Daim Cookies

 The hubby came back from a recent trip to Sweden with three boxes of Daim bars. Thanks Carl! After eating way too many Daim bars to be good for my health I decided to smash some up and make a lovely batch of yummy Daim cookies.

  

Since I like this cookie recipe better than any other I used the Neiman Marcus  as my basis and adjusted to suit. The cookies were delicious. Next time you take a trip to Ikea give them a go.

Daim Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 cup light brown sugar

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 cups smashed up Daim bars (about 10 bars)

Directions

1.	Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream the butter with the sugars using an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy (approximately 30 seconds)
2.	Beat in the egg and the vanilla extract for another 30 seconds.
3.	In a mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients and beat into the butter mixture at low speed for about 15 seconds. Stir in the espresso coffee powder and chocolate chips.
4.	Using a 1 ounce scoop or a 2 tablespoon measure, drop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. Gently press down on the dough with the back of a spoon to spread out into a 2 inch circle. Bake for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned around the edges. Bake a little longer for a crispier cookie.
Yield:	2 dozen cookies

chocolate fix chocolate brownies

Every time I need a mega chocolate fix I make these brownies and every time I think “ooh must post these on the blog”. So this time I took the pictures before devouring them all. What I love about the recipe is that you would normally have all the ingredients sitting there in your store cupboard and even though they are made using cocoa and not chocolate they are just so incredibly fab and chocolatey. Seriously I am yet to find a recipe I like better.

Here it is;

“Mom’s Cocoa Powder Brownies” found here

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 5 tablespoons cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sunflower oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts(optional)

1. Combine all ingredients and mix well. I just put it all in the food processor.
2. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes in an 8×8 or 9×9 pan.
3. Allow to cool before cutting.

 Because of the high volume of walnuts I have at the moment I used them chopped in the brownies but they are just as good without. These brownies are fudgy chewy brownies not cakey ones. I also was craving mintyness so made a drizzle using 4 tbsp of icing sugar a drop of mint essence and a drop of green food colour then a little water. Very moreish.

Christmas mincemeat

 Another of my “make ahead for Christmas” projects is homemade mincemeat.

Traditional Mincemeat

I cannot take complete credit for this recipe as it was passed to me by a friend. I have changed and played about with it to suit my tastes though, I hope you like it.

 

• 500g dried mixed fruit
• 2 tsp ground mixed spice
• 100g dark brown sugar
• 75g shredded suet
• Juice and zest of 1/2 a lemon
• Juice and zest of 1/2 an orange
• Glace cherries, chopped (I just use a whole pot from the supermarket)
• 80ml brandy 

1. Mix together well. Leave in bowl for about an hour or two and give a stir every now and then.
2. Spoon into sterilised jars, seal and store somewhere cool and dark. This should keep for a good few months.

 Will fill 0.5 litre jar or a few jam jars.

  I can smell the mince pies now! mmmmm

 

going nuts

 With such generous neighbours and trees full of nuts to collect I have been making some yummy treats this week.

  

Walnuts

I made my favourite cookie recipe and added 1/2 a cup of chopped nuts.

 

 I also made a delicious coffee and walnut cake that I found here. As you can see, by the time it was photographed we had already eaten half!

Chestnuts

The chestnuts are chopped and in the freezer and I am going to make a chestnut and apricot stuffing for Christmas, I will post that when it has been made. I must say quite excited by the idea of homemade chestnut stuffing.

tablet

I used to buy a bag of tablet (a Scottish sweetie/candy) from Thorntons and disgustingly eat the whole bag in one sitting. But to be honest tablet from Thorntons is probably nowhere near as good as the real thing.

 Whilst browsing blogs I found A Wee Bit of Cooking and a recipe for tablet that I had to try.

 I know what you are thinking, it looks like fudge, but tablet has a crumbly melt in the mouth texture that is very different, give i a go. Delicious.

good food carrot cake

 Who doesn’t love carrot cake? Well I do. I saw this recipe on the blog cake crumbs and cooking, the recipe had been baked into cute little cupcakes and after visiting the BBC Good Food site to look at the recipe I thought I’d give it a go. I was lured by the words “moist” and “low fat”. Will it taste as good as it looks if it is low fat? I thought.

Carrot Cake round here

• 175g light muscovado sugar
• 175ml sunflower oil
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 140g grated carrots (about 3 medium)
• 100g raisins
• grated zest of 1 large orange
• 175g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp grated nutmeg (freshly grated will give you the best flavour)

For the Frosting

• 175g icing sugar
• 1½-2 tbsp orange juice

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan 160C. Oil and line the base and sides of an 18cm square cake tin with baking parchment. The easiest way to do this is to cut two long strips the width of the tin and put each strip cross ways, covering the base and sides of the tin, with a double layer in the base.
2. Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind.
3. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients – when everything is evenly amalgamated stop mixing. The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny. 
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack. (You can freeze the cake at this point.)
5. Beat together the frosting ingredients in a small bowl until smooth – you want the icing about as runny as single cream. Set the cake on a serving plate and boldly drizzle the icing back and forth in diagonal lines over the top, letting it drip down the sides.

 It really was so good. Easily one of the best carrot cakes I have tasted. Although with the amount I ate I think that the low fat quality might have been lost on me.

The Fridge Door Competition

 I was browsing various food blogs for some cooking inspiration when I came across this fab blog and “The Fridge Door Competition”. It is always great fun seeing what strange and wonderful things people put on their fridge door, mine is above, probably not the most exciting of fridge doors but still. Here is a little more detail (I know you are just itching to find out!).

 Most of the magnets on my fridge are freebies from some place or other, normally coming with food from the supermarket. The card on the top left came with a bunch of flowers sent to me by my hubby on our wedding day. The other card is the birth announcement card for my son Ollie, I love looking at it, he looks so big now!

 For some reason I like to stick fruit stickers at the top of my fridge rather than throw them, I am working up a little collection there! The red thing is a bookmark with the opening times for the local library (even though the books are all in dutch and I can’t read them, it is handy for cookbooks as I translate the recipes). I have an article on fruit and veg portions, to encourage us to eat healthily. The other article is all about safe temperatures for a baby, just as a reference.

 I think the magnet in the centre says a lot about my personality (my  hubby certainly agrees!). At the bottom is the obligatory pic by my son.

halloween cookies

I know, I know, first Christmas now I am back-tracking to Halloween. To be honest I don’t really make a real fuss about Halloween, but I was asked to come up with a recipe to do with kids on Halloween and this is it.

Chocolate Spider Biscuits/Cookies

 Makes 18-20 cookies

• 125g butter, softened
• 125g sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 250g plain flour
• 25g cocoa
• Pinch of cinnamon
• ½ tsp baking powder

1. Cream together butter and sugar until blended. Add the egg and egg yolk (I do this all in my food processor but you could do it by hand).
2. Mix together the dry ingredients then add a little at a time to the butter mixture until incorporated.
3. Shape into a ball using floury hands and put in the fridge for about an hour.
4. Remove from fridge. Roll out to about ¾ cm thickness then cut into circles.
5. Place on baking tray and bake for  about 20 mins at 170 °c.

Choc  icing

1.  
   • ½ cup of chocolate spread
   • 2 tbsp icing sugar
   • 2 tbsp milk

1. Combine ingredients over a low heat until combined. Spread over biscuits.
2. Decorate with smarties as eyes and cut pieces of liquorice laces as legs to make your spiders.

Christmas pudding

 Yes I know I’m crazy. But I am planning early for Christmas this year what with a new baby coming at the end of November. This will also being the first Christmas we will spend as a “family” in our own home so I want to make everything myself and make it special.  Lucky then that Christmas pudding can be made months in advance and stored away until needed.

 Even though I live in Belgium there are some British traditions that I simply cannot give up and even though my little  boy will probably see himself as a Belgian having grown up and gone to school here I still think it is lovely for him to experience some of our English traditions too. Christmas Pudding is one of those traditions.

 This is the pudding recipe I chose. I did not keep to the specified fruit, I just worked out the weight needed and mixed what I preferred and left out the figs as I don’t think hubby will like them, I also added prunes and dark apricots.

 I mixed the fruit with the brandy and left for at least eight hours stirring occasionally…. I did actually empty it out of the bottle.

I then mixed with all the other ingredients…

put into the pudding basins with greaseproof paper and foil over…

Put into steamers for three and a half hours…

Once cooked I re-wrapped them with new greaseproof and clingfilm and stored them in a cool dry place until Christmas.

 I also had enough mixture to make an extra pudding in a pyrex dish, we have been gradually munching testing our way through it.

 Yummy with Brandy Butter.

mug cake

 Nope, not a cake for mugs, a cake made in a mug!

 I found this here and had to make it, mainly because I was having a serious chocolate craving. This cake is not baked, it is nuked for 3 minutes in the microwave so not only is it easy, it is also super dooper quick.

 Here is the recipe;

Chocolate Mug Cake

• 1 egg
• 4 tbsp milk
• 4 tbsp sunflower oil
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 4 tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

1. Put all the ingredients into the mug in order of the list mixing with a fork between each addition.
2. Place into microwave with another cup containing a little water (keeps cake moist).
3. Nuke for 3 mins. Run a knife around the outside, turn upside down. Done! It even has a yummy sauce on top.