnut and dark chocolate biscotti, chocolate cake pops and coconut jam thumbprint biscuits. 🙂

3. Vanilla.

I just love vanilla, any type, any method. I love it.

4.Decorating

Whether it’s rustic or time consuming, decorating and design creates really beautiful baking.

Coconut and Jam Thumbprint Biscuits.

My Piped Roses

5.Cats

Ultimate 3am baking companion. I love my American but he is not baking proficient after 12am- and lonely kitchen syndrome is real. Also Danny never judges me when I chain-eat buttons at 1am. This is perfect company.

Dislikes 😦

1. Caloric Intake.

Speaks for itself. I don’t know why a combination of butter, sugar, butter, flour, chocolate and butter doesn’t aid weightloss. We just don’t know. Let it be. Have some shortbread and live your life.

2. Bananas and Tomatoes

I have seen tarte tatin made with both of these mistakes of nature. What happened in that baker’s  life to make them this way? How dare you. Bananas and tomatoes are the last resort of mad-men and I won’t tolerate it any longer.

3. 3am Baking Failures.

We have all been here.

4. Long Distance Baking

Myself and Evan used to bake, real- time, over skype. It was lovely, I could teach him how to make English puddings that he didn’t fully understand.

However, to those of you who have done long-distance, you know that Skype is switched off in seconds, and the illusion of company is gone. Baking long-distance leaves you alone, with no choice but to eat an entire pie.

5.Cats. Here’s why…

 

Well…..! hope you enjoyed my baking list. My dissertation is in and it’s time to take this SERIOUSLY. Stayed Unchained. ❤