Cheese biscuits and chutney

I am a shadow of my former self. Never did I ever think I'd become the type of person to say "perhaps it would make a nice change to bake some savoury treats for Christmas." *

Apparently, this is me now. Earlier this week I caught myself saying "that border planting is still looking lovely and green for December" and yesterday I was genuinely thrilled to receive a car boot liner from Santa. I'm fully embracing my middle-aged era.

Back to the baking, I made savoury biscuits to accompany caramelised red onion chutney (also homemade) to give as Christmas presents to family this year. I tried two different Mary Berry recipes from her "Baking Bible" book: rich, cheesy biscuits and Dorchester biscuits. Both were delicious but the former was more aesthetically pleasing than the latter.

I must admit I'm too lazy to type out the recipes, largely because I am currently pinned down by a happy, sleeping cat and finding the book would require moving the cat. Mary's "Baking Bible" is easily my most used baking book so instead I'll encourage you to either buy a copy or dust it off your book shelf.

I tried two chutney recipes too: this one from Tesco and the other from Curly's Cooking (I think... I looked up so many recipes I can't fully remember.) Personally I preferred the second one. The garlic felt too dominant in the first one although still a perfectly edible chutney. Annoyingly I couldn't find the red onion chutney recipe I've used previously in my recipe files and the blog has closed down. Ah well.

*I haven't completely lost the plot as I still made my annual batch of tablet (fudge) and perverted gingerbread Santas and dinosaurs. 

Keeping it real with my complete lack of styling in my ugly kitchen.

Merry Christmas/ happy end of December to everyone!

Rhubarb and custard kisses

Years ago (here, actually) I made delicious custard biscuits which incorporated custard powder into the dough. The other week in one of my baking related ponderings I wondered if I could substitute the cornflour for custard powder in my Granny's recipe for kisses. . . So I tried it.

The custard powder gave the kisses (a shortbread sandwich biscuit) a lovely, golden yellow colour which the camera on my phone mostly decided to capture as a radioactive glow. The powder also gave the biscuits a sweet, vanilla-y, custard flavour.

For the filling I used a vanilla butter icing and some of last year's never-ending supply of rhubarb based jam. (I made more rhubarb jam than you can shake a stalk stick at.)

Basically I'm trying to find ways to use up the multiple jars of rhubarb jam I made last year. Despite giving away a large amount as Christmas presents (or just to any accepting friend or family member) I still have at least 10 jars left. 

Admittedly very little jam was used in this bake but the idea of rhubarb and custard kisses appealed to me and I'm happy my baking pondering was successful.

Granny's kisses with a rhubarb and custard twist

6oz margarine

2 1/2 oz Icing sugar

2oz Custard powder

6oz Self-raising flour

2oz Butter, softened 

4oz Icing sugar

A few drops of vanilla extract 

A few drops of boiling water

(Optional) A drop of pink food colouring 

A jar of rhubarb jam

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/ 200C/ 180C Fan. Line two large baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

Cream together the softened butter and icing sugar until smooth and fluffy. Add the custard powder and self raising flour and mix together until it forms a dough.

Form the dough into 24 small balls and set onto the baking sheets, spacing them apart. Slightly flatten them with a fork. Bake in the oven for approx. 12 minutes or until the edges start looking slightly golden. Leave to cool on a cooling rack.

For the icing mix together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract until fluffy. If it needs softening slightly add a few drops of boiling water. Admittedly I rarely weigh out my butter or icing sugar for making icing so my written quantities here are a rough guess.

Once the biscuits are cool, sandwich them together with a dollop of butter icing and a smaller dollop of jam. A little jam goes a long way. You should end up with 12 kisses.

Linzer cookies

My first festive post of 2020! Hopefully I'll manage more but I'll see how things go. This year I was determined to try a couple of new recipes for baked Christmas gifts instead of defaulting to my usual assortment of shortbread, fudge/tablet and gingerbread biscuits.

First up are these linzer cookies, which are basically festive jammy dodger biscuits. I've had this recipe bookmarked from Katiecakes blog for a while so I'm pleased to have finally tried it. Her bakes and photography are always lovely.

These biscuits were fun to make. The dough didn't need chilling which meant they weren't too faffy to prepare either. My only alteration, if you can call it that, was rolling my dough out to 1/4" thick. The recipe says 3/8" but I felt 1/4" was thick enough considering two biscuits get stuck together. I used a 2.5" diameter round cutter and got 22 completed sandwich biscuits in total from the dough. I also used up almost an entire jar of strawberry jam to fill them.

Not much else to report other than they looked very pretty and made lovely gifts to drop off at relatives' doors this week. Vanilla biscuits with jam are always a crowd pleaser. I also have Katiecakes' chocolate and dulce de leche linzer cookies bookmarked so hopefully I'll try them sometime too.

Wishing you all (if anyone still reads) a Merry Christmas and if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a lovely Friday.

mini egg biscuits

Slow clap for me posting an Easter bake at the end of May. 👏

However the Mini Eggs can easily be swapped for other chocolate: chocolate chips, Smarties, M&Ms etc. Please don't dismiss these biscuits (or cookies, if that's what you prefer to call them) just because they're dressed for Easter.

I came across these biscuits through Nickki's blog (again!) I liked that they contained oats and were described as chunky and robust. After making my oat shorties I was still on an oat biscuit kick so this recipe very much appealed to me, although typically I only got around to baking two weeks after Easter. Better late than never. 

To be honest I'm impressed that I kept two bags of Cadbury's Mini Eggs on my kitchen counter for over two weeks without breaking into them. That's extreme self control.

These biscuits are indeed chunky and robust as Nicki describes, like a pimped up Hobnob. The recipe also produced a sizeable batch. I think I got 26 decent sized biscuits. The smell of oats, butter and vanilla from the oven was absolutely insane and I couldn't wait to eat one fresh from the oven. It certainly didn't disappoint.

I think my only alteration to these next time would be to slightly reduce the sugar amount as they seemed incredibly sweet. I don't know who I am these days as that previously would have been an unthinkable sentence to proclaim.

Saying that, they're pretty damn tasty as they are and I wouldn't hesitate to bake them again. Here's the link to the recipe if you fancy making them too.

Oat shorties

I've been on a biscuit kick over the last couple of months and realised that it has been absolutely years since I last made oat shorties. Do they look like the most exciting biscuits? No, but damn they are tasty. They're like a Hobnob-flapjack hybrid.

They smell amazing fresh from the oven too. Butter, golden syrup and oats. . . Mmmmmm.

I was going to add that these are made using store cupboard essentials, but then again perhaps lard isn't commonplace? I must admit I don't tend to have it lying around but it was definitely worth buying a block to make these biscuits. Now what to do with the rest of it, shortcrust pastry or more oat biscuits? Decisions decisions.

Oat Shortie Biscuits
A family recipe

50g (2oz) lard (such as Cookeen or Trex)
50g (2oz) margarine
100g (4oz) sugar (I used caster)
1 tsp golden syrup
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp boiling water
100g (4oz) self-raising flour
100g (4oz) porridge oats

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a few baking sheets/trays with greaseproof paper.

In a small saucepan melt together the lard, margarine, sugar, syrup, bicarbonate of soda and boiling water. Do not bring to the boil. Add the oats and flour and mix well. 

Take heaped teaspoonfuls of the mixture, (or bigger if you want larger biscuits) shape into rough knobs  and place on the trays, leaving space for each one to spread. I think I made about 24 biscuits in total. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until golden.

Leave to firm up slightly on the trays before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Ginger nuts

Over the last year or so I've developed a strong liking for ginger nut biscuits. Especially dunked in a hot cup of tea. Yum!

They never used to be my biscuit of choice (custard creams all the way) as I wasn't a fan of ginger or anything vaguely fiery/spicey in flavour. However my taste buds have definitely changed over the last couple of years as I can now stand a little bit of heat in my food. I even ate a (very mild admittedly) curry a few weeks ago. Who the hell have I become?!

At the beginning of the covid-19 lockdown I couldn't find any Ginger Nuts in the local shop so I took matters into my own hands and made my own, Mary Berry's Yorkshire Ginger Nuts to be precise.

There isn't a picture with the recipe but I have a feeling I went wrong somewhere. The mixture was really stiff so the biscuits didn't spread at all and they took a lot longer than stated in the oven. Admittedly I only got 35 biscuits when the recipe said it yielded 50, so I definitely rolled my dough balls too big. Saying that, the resulting biscuits are still pretty small.

Taste-wise, although perfectly nice with a cup of tea they didn't quite hit the spot for me. I think I was after a firmer biscuit with a snap.

The search for the perfect Ginger Nut recipe continues. . .

Yorshire Ginger Nuts from Mary Berry Baking Bible

100g (4oz) butter
1 generous tbsp golden syrup
350g (12oz) self raising flour
100g (4oz) demerara sugar
100g (4oz) light muscovado sugar
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 level tbsp ground ginger
1 large egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 160C/Fan 140C/Gas mark 3 and line 3 baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

Melt together the butter and golden syrup in a small pan on the hob over a gentle heat. In a separate large bowl combine all the dry ingredients then add the melted butter mixture and the egg.

Form the dough into 50 balls about the size of a walnut and place on the sheets, allowing some space for each ball to spread. (This is where I went wrong as I only got 35. I also flattened the balls slightly as I couldn't see how they'd be soft enough to spread.... and I was correct.)

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Leave to firm up slightly on the trays for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling. 

nostalgic bake: rock buns

Rock buns/ rock cakes, whatever you want to call them. They're a good, old fashioned, British bake. My Granny used to make fantastic rock buns, my aunty still makes fantastic rock buns and I baked them a lot as a child and whilst at uni. If my biscuit barrel tin was standing out on the counter in my student flat, you knew there was a stash of rock buns hiding inside.

Perhaps it's just the nostalgia factor which makes them so comforting but I also think there's something extra rewarding about making tasty bakes from basic baking cupboard essentials. Rock buns are never going to win a beauty competition with their craggy appearance but their soft texture and buttery flavour more than makes up for it.

They could be pimped up with the addition of ground cinnamon, mixed spices or lemon zest, but I must admit I like them in all their plain glory. My aunty adds a sprinkling of granulated or demerara sugar on top before baking which gives them extra crunch. I must admit I'd quite like to try that sometime.

I've been looking through old recipes from my Granny and her sisters recently and I'd love to bake more of them. A goal for this year perhaps? As much as I love using blogs/the internet for sourcing recipes there's something lovely about family recipes scrawled on the backs of envelopes, all torn and splattered from years of use... even if they're rather minimal with instructions.

I would say now is good time to delve into baking some of my long bookmarked recipes considering the current COVID-19 lockdown in the UK, however it appears all the supermarket shelves are completely empty of flour. (Is flour the new toilet roll?) I'll have to choose my recipes carefully to make the most of the bag of flour in my cupboard at the moment. 

Rock buns

Recipe passed down from my Granny 

8oz self raising flour

4oz butter, softened

4oz caster sugar 

1 egg, lightly beaten

A good handful of sultanas (or other dried fruit such as currants or raisins)

Ok, confession time, despite having made these COUNTLESS TIMES in my lifetime I cannot remember what temperature they need in the oven (Granny's recipe doesn't actually say and my memory is truly awful)... let's go with preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. I'll update the recipe when I next bake them.

Line a couple of large baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Cream together the sugar and butter until well combined (they don't need to be mixed until light and fluffy like a cake batter, just a minute or so with the mixer will do.) Add the egg, mix again, then add the flour. By this point the mixture will become a stiffer dough so you may prefer to mix by hand with a blunt knife rather than an electric mixer. Lastly chuck in a good handful of sultanas and mix until evenly distributed.

Shape the mixture into small-ish , rough knobs and place on the trays, leaving space in between each one. They spread a little in the oven but not much. You should get at least 12 rock buns from the mixture.

Bake in the oven for approx.15 minutes (depending on the size of the rock buns) until risen and golden. Leave to cool on the trays for a couple of minutes as they'll be quite soft straight from the oven, then transfer to a cooling rack to firm up.

birthday cakes and other bakes

Hello! How's it going? I'm currently feeling a bit run down. I had a sick bug last weekend and this weekend I have a massive coldsore. I look delightful. In an attempt to not run myself into the ground further, I'm going to chill today with some knitting and catch up with blogging.

May and June were quite intense months between work and organising/doing house renovations. Things are moving forward on the house front though. I'm finally at the turning point where deliveries are arriving and things are ready to be installed. I'm looking forward to partitions going back up and the house looking more like a home again rather than a sad, gutted shell.

Anyway, this isn't a house renovating post, we're here for cake pictures. Right? I have a lot of family birthdays crammed into a few weeks in April/May so there's always an intense period of baking. It's tiring but also kind of brilliant. Three of the birthdays fall within a week so there is loads of cake to power through!

Blow away sponge

A cake for my Aunty's 70th birthday. I haven't baked one of these before, or if I have it was so long ago that I've forgotten, but Mum used to make these a lot. It's a fatless sponge, similar to a swiss roll I guess, so very light and fluffy. I sandwiched the sponges with cream, jam and fresh strawberries. I would love to make this again as it's so fresh and summery.

Black Lego brick cake

This is what happens when you leave baking to the last minute so you have to make something simple and the only fondant icing colour you have in the cupboard is black. I kind of love the brick in its basic glory though and oddly black is probably the most appropriate colour for my eldest brother. The cake itself is a Mary Berry basic sponge traybake cut in half and stacked with jam and butter icing sandwiched in between. Mary's traybake never lets me down, it's so good!  The cute lemon meringue cupcakes were baked by my sister in law.

Minecraft cake

This is actually my second Minecraft themed cake (first was for eldest nephew here) but this time it was for my youngest nephew. The cake was another Mary traybake but cut into smaller blocks and iced individually before haphazardly stacking into a structure. Whilst I baked the sponges my Mum did a cracking job of making all the fiddly figures to set on and around the cake.

Incredible Hulk cake

As an Incredible Hulk fan, this was my favourite cake of the bunch, evidenced by the fact I took more than one photo! Unsurprisingly, this cake comprises of..... you guessed it.... yet more Mary Berry traybake sponges.

It turns out making a Hulk cake isn't as straight-forward as one would think. Have a browse through Google Images and you'll understand.... The vast majority look pretty ropey! I think because there are so many different styles of the Hulk he's not got a go-to, recogniseable face to draw, if that makes sense? There were a couple of more hopeful looking cakes though, one of which had the Hulk breaking through a wall. I thought that looked cool so I followed that idea but drew a different face. Initially Mum and I tried to sculpt a 3D face to match the 3D fists but it looked horrendous. It was so bad I almost wish I'd taken a photo. Luckily we had enough green icing to make his face again on a flat layer. I think what we ended up with was presentable and recogniseable. The fists are definitely my favourite part though!

Other bakes:

Apple and mixed berry crumble

My Mum has owned this pretty, flower shaped Denby dish for a few years yet has never used it due to the impractical shape. Whilst I partly agree about it not being the most functional dish, I've always thought it would be great for a pudding. Back in April, I finally put the dish to use and it was glorious.

The crumble was attractively colourful and tasty and I loved how the petals of the dish made perfect portion sizes. The dish might get another outing soon as last month I discovered a few sticks of rhubarb growing in my new garden! Rhubarb crumble is most definitely on the horizon. 

Chocolate chip and pink smartie cookies

A few months ago I baked these biscuits/cookies (whatever you choose to call them) to take to my brother's house for dessert and served them warm with a dollop of Hagendaaz Praline and Cream ice-cream. OH MY GOODNESS IT TASTED AMAZING. I highly recommend it. They're basically The Hummingbird Bakery's chocolate chip cookies from their first cookbook. The only difference was swapping some of the chocolate chips for pink smarties.

What have you been baking recently, anything nice and summery? I've been optimistically flicking through my recipe books but have yet to make anything. I think it's safe to move away from the Mary Berry traybake though!

bakewell biscuits

I can't believe how little I've baked this summer. This week I felt I was starting to suffer from some sort of baking deprivation so I rectified the situation with these bakewell biscuits. If I had left it any longer my eyelids might have started twitching.

This was an incredibly satisfying bake. Whoever thought to create a bakewell tart/biscuit hybrid should give themselves a pat on the back. These are very tasty biscuits and the recipe yields a surprisingly large batch which is great for greedy people like me who rarely ever just eat one biscuit with their cup of tea. I think I ended up 26 biscuits in total (the batch, not the amount I drank with my tea.)

The recipe (which I slightly adapted) is from a Co-op magazine although I discovered it on one of my favourite baking blogs, The Caked Crusader. I'll be the first to point out that my batch turned out different looking to CC's. My biscuits spread quite a lot in the oven, I'm assuming due to my butter being very soft and my warm hands when I handled the mixture, so they lost their thumbprint indentations. They're still visually attractive and taste delicious, but I don't think they can be considered thumbprint biscuits anymore. 

The main changes I made to the recipe were swapping out the vanilla for almond extract and omitting the lemon zest and juice. I wanted the biscuits to be purely about almond and raspberry - no other flavour distractions.

The biscuits have crispy edges, slightly chewy, jammy centres and are packed with almondy goodness. It's like having a bakewell tart without needing to faff about making pastry. Basically, these biscuits make me feel very happy. My vintage embroidered tablecloth also makes me happy, even though it's a sh*t to iron.

Here's hoping it will be less than a month until my next bake.

Bakewell biscuits

175g softened butter (I used a combination of unsalted with slightly salted butter as that's what I had to hand)
175g caster sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
150g ground almonds
150g self raising flour
approx. 1/2 jar good quality raspberry jam
handful of flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Line some baking sheets with baking parchment - at least 4 baking sheets or 2 reused/rotated.

Beat together the butter, sugar and almond extract for a few minutes until pale. Add the egg and beat well. Add the ground almonds and self raising flour and stir until everything is fully combined.

Take a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture and roll into a ball in the palm of your hands. Place the balls onto the baking sheets, spacing them well apart as they will spread. I had 8 per baking sheet. Push your thumb into the centre of each ball to create a well and spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of jam into the centre. Sprinkle some flaked almonds on top.

Bake in the oven until golden and well spread. Although the original recipe says to bake for 10 minutes, both the Caked Crusader and I found ours took longer at 16-18 minutes. Leave to cool and firm up on the trays before transferring to a wire rack/tin/your mouth.

festive bakes

It's that time of year again... when I become so disorganised that I lump all of my festive baking into one blog post on Christmas Eve. YAY!

Personally, I find it just isn't Christmas without gingerbread boobie angels and saucy santas. This year I made sure I scheduled in the time to make them as I didn't manage to make any last year and it just felt plain wrong. Their little faces fill me with so much joy! I baked a batch of these to take in to my local music group's Christmas party and they went down an absolute storm.

I also baked a batch of mankini-clad gingerbread men and some questionably styled Tory hipster gentlemen as part of an in joke for some friends. This is probably the height of my piping decoration skills.

The amount of sugar and butter I've gone through in the last couple of weeks is obscene! I can't remember how many bags of sugar were emptied for all the tablet I made but I definitely used up at least 6 packs of butter for shortbread. I have a large extended family so large quantities of foodie presents are needed to take around when visiting relatives over the festive period.

It's always worth the mammoth effort though as I love seeing everything all packaged up with my childish funky handmade labels.

As I had leftover cranberries from my cranberry orange muffins I decided to try the cranberry, apple and cinnamon cake from Hannah's blog, Honey & Dough. I more or less followed the recipe, substituting caster sugar for soft light brown sugar, a cooking apple instead of a granny smith, and added 1/2tsp of vanilla bean paste to the batter. I also mixed some whole cranberries into the batter as well as scattering on top. My cake took twice the length of time to bake, probably due to the amount of fruit I put in, about an hour.

I baked this as a pudding to take to a friend's house last weekend and it was so well received that my friend asked for the recipe and she bought the ingredients the following day so she could make one. Then I decided to bake another too! Needless to say, it's a very tasty cake.

And finally, I baked a couple of ginger syrup bundts. They're full of flavour, keep pretty well and the recipe is nice and simple... unless you're baking whilst really tired and forget to add an ingredient. Yup, I forgot to add baking powder to one of them. Oops! So I got to keep a flatter bundt for myself.

I've been meaning to make mincemeat pies as well but I think I've reached my limit. After baking most evenings for the last two weeks I must admit to feeling rather pooped. You never know though, I might muster up some energy to make some closer to new year.

But for now I'm probably going to put my feet up, drink a lot of tea and wish everybody a very merry Christmas!

Trying to photograph the tree? Ok, I'll sit here then.
Cheers, Bob.

malted chocolate chip biscuits

I was going to write "cookies" but just couldn't bring myself to do it. To me, these are biscuits.

Regardless of what you want to call these, they are utterly delicious. The malt flavour really comes through and tastes fantastic with the milk chocolate chunks. It's like Malteser chocolates but in biscuit form. 

Go and bake them. NOW.

Malted chocolate chip biscuits
Recipe slightly altered from Choclette at Tin & Thyme, altered from Ruby Tandoh at the Guardian.

150g butter, softened (I use slightly salted)

100g golden caster sugar

1 egg, large

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

225g plain flour

1 1/2 stp baking powder

90g horlicks (or equivalent malted drink powder)

100g milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Cream together the butter and sugar. Mix in the horlicks powder and vanilla extract, followed by the egg. In a separate bowl combine the flour and baking powder then add to the other bowl. Mix into a dough. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Roll the dough into walnut sized balls and flatten slightly. I got 20 from my mixture although admittedly I did eat bits of dough... If the mixture is really soft then put in the fridge to firm up a bit, about 20 minutes. Place on baking trays spacing well apart to allow for spreading in the oven.

Bake for approx. 12 minutes until lightly golden around the edges. Allow to firm up slightly on the tray for a minute before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

gingerbread dinosaur invasion

My friend Sarah gives the best Christmas presents, 3D dinosaur biscuit cutters!

I was a bit miffed that I hadn't got around to baking any gingerbread biscuits at Christmas, so these cutters gave me the perfect excuse to bake some this month.

 camouflage stegosaurus

The biscuits turned out more like super syrup-y gingersnaps than gingerbread as the dough needed to be rolled out fairly thin in order for the dinosaur legs to slot comfortably into the bodies. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it's worth noting they're crunchy rather than a chewy centred gingerbread. They're great tea dunkers, providing you're ok with the possibility of icing flaking off into your cup. (Part of the dunking thrill surely?)

 "Hey, what do you think of my Lord Nelson jug. Pretty groovy, right?"
"Fabulously retro, darling'"

Needless to say, I had a lot of fun making and decorating these dinosaurs and setting them around my dresser in crockery attack formations. They've certainly amused all the visitors to the house this week. Dinosaur fun for everybody!

Gingerbread/snap dinosaur biscuits
Original recipe from a recipe card in an Usborne baking pack (funnily enough, I think it was also a present from Sarah many years ago.) I've made a couple of tweaks/substitutions:

350g (12oz) plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
100g (4oz) chilled butter
100g (4oz) light muscovado sugar 
75g (2oz) soft dark brown sugar
1 large egg
2- 3 tbsp golden syrup (enough to bring the dough together)

for the royal icing:
1 egg white (or 1 sachet of egg white powder)
1/2 tsp lemon juice
300g icing sugar

Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger into a large bowl. Cut the butter into small chunks and rub into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. Break the eggs into a jug and lightly beat with a fork. Add the syrup and beat again. Pour the eggy syrup into the flour mixture and mix until it forms a dough. Wrap in the dough clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

Cut the dough in half. Sprinkle the (clean) worktop with flour and roll out one piece of the dough until it's about 3mm thick if you're making 3D dinosaurs (about 5mm thick is fine for ordinary biscuits). Cut out all your shapes and transfer to baking trays (make sure your trays have a dusting of flour to stop your biscuits sticking!) Roll out the rest of the dough and cut more shapes. 

Bake in the oven for about 8 minutes. Keep an eye on them! The dough is rolled out thin so the edges don't take long to colour. Thicker (ordinary) biscuits will take longer, 12-15 minutes. Leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack. 

For royal icing, beat together the egg white and lemon juice. (If using egg white powder, follow the instructions on the sachet to reconstitute the egg white before adding the lemon.) Gradually add the icing sugar, mixing well between each addition. Whisk the mixture until it forms stiff peaks. Add more icing sugar if you think it looks too runny. Divide the mixture into a couple of bowls and add a few drops of food colouring. Once you've reached  your desired shade dollop the icing into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle and have fun decorating!

festive bakes

Merry Christmas Eve folks! As usual all my festive baking seems to happen in a last minute rush so I thought I'd group them together in one post like I've done in previous years. (You'd think I'd learn to be more organised!)

First off we have the annual batches of Christmas tablet! My mum drinks so much Douwe Egberts coffee that we have a substantial number of their jars by the end of the year and they're the perfect size for storing tablet. Just add some pretty tape, twirly ribbon and a handmade label and you've got yourself a lovely Christmas present.

Next up is a sticky, spiced apple and syrup bundt which I baked using this recipe from Dollybakes. The only change I made was using golden syrup instead of maple syrup for the glaze. I was so happy that this turned out the tin perfectly, I squealed with delight! Cake release spray is a glorious invention.

These cranberry and white chocolate biscuit/cookies are fast becoming an annual Christmas bake for me. Not only is white chocolate and cranberry a winning combination but these biscuits are quick to throw together which is perfect if you're in a hurry.

Sadly I haven't managed to bake my annual perverted gingerbread santas and boobie angels however I have baked these festive gingerbread cupcakes using a recipe I came across on Sally's Baking Addiction. Mine turned out a lot darker as I used half golden syrup half treacle in place of molasses. I also decided to top mine off with a cinnamon and golden syrup cream cheese icing and edible wafer snowflakes. As with most gingerbreads the flavour improved with age. They certainly packed a spiced, treacle-y punch.

For the first time ever I've baked shortbread! It's one of those bakes which my Granny was so good at making that I never felt I needed to bother. However this year Mum and I were really missing her shortbread so we followed Granny's recipe and they taste exactly like hers. We both thought it felt like getting a big hug. It officially feels like Christmas now that we have some Granny shortbread in the tin.

And lastly I made these chocolate brownie trees which I've seen on both Ros and Kate's blogs recently and couldn't resist baking. I wish I had more time to decorate these nicely but they were a last minute festive treat to take to my friends' house.

So that's what I've managed to bake in the run up to Christmas this year - a mixture of old and new recipes. Are you a traditional Christmas baker or do you like to switch things up and try new recipes every year?

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Hope you have a lovely day tomorrow. x