We Should Cocoa: Scottish Tablet Cookies

This month's We Should Cocoa is hosted by Linzi at Lancashire Food who wants us to use an ingredient new to us.  Last month's boozy round up of chocolate based treats can be found here. You can read all about We Should Cocoa, how to enter and the previous challenges here on Choclette's blog. 

I am the anti-resolutionist.  I don't go on a green juice detox on the first of January. 

I have a hangover on the 1st January. 

(Normally, alcohol related but one year I had a cheesecake hangover.  It exists. It is horrifying, terrifying and majestically brilliant all at the same time).

I still have leftover Christmas food which I intend to get through.  I support local businesses (re: the local chinese).  I don't go to the gym. 

And it's because January is a truly crap month. It's cold, it's always dark, you feel a bit shitty after binging on Christmas films and malteasers and the last thing you want to do is be hungry and miserable.

So, whilst I am still on my anti-resolutionist bender of sugar and carbs, I give you cookies. Really sugary cookies. Made with the new to me ingredient of Scottish tablet. No shame.

Makes around 18

Ingredients

110gr unsalted butter

100gr caster sugar

60gr light soft brown sugar

Pinch of salt

1 egg

150gr plain flour, sifted with

1/2 tsp baking powder

50gr Scottish tablet, chopped

50gr dark chocolate, chopped

Method

1, Preheat your oven to 190o/c and line three baking sheets with baking paper.

2, Melt the butter in a small saucepan gently.  When fully melted, remove from the heat, pour into a medium sized mixing bowl and stir in the sugars with the salt.  

3, Beat in the egg.

4,  Add in the flour and stir until smooth and fully combined.  

5, Stir through the chopped chocolate and tablet.  The tablet will disintegrate into mush if you stir it too much. Be wary of the crumbly texture. 

6, Scoop lumps onto your prepared baking sheets.  I used a table spoon measuring spoon.  You don't need to flatten them out as they will do this themselves when cooking. 

7, Bake for between 7 and 10 minutes until just going golden brown.  Leave to cool on the baking sheets for five minutes before cooling completely on a wire rack. 

8, Scoff and laugh in the face of January.

Reindeer Cinnamon Shortbreads

I've been hunting* for a deer head for my dining room for a long time now and if I am blaming this on anyone, then it is going to be Katie from Hook, Line and Sink Her.  Her beautiful post filled with these antlered wonders has made me want something that I didn't realise that I wanted.  And the last time that happened was with a taxidermy monkey (I will probably tell you about this at some point... But for now, let's just say that he was majestic and I am kick myself daily for not buying him)

 The dining room is the most sensible option. But, as I often struggle with simple decisions such as what I want for breakfast, I am struggling to decide on which wall. I did the sensible thing of making these reindeer Ruldolf-esque shortbread cookies and then wandering around the room and holding them up in front of each wall to figure out positioning and scale.  And then eating them. 

 

(*not literally. 2013 hunting - MacBook, sofa, cup of tea, lapful of cat)

I saw this icing idea on Pinterest and they are perfect for Christmassing up a round shortbread disc. 

Ingredients
125gr butter
65gr caster sugar
190gr plain flour, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Small pinch of cinnamon

Red and black writing icing tubes

Method
1, Make the shortbread dough first by creaming the butter and sugar together.  Beat in the vanilla extract and cinnamon. It is up to you how much cinnamon you put in these as it depends on preference and also what type of cinnamon you have, some can be quite bitter. A little does go a long way.
2, Add in the flour and bring it together to form a ball of dough.  You might need a couple of extra tablespoons of flour.
3, Wrap this in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
4, When you're ready to bake, line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and preheat your oven to 180o/c. 
5, Roll out the dough until it is roughly half a cm a thick and cut out rounds.  It doesn't matter how big or small you make these.  I managed to make around 16.
6, Place them onto your baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or until just starting to turn golden brown.  They will be soft when you take them out of the over but will firm up when cooling so leave them to cool on the baking sheet or slide the cookies on the greaseproof paper off the baking sheet and onto a heatproof surface.
7, When they are completely cold, ice them by adding a large dot of red, and then piping eyes and antlers in black. Leave to set before storing them in an airtight container. 

Let's Make Christmas 2012

Raspberry (,Cranberry and Orange) Marshmallows from Rococo: Mastering the Art of Chocolate. (I messed up the shopping list a little...)

Cinnamon Spritz Cookies with White Chocolate Ganache Filling

Full posts to follow.

Granola Almond Milk Cookies

I have a love/hate relationship with granola.

It tries and wheedle its way into my life with lures of "I'm good for you" and "I'll fill you up until lunchtime" and "If I go a bit soft, you can re-crisp me in the oven" and "I'm much healthier than a Twix".

My normal response is "Go away, granola. You've caused me nothing but harm*, you take ages to chew and don’t hate on my love of a good Twix".

But every now and then a bag gets into the house and half of it gets eaten. Then the rest sits there. I scowl at the bag whenever I dip into the cupboard for tea bags.

With so much focus on food waste, it was high time someone took action against unwanted granola and some leftover almond milk.

Ingredients

100gr granola
200ml almond milk
2 tbsp maple syrup

Makes 15 cookies

Method

1, Mix the granola, almond milk and maple syrup together in a shallow bowl, cover with cling film and refrigerate for a minimum of four hours or until the granola has soaked up all the almond milk. It'll look quite mushy and unappealable but stick with me.
2, Preheat your oven to 150o/c and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
3, Spoon tablespoons of the gloppy granola onto the lined sheets and then flatten slightly into rounds just under a centimetre high.
4, Bake for 35-45minutes until dry and crunchy.

(N.B - Depending on your granola - nut to oat ratio/age/crispiness/etc - you might need more or less almond milk. My granola wasnt anything fancy, so it had a higher oat ratio to anything else. Bear this in mind. You could also stir through extra nuts/chocolate chips/dried or fruit before Step 3)

(*I chewed into a mouthful of granola once, which contained a whole almond. Which promptly smashed off one of my brand spanking, newly fitted porcelain crowns. And although I got it fixed the same day, I haven’t got over this. I don’t think I ever will.)

Kentish Cider Fudge Cookies

It started with shoes.

These shoes to be precise.

(Wouldn't it be ace if all stories started like that?)

I ordered these white chocolate shoes as bridesmaids gifts from a local sweet shop - Bumbles Sweet Shop in Maidstone, Kent. Their facebook page is here. The recipients loved them although I'm unsure if anyone has actually managed to look past their beauty and eat one!

It's never a good idea to put someone who has a sweet tooth in a sweet shop though. I left clutching a slip of paper with my order details on it, a big box of nerds, a big box of bottle caps and a small black and white stripey bag containing fudge. I sneakily liberated a chunk from its paper prison into my mouth in the car. Then stopped. I knew I'd tear through the entire cargo in less than a minute. So with all my will power, I went home and silently baked cookies. Delayed gratification fudge.

A sweet buttery cookie that melts in your mouth with hefty chunks of fudge that caramalise into crunchy nirvana around the edges.

Ingredients
115gr butter
50gr icing sugar
150gr plain flour
Small pinch of salt
75gr cider fudge, chopped into small pieces

Method
1, Rub the butter into the sifted icing sugar, plain flour and salt until it forms a dough.
2, Fold in the fudge pieces and shape into a sausage like log that is about 20cm or so long. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge until firm.
3, Remove the log from the fridge and preheat your oven to 175o/c. Line a baking sheet with baking paper and set aside.
4, Slice your log into slices around 12 discs and lay onto your prepared baking sheet.
5, Bake for 12-15minutes or until golden brown. Leave them to cool on the sheet for about 5 minutes before sliding onto a cooling rack. Cool completely before eating and store in airtight container.

Hidden Kisses

Things that regularly hide from me-

1. The vegetable peeler, apple corer and the safety guard off my mandolin (I think they are in kitchen utensils cahoots together)
2. Devil cat’s fur brush. And considering she is 90% fur and 10% pure hate she needs it done regularly, lest we suffer her wrath when it comes to clipping out knots.
3. The lids off every can of hairspray I have ever bought in my life.
4. My left mitten

But I’m taking the power back. Two can play that game.

Original recipe from Hersheys.com

Ingredients
20 Hershey's Kisses (unwrapped)
125gr butter
65gr golden caster caster sugar
75gr soft dark brown sugar
1/2tsp almond extract
130gr plain flour
50gr chopped nuts

Method
1, Preheat your oven to 190o/c and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
2, In a bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, both sugars and almond extract.
3,Sift in the flour and add the nuts and mix until you have gravelly looking crumbs that form a dough when pinched together.

4, Take a heaped dessert spoon of the mixture and squeeze it gently in your hands to form a ball. Push a Hershey's Kiss into it and mould the dough around it so it is completely covered. Repeat until you have covered all of the kisses.
5, Bake for 10 minutes and remove from the oven. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet as they are quite delicate when they are hot.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Gluten Free Vegan Cookies

I sincerely hope everyone had a good New Years!  A couple of good friends had organised a soiree around there flat so, we ate Chinese food, played pool, Mario Kart and Wii bowling, sang a very drunk version of Auld Lang Syne with glasses of champagne and then walked home, dodging the drunk of the town centre. 

I made mini cupcakes, simply vanilla cupcake recipe with vanilla butter cream plus something special for the gluten intolerant vegan friend.  These are very crunchy and not overly sweet so were a bit of a relief from all the heavy sweet sticky things from Christmas

Ingredients

100gr icing sugar

200gr vegan margarine

1 tsp vanilla extract

400gr gluten free flour

Method

1, Cream the margarine and the icing sugar together.

2, Add in the flour bit by bit until you can bring it together to form a dough. 

3, Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

4, When you are ready to start baking them, preheat the oven to 180o/c

5, Lightly flour your work surface with some more gluten free flour and roll out your dough.  If it falls apart a bit, give it a quick knead and then reroll. 

6, Stamp out the sugar cookies with cutters and place on a baking sheet.  They keep their shape pretty well so you won’t end up with a giant sheet of cookie.  

7, Bake for 10-13 minutes.  They need to be cooked until they go firm, but not golden brown.

8, Cool before icing

The cupcakes

Funfair Bites: Admit One Cookies

Dead simple, this recipe is from Joy of Baking and produces the best sugar cookies!

All I did extra was roll them a little thicker, insert a lollipop stick and bake. Then simply spread a thick glacé icing, sprinkled on a little edible glitter and slipped on a little ADMIT ONE ticket. Voila, funfair cookies!

Here is the recipe for the sugar cookies!