Jam Thumbprints

As I’ve said before, baking that revolves around chocolate of some kind if often my favourite, however, as it is now Lent I have given up chocolate so until Easter I am going to endeavour to bake only chocolate-free recipes! This particular one is one of my favourites as it produces great results with not much effort. It is another one from The Great British Book of Baking and if you’ve never made ‘thumbprints’ before I think they are across between a biscuit and a cake in taste and texture.

The rubbing-in part of the method can also be done in a food processor if you’re especially short on time but if you do use your hands then don’t forget to shake the bowl to bring the big lumps to the top to ensure you don’t miss any bits! When you add the egg mixture it really won’t look enough for all the flour mixture but keep working away at it, using your hands if necessary, to bring it together as you don’t want to be too hasty adding more milk or flour.

I have to be honest, this batch I’ve made right now are probably the worst ones I’ve ever made, the one time I take pictures! The jam has spread out of their holes which isn’t supposed to happen and I must admit, I’ve not had a problem with it before. When you make them make sure you use firm set jam from the middle of the jar and not the edges (like me) to avoid them looking a bit messy!

I can tell you, however, that despite them not having the best appearance, they still taste great especially with a cup of tea.

Here is the recipe by Linda Collister:

225g self-raising flour

100g caster sugar

125g unsalted butter (diced)

1 medium egg

1 tbsp cold milk

½ tsp vanilla extract

Jam for the holes

Sugar for sprinkling at the end

Preheat the oven to 200°C

Combine the flour and the sugar together in a large bowl. Add the butter to the dry ingredients and rub with the tips of your fingers until the mixture looks like fine crumbs.

Beat the egg together with the milk and vanilla in a small bowl and then stir into the flour mixture using a round bladed knife to make a soft dough (I just used a normal dinner knife). If the mixture is very sticky, work in a little more flour but if there are dry crumbs at the bottom of the bowl, work in a little more milk.

Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces and shape each one into a ball. Arrange them apart onto pre-greased baking trays to allow for spreading. Flour your thumb and press it gently into the middle of each bun to make a small well (don’t go all the way through the dough). With a teaspoon, put a marble-sized amount of jam into the centre of each bun.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes then reduce the heat to 180°C and bake for another 5 minutes until golden.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle the buns with a little sugar. Leave them to cool for 5 minutes on the tray before transferring tem to a wire rack to cool completely.

Vegan Flapjacks

At university, flapjacks were my baking item of choice as the ovens in our houses were not often very reliable. I also didn’t own scales and the recipe didn’t need many ingredients. Plus they satisfied my sugar cravings! I used to measure the ingredients out in a jug, guessing the quantities really but getting my own method down to a science. Since getting my own scales for the first time only about a year and a half a ago (shocking I know) I’ve converted my guesstimates into a measured out recipe which it’s the one I’ve used here, with a tiny change to make them vegan!

Why vegan? Well, my best friend is a vegan and since cooking, baking and food shopping with her, I’ve found it really interesting what is included in foods that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be there. For example, some pickled onions use milk powder as part of the preservative, as do salt and vinegar crisps. However, many ‘meat’ flavoured crisps such as steak or prawn cocktail flavour are vegan, go figure. 

Turning this recipe vegan is super easy as I just swapped my usual dairy butter to dairy free margarine. This is readily available from all supermarkets and you can use it as regular spread while dairy spreads like Flora are not suitable for baking. As I said earlier, the whole recipe is very simple, the hardest part is getting the golden syrup off the spoon and not leaving syrup lines from the tin to the pan! Running boiling water over the spoon before and after each spoonful helps with this, though avoiding the syrup lines is down to you.

The recipe I’ve done here is for the most basic flapjack, however, you can of course add anything to them you like. Some popular examples are chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit and desiccated coconut. As for the quantities of these extra ingredients, that’s entirely up to you. Make them as chocolatey, nutty, fruity or coconutty as you like!

Here is my flapjack recipe:

175g dairy free margarine (butter)

125g demerara sugar

2 tbsp golden syrup

275g rolled oats

Preheat the oven to 160°C

Melt the margarine, sugar and golden syrup completely in a saucepan on a low heat

Add the rolled oats and mix well until completely combined

Pour the mixture into a pre-greased tin and bake in the oven for 20-25minutes. (When you take them out of the oven, cut them into squares straight away and then leave to cool before you take them out of the tin)

Then Lick Your Spoon!

Cheese Scones (with chilli)

Now as you can probably tell from my previous three blog posts, savoury baking isn’t my usual thing, however, my grandparents are visiting and my Granny is diabetic so I thought it would be nice to make something they could eat. Since watching the first round of the Sport Relief bake-off I’ve liked the idea of making cheese scones and I found this recipe on the BBC Good Food website. I’m not sure that I’ve ever made regular scones before so this recipe and method was brand new to me so the lack of major disasters was a plus!

This recipe uses cup measurements but for the cheese it said ‘250ml’ which I wasn’t quite sure how to measure. After reading the comments on the page I opted for 200g of cheese which worked really well as they were lovely and cheesy but not overpoweringly so. Next time I make these I will definitely add more chilli powder as you can barely taste the amount I put in and it would have really produced a nice flavour with the cheese.

One thing that is great about this recipe is that it doesn’t involve the time consuming part of rubbing the butter into the flour that I’ve always heard about, you just add oil! It also makes these less fatty and so a bit better for you. Another thing I would change for making them in future would be to add a touch more milk before taking it out to flatten as the outcome of my scones wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked. However, the majority of them rose really well which I was pleased with.

Overall though I would say these are definitely easy scones to make, perfect to knock up quickly for lunch and they taste lovely too! Personally, I loved them warm with a bit of marmite on, YUM.

Here is the recipe:

2 cups of flour (I used self-raising as I wanted to give them the best chance of rising!)

3 tsp baking powder

Large pinch of salt

Chilli powder (I used about 1 tsp and didn't think that was enough)

200g grated strong cheddar cheese

3 tsp vegetable oil

125ml milk

1 egg

Preheat the oven at 180°C

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and chilli powder into a large bowl. Add the cheese and mix through the flour mixture.

Beat the egg and milk together in a separate bowl and add in the oil.

Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture and using a metal spoon, mix the dough until it clumps together but is not too dry. If too dry, splash a bit more milk in to use up the flour. (I used about 1tsp more than the recipe).

Press the dough out onto a flat, clean, floured surface until it is about 5mm thick, then fold it over on top of itself (this gives the finished scones the natural “break” to cut open), flatten it again using the palm of your hand. Do not use a rolling pin as it is too heavy and will prevent the scones from rising.

Cut out the scones using a round cutter (I used a small one and made about 15 scones). Place them on a greased baking tray and bake in the oven for 15-20minutes.

Caramel Filled Chocolate Cookies

I’ve wanted to make these since I came across them when researching baking blogs. I found them on obsessedwithbaking and you can view their original blog post and recipe here. I cut the measurements in half and made about 18 cookies. The idea of these sounded absolutely incredible as I am a massive fan of both caramel and chocolate! I will warn you now they are quite time-consuming but well worth the effort!

I used Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Caramel for the inside element as I prefer it to Galaxy and I also use Cadbury’s Bourneville cocoa powder so I wanted to keep the same taste. Following obsessedwithbaking’s advice, I froze the individual squares of chocolate before I started making this recipe in order to keep the gooeyness of the caramel when baked. It does also make it easier to handle with the dough as it can get quite sticky. The original cookie recipe says to use the paddle attachment on your food mixer so if you have one I would recommend using that as mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture can get pretty hard going (but I see it as justification for the amount of the dough I eat during the baking process!)

The cooling period for the dough is very important. While 2 hours seems a long time it is definitely necessary because, as I said before, the dough gets sticky quickly and harder to handle. A cookie scoop is used in the original recipe but I’ve never heard of that before so needless to say I did not use it! I shaped some of the dough into a vague circle just bigger than the chocolate square then covered it over with more of the dough. Make sure you cover the chocolate well and seal the edges or else the caramel will leak out!

Once they have cooled for about 5-10 minutes they are firm enough to lift off the tray and amazing to eat right then as the insides are amazingly gooey! I really can not stress enough how delicious these are. I may be slightly biased and do absolutely love caramel but everyone else who has tried them thinks they are good also so really do try them!

Here is the recipe I used slightly adapted from the original. I still used cup measurements though but if you don’t have any I recommend getting some as all American recipes you find online will use cups!:

½ cup of unsalted butter (at room temperature or its hard to measure a cup’s worth)

½ cup of light brown sugar

½ cup of granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg (the original used extra large but I used a medium one and that was fine so use whatever size you like!)

⅓ cup of unsweetened cocoa

1 cup of flour

½ tsp of baking powder

½ tsp of salt

About 18 caramel squares

Cream the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy with an electric mixer. Add the vanilla extract and egg and beat in to the mixture really well.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt into a separate bowl and then mix into the butter mixture (this is where it suggests using the paddle attachment on the mixer on a low speed but I used a wooden spoon).

Cover the bowl and put into the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours.

This is the time to definitely Lick Your Spoon as it tastes lush!

Once the dough is cool, preheat the oven to 180 °C.

Shape some of the dough into a vague circle just bigger than the chocolate square then cover it over with more of the dough and place on a greased baking tray. (Make sure you cover all the seams!)

Bake for 12 minutes in the oven (the cookies will seem underdone but they’re infact perfect). Let them cool slightly on the tray before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Shortbread

I recently made this over Christmas for a family gathering and was immediately asked for the recipe which I think proves it is delicious; even if I do say so myself! The recipe itself is by Linda Collister from The Great British Book of Baking. It was written to accompany the BBC series which I of course watched avidly and the book has become one of my favourite places to find recipes.

If, unlike me, you have the foresight to get the butter out of the fridge maybe 20-30mins before you start this recipe I would recommend it as when it is rock solid the rubbing in part can take a while! Make sure you don’t let it get too soft though as that won't work either. This can be made in a food processor or by hand. Personally I prefer to make things by hand, aside from the odd pack of ready to roll pastry, but I have included the food processor method too.

Also, when rubbing it make sure you keep mixing the mixture round so the butter is rubbed in evenly throughout the flour. Shaking the bowl will bring all the lumps of un-rubbed in butter to the top so you won't miss any.

The recipe says to cook the shortbread for 25mins at 180°C but I followed the recipe exactly the first time I made it and while it was cooked in the middle, it wasn’t firm. Also when it cooled it was more cakey than biscuity like shortbread should be. In the book it says that as it is high in cocoa it can burn easily in the oven if you aren’t careful so after its allotted 25mins I turn the oven down to 150°C and cook it for a further 15 mins to make it firm and biscuity without burning it. Now this may just be my oven so I advise you to just keep an eye on it and if it doesn’t feel firm turn the temperature down and put it in for 5mins at a time to avoid spoiling all your hard work! The cocoa is what makes it extra yummy though so it’s worth the extra attention, the smell alone is amazing.

Here is Linda Collister’s recipe:

260g plain flour

100g caster sugar

40g cocoa powder (I use Bourneville as it as a great flavour)

A pinch of salt

200g unsalted butter (chilled and diced)

Extra sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to180°C

Put the flour, sugar, cocoa and salt into a mixing bowl and stir well to thoroughly combine. Add the diced butter and rub into the dry ingredients using the tips of your fingers

To make this in a food processor pulse the dry ingredients just to mix them and then add the butter, running the machine for about 30seconds

When the mixture looks like sandy crumbs tip it into a pre-greased tin (20.5cm loose bottomed tin works best). Press the mixture into an even layer using the back of the spoon. Prick the dough well and lightly score into 12 pieces with a round bladed knife

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25minutes, until just firm (see above note)

Remove from the oven, sprinkle wit sugar and cut into sections along the marked lines with a very sharp knife. Leave to cool before removing from the tin

Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

So for my first post I thought I’d start with one of my favourites, Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins. Muffins are great to bake. Recipes are often very simple and once you find a basic one you like, you can add anything to them from chocolate chips to blueberries, the possibilities are endless! 

I first came across this combination on a recipe card I had when I was younger and it was definitely a hit. When going to make them a few months ago the recipe card could not be found and so, after a few trail runs and an adaptation or two, the one I’ve used here is definitely my favourite. You also don’t need to worry with things like sieving the flour as the batter you’re aiming for is lumpy anyway. This recipe is just a case of mixing wet and dry together separately and then combining the two, simple as that.

When making muffins it can often be hard to get that really high ‘muffin top’ and my friend Rose recently mentioned the same problem to me when she tried some a few weeks ago. I think the secret is to use a deep muffin pan rather than one you would use to make fairy cakes. The deeper pan provides more support for the mixture when baking ensuring it goes up rather than out.

I personally think these taste best when they are warm, about 10-15mins after you take them out of the oven. Any earlier than that the chocolate and raspberries are still too liquidy to hold together well. That said, they are delicious when cool too so don’t feel like you have to eat them all at once!

Here is the recipe for the muffins I made:

2 eggs

125ml vegetable oil

250ml milk

1tsp vanilla extract

200g caster sugar

400g plain flour

3tsp baking power

1tsp very fine salt

100g white chocolate chips

150g raspberries

Preheat the oven at 200°C

Put the eggs, oil, milk, vanilla and sugar in a bowl and beat well

Mix the flour, baking power, salt and white chocolate chips in a separate bowl (I use the bowl for my scales to save on washing up!)

Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir well

Gently mix in the raspberries (Try to keep them whole but it’s inevitable that some will break up)

Divide into muffin cases and bake for 25 minutes

Then its time to Lick Your Spoon!