Jammy Heart Biscuits

I made these little beauties for my birthday last week and I absolutely ADORED them (along with everyone else! - They were gone by the end of the day!)

I had been deciding what type of cake I should make for my birthday, when I thought that a) not a lot of folk in my family/extended family are huge fans of cake and b) there is an endless amount of genres of cakes I could make. One word: decisions!

So, after a few minutes of pondering (and a lovely cup of peppermint tea), I decided to make these beasts! Everyone loves jammy dodgers and what could be better than making a tastier, less heavy alternative?!

The recipe below makes about 20 (depending on the size of the biscuits you want to make!) and they're suitable for vegetarians :)

What you'll need:

250g Butter

150g Icing sugar

1 large egg (separated)

375g plain flour

seedless rasberry jam (about 100g or so)

for the buttercream:

You can either use this recipe:

140g butter (softened)

280g icing sugar

1-2 tbsp milk

to make: beat the butter in a large bowl until soft, add half the icing sugar and mix until smooth. Add remaining icing sugar and 1 tbsp milk and beat until lovely and creamy. Add in the extra milk if the mixture needs loosened up. 

OR

buy buttercream frosting :)

Okay doke!

So first of all we're going to beat together the butter and the icing sugar until it's a light and fluffy consistency. Then add in the egg yolk and add half the flour. 

Add the remaining flour and mix with your hands to ensure you get all the mixture and start to knead with your hands in the bowl until it's smooth (this shouldn't take long). Then wrap in cling film and either put in a cool place (NOT THE FRIDGE) for about 30 minutes to rest.

Heat the oven to 190oC/170oC Fan/Gas 5. Roll out half the dough until it about 3mm thick (on a floured surface - believe me, it'll make your life so much easier!). I used a 5.8 cm fluted cutter to cut out 20 rounds. Place on a greased baking tray and bake for about 8-10 minutes until the edges are golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Next, roll out the remaining dough and cut out 20 more rounds (again on a floured surface). Now, we have the difficult part - cutting out the hearts. If you're lucky enough to have a tiny heart cutter, use that. Otherwise, the best way to do it is to place the rounds onto the baking tray first, then cut out the hearts using a small veg knife. It does get a bit tedious once you get to the 15th round but remember - ONLY 5 MORE TO GO!!

Beat the egg white until it's a wee bit frothy and brush over the biscuit just to give it that extra crispiness. Bake and cool as before.

Then what to do is make the - or use the bought - buttercream and spread over each biscuit (make sure not to get the ones with the hearts on it! Place some jam in the centre (about a teaspoon) and cover with a biscuit with the heart cut out. Push down gently so the jam fills the heart shape.

Sprinkle with icing suga.

So there you go. Yummy and fabulous looking biscuits that are suitable for a kids party and also for a grown up party. 

Now the only problem will be is not to eat them all!!

Trio of desserts... (Don't worry it's simple to make!)

Apologies for lack of action on here! Time does not seem to be my pal at the moment however I've kicked my ass into gear to get this blog back up and running. Recently I've been doing A LOT of cooking and baking.
Most recently, I've done these cute wee desserts which include Rhubarb panna cotta, meringue (with leftover roast rhubarb) and vienesse biscuits (dipped in leftover dark Easter egg chocolate!). These were for a dinner which I was making for my family and they only took me a few hours to do all three (this includes chilling time!) Plus i even had enough time to make Hollandaise sauce with the leftover egg yolks from the meringue for an asparagus and Jersey Royal potato bake thing (recipe to follow!)

Right so let's get our apron on and get started!! :)

Rhubarb Panna Cotta

serves 4

You'll need for the roasted rhubarb:

500g/1lb 2oz rhubarb
2tbsp caster sugar
4tsp apple juice

and for the panna cotta:

75g/2oz caster sugar
150ml/5fl oz double cream
2 leaves of gelatin (soaked in cold water til soft)
300ml/11 fl oz buttermilk (the buttermilk they sell here is around 284ml so i topped up the rest with normal milk)

Preheat oven to 200oC/180oC Fan/400F/Gas 6. Cut up rhubarb into 1" pieces and place in a roasting tin along with the sugar and the apple juice. Roast for around 8-10 minutes or until all soggy and yummy looking. Using about 125g of this, blend to a puree and place the rest aside for later.

Mix the sugar and the double cream in a saucepan and bring to a simmer (at about a medium heat so they don't burn - YUCK!) just til all the sugar has dissolved. Squeeze out all the water from the gelatin leaves and throw in the pan and stir about until they've completely dissolved. Add the puree then remove from the heat and leave to cool for about 5/10 minutes or until you get impatient! Stir in the buttermilk then it's ready to pour into dishes!

I used these little plastic dishes you get with these meals for a tenner from markie parkies! However you can use little ramekin dishes or whatever else you can find that resembles a little dish :)
Place some of the roasted rhubarb you done earlier into the bottom of the dishes then pour over the mixture (I used a measuring jug for this to save mess!). Pop in the fridge for about 1-2 hours (or longer if you're making them the day before). If you want to be fancy (and have time) and want to turn them out onto a plate, dip the dishes (alliteration!) into some boiled water to loosen the sides and run a knife round the edges. Spoon some of the rhubarb over the panna cotta for some uber awesome taste!
I just served the panna cotta in the dish as it was and spooned some of the rhubarb over it.
So there you go! Something super fancy and super tasty and it literally takes you less than half an hour to make the mixture. I think the only difficult part is the waiting coz it's SO GODDAMN DELICIOUS!

So while we're waiting for the panna cotta to set we're going to do some...

Vienesse Biscuits

Makes LOADS!

These are always easy to do and the ingredients are always stuff that I have in the cupboards. What you'll need is:

100g/30z softened butter

25g/1oz icing sugar

100g/3oz plain flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

50g/2oz dark chocolate

Heat oven to 190oC/170oC Fan/Gas 5. Grease baking trays or cover in grease-proof paper.

Beat the sugar and butter together until it looks pale and it's quite a fluffy texture. Using a sieve, add flour and baking powder to the mixture and mix until well blended.

Fill a piping bag with the dough (as it's quite gooey!) and pipe about 2" lines on the baking tray. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown around the edges.

Leave the biscuits to cool on the tray for about 5 minutes. If you try to lift them off while they're still hot then they'll just fall apart and you'll be left with broken biscuits! Yummy none-the-less but still broken! Transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Then, carefully, dip half of each biscuit it so half of it is coated in chocolate. Place back on the wire rack and leave to set (this normally takes about an hour or so).

We made these while we were waiting on the panna cotta setting and we still had time to make...

Meringues

PHEW! *mops brow* We're nearly there! By now you'll be feeling like Delia Smith/Gordon Ramsay/Michel Roux Jnr (or possible senior) depending on your kitchen temperament!

Meringues have always been something I have wanted to try but have just been that little it too impatient to make them ever since i lost my electric whisk (seriously I have no idea where it went and I could have done with one for this!).

I was looking through loads of recipes to try and find one that sounded easy and yet had a photo to prove that it looked impressive, and came across the easiest theory for a meringue: For every egg yolk used, use 50g caster sugar. Tada! That's the trick so they're not too chewy and have just the perfect amount of crispiness!

I had used 2 egg yolks so used 100g sugar for this. This made about 9 decent sized meringues.

Heat your oven to 150oC/130oC Fan/Gas 2

Now remember I've lost my electric whisk - so I used sheer strength and determination to whisk the egg whites into lovely white fluffy stiff peaks. I must admit I did use the "hold the bowl over the head" theory and, luckily for me, it worked! If you're lucky enough to not have lost your electric whisk, use a medium speed to do this.

 Next, slowly add the sugar. Again, if you're using an electric whisk turn the speed down low as you don't want to over mix this! I added the sugar about a tablespoon at a time until the mixture was this lovely shiny mixture and gave stiff peaks when i lifted the whisk up.

Then I plonked a tablespoons of the mixture onto a greased baking tray (again you can use grease-proof paper but be careful incase it sticks!)

Place the meringues into the oven, then as soon as they're in, turn the oven down to 140oC/120oC/Gas 1 and cook for about 30 minutes until they're a lovely pale coffee colour and sound hollow when lightly tapped. Turn off the oven completely and leave the meringues in the oven to dry out (otherwise they go a bit overly-chewy!) I left them in for about an hour and a half and then removed them and they turned out ace!

To serve them all as trio, simply place on a plate and spoon some of the leftover roasted rhubarb over the meringue as a tasty extra!

So I hope these recipes have came in useful and that you enjoy them as much as I have! I also hope to find that you found them just as simple an stress free as I have!

ENJOY!

Garlic, Sea Salt and Herb Focaccia

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of posting recently! Things have been manic busy the past few months :) The only good thing to come of it is that i'm planning to up roots and move 140 miles north to the Highlands to be with the love of my life :) very excited about that!

Anyway! We're not here to drink tea and gab (although that does sound tremendous, no?) we're here to BAKE!

I've seen ALOT of baking programmes recently where they've been making focaccia bread. I must admit after watching the Great British Bake off where there was THAT episode with the focaccia, it kind of made me a bit scared. However I do not get scared of baking or cooking. No, I go in gung-ho and give it a bash - after all whats the worst that could happen?

I must admit, the initial dough formation made me panicky. I did actually wonder if I had put in too much water (which I hadn't) and the fact that it didn't act like normal white bread made me a bit out of sorts. however I am more than pleased with the final outcome and I am pleased to say that this lovely tasty bread will be taking pride of place next to my Flammkuchen tonight at dinner (recipe for that alternative German pizza to follow!)

So give it a bash and let me know how you get on :)

So, you will need:

500g/1lb 2oz white flour (you can also use bread flour)
2 tsp sea salt
3 tsp dried easy blend yeast (or buy 2 sachets)
2 tbsp olive oil
400ml/14 fl oz cold water
olive oil (for drizzling)
sea salt
1 large garlic clove, crushed
selection of herbs chopped finely

Place Flour, yeast, oil, salt and 300ml/10fl oz water into a bowl and mix together until a dough is formed (this is messy!), knead the dough for about five minutes while gradually adding the remainder of the water.

Stretching the dough by hand, fold the edges of the dough into the centre for another five minutes, turn the bowl 180 degrees and repeat the process.

Tip the dough onto a well oiled surface and continue kneading for five minutes until it looks a bit more smoother and manageable. Place the dough in the bowl, cover with cling film and place in a warm place until it's almost doubled in size (I put mine under the radiator!)

Line two baking sheets or dishes with spray oil (this makes the bread easier to remove!) and set aside. Tip the dough out and half. Using your fingers, flatten the dough onto the baking sheets until all the area has been covered. Cover in cling film and place in a warm place to prove for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7. Drizzle each loaf with olive oil, sea salt, garlic and the herbs (or whatever you fancy!) and place in the oven for 20 minutes.

Once cooked, drizzle more oil over the bread.

If you are reheating it, just drizzle more oil over the top afterwards :)

Good luck!