Smores Cookies

WOW! These are so good!! I’ve been wanting to make these since I first started research recipes for my blog but they needed Graham Crackers which aren’t easily available over here. The closest thing is apparently digestives but they are nothing like them. However, my lovely friend Louise is currently studying at Yale (amazing!) and she kindly brought me some on her recent visit home! So here we go, Smores Cookies. De-lish!

I found the recipe on Obsessed with Baking’s blog who found it from someone else but regardless, they are very American and very tasty! The cookie dough is some of the most delicious I’ve ever tasted. To give you a hint as to just how tasty, the recipe is supposed to make 36. I made 29. I’ve also been told that the “sensation of marshmallow and tasty chocolate in and on a melt in your mouth cookie” are more than anyone could ask for. Now that, if you ask me, is praise indeed for this amazing cookie.

As with another great cookie recipe I made, this requires chilling time for the dough to become more solid so make sure you leave yourself plenty of time! The oven part is pretty short but make sure you have your chocolate cut and mallows ready to go in as quick as possible! Don’t push the mallows in too far or else they’ll make a hole in the cookie as they aren’t strong enough to hold it together. The original recipe uses Hershey’s chocolate but I just cut up some of the thin dairy milk bars. If the chocolate you use is quite thick it won’t melt very well.

Overall, I think these are great, not too sweet but deliciously indulgent at the same time. Definitely one to be made again and certainly one you should try if you can get hold of some Graham Crackers!!

Chocolate and Raspberry Whoopie Pies

Yet another delight from over the pond! I was struggling for baking inspiration when I came across these and couldn’t resist. The recipe was features on a top ten whoopee pie recipe list and is from Gourmet.com. I’ve only eaten them once before and intrigued by the biscuit come cake sandwich parts. As for the filling, super sweet! But upon reading a variety of recipes I realised lots of different fillings are used so I picked one that contained marshmallow fluff as I’m still totally excited about it. While the recipe made a chocolate and vanilla version, I used raspberry marshmallow fluff instead to create these chocolate and raspberry pies.

The sandwich parts are often referred to as ‘cookies’ but to me they are much more cakey in taste and texture once baked. The mixture is however quite stiff once everything is mixed in together and the 25 year old handheld I was using was struggling somewhat towards the end! The recipe said to keep them 2inches apart and after my cookie fiasco I thought I’d better pay attention but mine didn’t seem to spread a whole lot. They also didn’t come out as smooth as I expected and all whoopee pies I’ve seen have been very flat and smooth. Next time I think I’ll make more of an effort to smooth them before they go in with the hope of achieving better presentation!

When I made the filling up, I was a little concerned there wouldn’t be enough to fill each of the sandwiches but it was very deceiving as after filling them twice over there was still enough for me to eat by the tablespoon! This mixture said it made 8 sandwiches in total so I followed it exactly this time to test it but I think in future I will make smaller balls and flatten them more myself with the hope of making more from the mixture!

While there are some presentation issues I will be troubleshooting in future, these taste amazing! The chocolate sandwich is not overly sweet so nicely balances the very sweet raspberry mallow filling. Definitely something I will make again and I’ll be adapting the recipe to try out different varieties too.

Flower Cupcakes

I have a little bit of a cupcake obsession at the moment as I recently purchased my first set of icing nozzles so am experimenting with various decorating methods rather than varieties of baking. These flower cupcakes are for the girls at work in my department as I have been promising to bring in what I make for ages. Now that I finally have a car (yay!) I can bring these in without having to negotiate two buses and a walk!

As usual, I used my standard basic cupcake recipe for the cake. I made 16 this time but 4 were experimenting with different cases and tins so do not feature in any of the pictures! The thing I was most excited about in this bake was the frosting. I’ve recently discovered we have the food network on freeview from 6-10pm and they show a lot of cupcake programmes. I’ve heard and seen a lot about marshmallow buttercream so after googling it I discovered it was made with marshmallow fluff which is something I’ve wanted an excuse to buy for ages!

For this particular frosting I used the plain vanilla one (which comes in massive tubs) as I wanted to colour it green but I also bought a raspberry one too for future use which tastes amazing! I’ve been excited all week to try it and it was definitely a success. One thing I will be looking to change in future is the size of the round nozzle I used as I think it needs to be thicker so it doesn’t need to go round so many times.

I topped the frosting swirls with icing flowers I made from regal ice with a dot of white icing in the middle to make it look like a flower! I think these look really cute and girly while still being really simple so let’s hope the girls at work like them!