christmas concoctions part two: white chocolate and cranberry cakies

so this post may be a little out of season, but we'll roll with it!

life has been a little crazy recently: the post christmas/new year period is always a bit of a blur and then on monday i started my new job. it's going really well so far and the people in the office are really nice and welcoming! but it does mean i have been coming home, having dinner, working out and crashing!! hopefully i'll get back in to the swing of things soon - three weeks off means i am a little rusty!

so this week's post is a hangover from the festive season, but these will taste good all year round - especially now when it's still dark and cold. however, as the title might suggest, these did not go 100% to plan! i'll reveal all as we go along but i have definitely created a new bake!

this was a hummingbird recipe, i think i have made them before (with greater success!). i made them for my christmas party (which went really well).

ingredients ready to go

 the recipe is nice and simple, building up a cookie dough in stages

 

at this point there was a very narrowly avoided disaster! our spices have big letters on the top of the jars and i had (stupidly) reached in and grabbed the first 'C' that i could find.

thankfully i was waiting on my mum to get back from the shop with the flour so i put the 'cinnamon' in a separate bowl ready to mix in, at which point i thought, this looks rather dark! double checking the jar confirmed that i had picked up coriander rather than cinnamon!! i was so close to making, what would probably have been, some of the worst cookies ever!

 a very close call! 

 coriander free dough coming together

 love, love the contrast of the cranberries!

 

pretty hard to resist eating it at this stage!

 so we get to this stage with my cookies all ready to go. the dough felt right, it's normally stiffer and stickier than a cake mix and then it spreads out as it cooks to form the round, flat cookie shape. however, as you can see from the oven picture below, this process did not happen! i'm not entirely sure why this happened, a little googling suggests something to do with the flour or raising agent.

the resulting bake was a new creation (or at least so i am claiming), ladies and gentlemen i present to you: the cakie

 a strange bake the exists somewhere between the realms of cake and cookie - probably most closely related to a rock cake!

of course the important thing (as always) is taste over appearance and these still tasted scrummy - i mean white chocolate and cranberries! obviously the texture was not the gooey, chewy cookie goodness i was hoping for, but it was novel! and they still went down well, so no complaints!

next time i'll give you an option for what to do with the post-christmas selection boxes you probably have lying around!

until then, have a good week!

love,

nen

x

strawberries & cream

there are few things that say summer to a Briton like strawberries and cream - so when the sun first began to show its head towards the end of exams a bake containing these ingredients was definitely in order.

this vanilla sponge coated with whipped cream, strawberries and chocolate buttons was baked to spur april on as she continued with her exams after everyone else had finished. so I moved from procrastibaking to motibaking! (I would apologise for the abundance of baking puns but I will only continue doing them...)

this is a great cake for the weather - it doesn't take very long or involve much effort (perfect in the heat) but is a great summer treat.

whipping the cream

another treat made for this afternoon tea were smarties cookies - however I forgot to take photos once they were made (as usual, bakes don't hang around for long!) but here are some snaps of the mixing process....

for now i'm going to take the fact that it has clouded over as a sign from above that I really should do something productive with my day rather than just lounging in the garden again, it's a hard life...

love,
nen
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scrummy snickerdoodles.

one of my new discoveries from last term was snickerdoodle cookies. discovered in (you guessed it) hummingbird's cake days these are an absolute delight. i was drawn to them for their cinnamony sugar coating and upon further reading the recipe was really easy to follow. these are perfect when you don't have a lot of time (the dough does need to rest in the fridge for half an hour, but you can go off and do something in that time) but want a baked treat. the cinnamon flavour is perfect for warming your cockles on a cold winter afternoon.

i'm not sure where the name comes from (hello research project...) and they are not at all like cookies. perhaps somewhere between a biscuit and a macaroon? regardless they are super tasty!

they are also therapeutic to make. you shape the dough into walnut sized balls and then roll them in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. i find this really relaxing and helps take my mind off stressful thoughts!

in the oven they go (yes it needs a clean!)

the finished result!

leave them to cool slightly (you don't want to burn your tongue and ruin the taste) but not for long as these taste best still warm, with a cup of tea or hot chocolate.

to make them even more delicious dip the warm snickerdoodles in the left over sugar for a crunchy coating!

love,

nen

x





christmas chocolate cupcakes and cranberry cookies.

phew, with that extensive example of alliteration out of the way let me begin this last post of 2012 by wishing you all a happy new year. i hope it is your best yet! this year has certainly had its ups and downs for me, but starting this blog and the enthusiastic response i've had has really carried me through so thank you all so much. especially now that the views have surpassed 1000 - thank you, thank you, thank you!

this last post reflects back on the christmas binge we're just emerging through (after one last night before the detoxing and dieting begins - for some at least!). i went to my ever trusted hummingbird Cake Days for the festive season, they have a whole section dedicated to christmas and it was almost impossible for me to decide what to bake!

back to making a mess in the kitchen - i'm sure my mum has missed me really!

my first choice was a cookie classic - white chocolate and cranberry. popular all year around, this flavour combination is a particular hit at christmas when we go crazed for cranberries! the recipe was simple to follow and resulted in some seriously scrummy cookies! when transferring them to the cooling rack one broke up which meant i just had to eat it while it was still hot and gooey - shame!

cranberries and white chocolate weighed out and ready to go

scrummy cookie dough coming together

folding in the cranberries and chocolate before baking

the finished result!





the second choice was guided by one of the popular gifts at christmas - the chocolate orange. these are ridiculously tasty - to get myself through my horrific project last term i scoffed a selection box! so when i saw the chocolate orange cupcake recipe i just had to give it a go. these made the house smell sooooooooo good and with a christmas cd on in the background helped me to get into the festive spirit. a small warning though - they are very rich so i have taken to serving them with a drizzle of cream (hey, tis the season of indulgence!) although as often happens the hummingbird frosting recipe makes a crazy amount so there is now a sizable bowl of chocolate orange frosting sat in my fridge - any takers?!

the mix that actually made it into the cakes ready to go

it looked like i was having a heston style dry ice moment when the icing sugar cloud erupted

my mum was in charge of icing these festive treats

so that's it from me in 2012. i hope you all have a fantastic night and a fabulous new year full of many baked treats!

love,
nen
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