Melting Moments

These cookies are lovely and really do melt in your mouth!

Ingredients:

12 oz unsalted butter, softened

3 oz icing sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

10 ½ oz plain flour

1 ¾ oz cornflour

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Get 2 baking sheets ready. 

Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, then beat in the vanilla extract. 

Sift over the flour and cornflour and mix thoroughly.

Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe 32 cookies onto each baking sheet (I don’t have a piping bag, so I used a Ziploc bag with one of the bottom corners cut off (very slightly) – worked a charm!! Thanks to my sister Margaret for this great suggestion!

Bake in the oven for about 15 mins, or until golden brown. Leave to cool on the baking sheet.

Fudge Brownies

Now I must say, these are the most devilish thing I have ever made! Seriously! And I have to blame my friend Tanya for this. She pointed me in the direction of the recipe, therefore it is her fault!

Ingredients:
8 oz butter
18 oz sugar (I used caster)
4 large eggs
10 oz cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp espresso powder(optional)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
12 oz plain flour
16 oz chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Butter a baking dish.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter.  Stir in sugar and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not allow to boil.
Pour mixture into a large bowl. Beat in cocoa powder, eggs, salt, baking powder and vanilla extract. Stir until well combined.
Stir in the flour and chocolate chips (I used chocolate chunks which was a bit awkward - I would imagine you wouldn't even need the extra chocolate) and stir until well combined.
Pour into your prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until a tester comes out mostly clean.
The edges should be set and the centre should still look slightly moist, but not uncooked.
Cool on a wire rack.

P.S. I have a fan oven, so I think the 30 minutes was a little too long for me. 25 minutes probably would have been enough! The fact that these were slightly overdone didn't deter anyone from eating them though I must add!!

Choccy melts

Another yummy recipe!

Ingredients:
4 1/2oz butter, softened
2 oz icing sugar (sifted)
2 oz cornflour (cornstarch)
1 oz cocoa powder
4 oz plain flour
4 oz dark or milk chocolate

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 190C/385F and line 2 baking sheets.
Beat the butter in a large bowl until very soft, then simply add all the other ingredients except for the 4 oz of chocolate. Mix together (easier to get yuour hands in!) until it forms a dough.
Take small balls of the dough and flatten them slightly until you are happy with the size and shape. Place them on your baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. Leave them to cool on the baking sheet.

Break the chocolate up into little pieces and melt in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Do not let the base of the bowl touch the water. When the chocolate has melted, use a spoon to drizzle it over the biscuits, then leave to set on the baking sheets.

When the chocolate has set, the finished biscuits are really easy to take off the baking sheet.

I had a problem with the drizzling of the chocolate so I just dropped a blob of it on top of the cookies!

Chocolate and ginger lovelies

According to Kate Shirazi who wrote "Baking Magic", chocolate and ginger go together like the old yin and yang, so we must obey the rules and have plenty of delicious biscuits.  I made these last week and they are very yummy!

Ingredients:
4 1/2oz butter, softened
3 1/2oz soft light brown sugar
1 tbsp golden (corn) syrup
1 large egg yolk
7 oz plain flour (plus extra for dusting)
1 oz cocoa powder
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
4oz milk/dark chocolate (optional)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 190C/375F and line 2 baking sheets.
Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the golden syrup and egg yolk and beat away.
Sift the flour, cocoa, ginger abd baking soda over the butter mixture and mix it in until a dough forms.  Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth, then wrap in cling film and leave to chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes - an hour would be better.

Pull little chunks of dough off and roll into little balls. Flatten them slightly and place on your baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

When cold they are delicious as they are, but if you like, you can break the chocolate up into little pieces and melt in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in the microwave in 10 second intervals). Do not let the base of the bowl touch the water. When the chocolate has melted, drizzle it over the biscuits and leave to set.

YUM!

seeds to seedlings.....hopefully

I had a ton of sunflowers in my garden this year - they are so beautiful! It's amazing how such a huge flower can grow from a tiny seed. I was just amazed, as were the kids. They loved watching the progress of the plant....the excitement when they could see the yellow petals emerging!!

So when some of my sunflowers died, I decided to keep the seeds.  I chopped off the heads of the flower and painstakingly removed each seed and popped them in an envelope.  I have easily about 600 seeds!! Seriously, no kidding!  And I still have a couple left in the garden to de-seed!!

I'm going to plant these in the spring in little pots and when the seedlings start to emerge I'm going to transplant them outside and with any luck I'll have 600 sunflowers!! LOL! I'll be delighted if I even have one:)

I also kept the seeds from our Halloween pumpkin this year! A friend of mine kept hers last year (from just one pumpkin), sowed them and they yielded about 8 pumpkins!! Going to give it a try!!

Treasures

When I was growing up my mother had a huge tin of buttons. Whenever she found a button she would pop it in the tin! She was great at sewing and making things. If a particular item called for a button all she had to do was look at her private stash and she normally found a suitable one.

Being a child, I thought this tin of buttons was the best thing ever. I would search through them picking out my favourites.

I asked my sister to loan me the tin for a day or two and I strolled down memory lane today:)

Raisin Cookies

I'd say these could be considered a much healthier option that the chocolate chip cookies! Mine don't look like the ones in the cookbook, but they taste yummy! Instead of the fruits listed in the recipe I used currants as they were the only fruits I had! Also, for some reason mine turned out quite crumbly.....

Ingredients:
60ml/2 1/2 fl oz/ 1/4 cup suunflower oil
75g/3 oz/6 tbsp butter, softened
110g/4 oz/ 1/2 cup soft light brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
100g /4oz/ 3/4 cup jumbo oats (I used regular porridge oats)
150g/5oz/ 1 cup plain wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
110g/ 4oz dried apple
25g/ 1oz cranberries
25g/ 1oz blueberries (I used 6oz currants instead)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and prepare two baking sheets.

Mix the sunflower oil, butter and sugar together in a large bowl.
 Beat in the egg and vanilla, then stir in the oats.
Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon over the sugar and oil mixture and mix in.
Add the dried fruit and stir until they are just combined.

Drop dessert spoonfuls of the mixture on to your baking sheets, leaving lots of space between them as they spread and bake for about 10 minutes until pale golden.
Leave on the baking sheets for about 10 minutes to harden and set a bit before cooling on wire racks.