Chocolate Caramel Biscuits

This is another one of the numerous biscuits myself and the sister make together. I oddly don't have a picture of the finished product. I guess I'll have to make them again.....

What you'll need:

for the biscuit

• 100g unsalted butter, softened
• 125g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 175g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

for the caramel

• 1⁄2 of one 379g of condensed milk
• 3 tablespoon light brown sugar
• 50g unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon golden syrup

for the topping

• 125g dark chocolate

For the cookies, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the egg, mix well, add flour and baking powder. Combine. Shape the dough into a log about a thumb in diameter, wrap in cling and leave in a fridge for 1 hour.

When the dough is firm, preheat the oven to 165°C/gas mark 3. Slice about 15 biscuits. Place on a prepared baking tray. Bake for about 15mins. They might be a bit ready beforehand pop them out once they're a pale golden colour. They'll be soft. Leave them on the tray for about 10min and move them over to a rack ro cool.

While the biscuits are cooling make the caramel, place all ingredients in a small pot over a low heat. Stir regularly, allow the mix to thicken. The moment you see the caramel setting on the side of the pan it's ready. Transfer to a shallow pan and cover in cling, let it cool for 30min. Once it's cool, divided it into 15 balls and place it on top of each biscuit. Flatten.

Melt the chocolate over a pan of simmering water. Once it's melted make a mess....or use a slotted spoon. Dip the biscuit into the chocolate and leave to sit on a rack in the fridge to set.

Eat.

Imagine lovely chocolate dipped biscuits.....maybe i'll just make more...and take a photo and eat more....

Chocolate Covered Orange Blossom & Cointreau Biscuits

So this was one of the many biscuits we made on our day of many biscuit making. The recipe was originally from Willie's Chocolate Bible with a few tweaks...

What you'll need:

• 170g unsalted butter, softened
• 140g caster sugar
• 1 tbsp orange blossom water
• 1 tbsp cointreau
• 150g plain flour
• 150g fine semolina
• 300g good dark chocolate

Beat sugar and butter in a large bowl till light and fluffy. Pour in blossom water and cointreau. In a seperate bowl soft together both flours, mix them into the butter mixture till it forms a soft dough. Wrap in cling and chill in a fridge for 40min.

Preheat the oven to 150°C, line two baking trays with baking parchment. I rolled our the dough on a semolina covered surface. Roll it out to a thickness of about 1cm, get a 6cm biscuit cutter and cut out about 24 biscits. Space them away from each other on the trays. Put them in the oven for 18-20mins, until golden at the edges.

Remove from the oven leave on the tray for 5min then transfer them to a wire rack.

While they are cooling prepare the chocolate, for dipping biscuits it's best to temper by seeding the chocolate.

Tempering Chocolate:*

Split the chocolate up into 200g & 100g. Roughly chop the 200g chocolate and finely grate the 100g. Place the chopped chocolate in a heatproof dish above a pot of very gently simmering water. If you have a thermometer it really helps here, heat the chocolate to about 45°C and melted. Try not to stir the chocolate and make sure the bowl is not touching the water below it. Once at the correct tempature remove from the pot and stir in the grated chocolate. You want to keep stirring the chocolate till it drops to a temperature of 28°C for dark or 26°C for milk. Once at this temperature place back on top of the gently simmering water and bring the temperature back up to 33°C. Chocolate is now tempered. Taking the time to do this with your chocolate will make everything better in the long run.

*Seemingly 300g of chocolate is the smallest amount of chocolate to successfully temper. I've never really tried anything smaller.

Place the wire rack over a baking tray.vTake each biscuit and dip the top into the choclate mixture, place back on the rack. Once the choclate is cooled. EAT THEM.

Making/baking with the sister 2

  Michelle arrived early Wednesday morning, I had just gotten back the evening beforehand. I had to get everything ready that night! So we had a bit of a busy morning. We got right to it..we went for breakfast. Then went looking for biscuit cutters. Then we decided to start getting ready. We got around to making 3 things.

Whiskey Marmalade Cake for Silke & Patsy, with icing

So I stayed in a wonderful woman house in Galway named Patsy, Silke of Corleggy Cheeses was also there! So I promised them dinner and dessert for one of the evening I was there. So I decided that they'd appreciate this cake. So..i've used 'so' alot in this post.

What you'll need:

for the cake

• 150g unsalted butter, softened
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g light brown sugar
• Zest of 2 organic unwaxed oranges, plus juice of 1 orange
• 3 large eggs
• ¹⁄₄ teaspoon salt
• 75g of whiskey marmalade
• 175g self-raising flour

for the icing

• Juice and zest of ½ orange
• seeds of ½ vanilla pod
• 100g or so of icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C/gas 4, Butter a 1kg loaf tin and line with baking paper.

Beat softened butter with both sugars in a large bowl till very pale and fluffy. Add orange zest and mix. In a jug crack in eggs break the yolks up a little with a fork. Slowly begin adding eggs to the butter mixture, beating till it's fulling incorporated.

Add the orange juice, salt and marmalade and mix very well. Sift flour over the top and mix just enough to combine. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to make sure you've gotten all the butter. Give it one final mix and spoon into the tin.

Bake for about 45min. Remove from the over and allow to cool for 10min in the tin. Once removed from the tin leave to cool on a rack.

While it's cooling make the icing. In a jug, whisk together the orange juice, zest, vanilla seeds and icing sugar (about 1 tablespoon at a time till it's slightly thick)

Pour over the top of the cake and let it run down the sides.

...wrap it nicely and bring to Galway on a train the next day.

Gingerbread women, men & men dressed as women

Well we went shopping, found people shaped biscuit cutters and a new rolling pin. We decided it was necessary to have some kind of biscuit baked each time we do this, so this time round gingerbread people! I also wanted these buscuits to go with the Elderflower Icecream for that evenings supper.

Yes I'm aware of the spelling mistake.

What you'll need:

• 350g plain flour
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 100g cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 150g light soft brown sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 4 tablespoons golden syrup

Preheat oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Sift flour, ginger and bicarb into a bowl. Rub in the butter till you get a sand like texture, then stir in sugar. In a separate bowl whisk together golden syrup and beaten egg in a bowl. Mix it in the dry ingredients to form a dough.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface till is about 3mm thick. Cut out you gingerbread:

• Women
• Men
• Snails
• Whales
• Hedgehogs
• Foxes
• and so on

Place them on the prepared tin, with a tooth pick give them faces and angry eyebrows. Bake for about 10min or till golden. A tip also which I forgot with the first batch, give them a bit of space. Let them cool for about 5min on the tray then transfer to a rack.

Terribly Chocolatly Chocolate Brownies

So we decided Brownies and ginger bread men would be our baked goods for the day. We also made a Whiskey Marmalade Cake!

What you'll need:

• 300g dark chocolate chopped, plus 150g extra
• 100g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 3 eggs
• 50g light brown sugar
• 150g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 100g plain flour

Preheat your oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Grease a 20cm square baking tin and line with baking paper, get it around the edges too. Place 300g of chocolate, butter and salt in a heatproof bowl over gently simmering water. Let it melt down slowly. In another bowl, break up the eggs and add the sugars and vanilla till its all incorporated.

Whisk it into the melted choclate mixture. Gently fold in flour and 150g of roughly chopped chocolate till just mixed. Pour into prepared tin. Bake for 25min or till it's set. Leave them to cool entirely in the tin. Cut into squares. Eat!

Vanilla Ice-cream

So this was what we began with this morning and it was the last thing to leave the kitchen this afternoon. I like making ice-cream. I make it a good bit. I also fail at making it a good bit. Some of the reason I fail:

• I have an electric hob.
• I can not control the heat being applied to the base of my pot correctly.
• My fridge sometimes doesn't like to chil items I give it.
• I don't own a thermometer.
• I like failing?
• I like scrabled eggs that taste of vanilla?

Well anyway, I decided it'd be best if we started off with a nice simple one for Michelle sometine she could build from change and tweak for whatever reason she wants. I've been trying over the past few months to instill in Michelle the idea that everything you use in the kitchen as far as ingredients are concerned should be the best. Should be fresh. Should be seasonal and such. From her salt and pepper to the milk we use in the making of the icecream. I wanted a good full fat milk. So what better than the best milk you can buy in the centre of Dublin,so we popped up to Sheridan's on South Anne St and grabbed a 1ltr bottle of Teirnan Family's Raw Milk. We were ready. I was nervous. Michelle wanted a sandwich.

What you'll need:

• 250ml full fat milk
• 250ml double cream
• 2 vanilla pobs
• 5 egg yolks
• 100g sugar

With a sharp knife split the vanilla pods in half and scrape out the seeds. Put the milk, cream and vanilla seeds and pods into a heavy saucepan. Warm gently till just below boiling point, pop it off the heat and leave covered to infuse with the vanilla for about 15-20 minutes. In the mean time whisk the egg yolks with the sugar. Gradually add the warm mixture to the egg/sugar mix till it's all added. Return the saucepan to the hob and cook over a low hat stirring constantly. What you want to happen is the custard coats the back of your spoon. On a low heat and being terrified as I always am making this, it might take a while. I go from points of joy with the smell of vanilla floating around to anger and holding my hand back from uping the heat. Just take your time. Rush it and it over heats you'll have scrambled eggs.

Pour everything into a large bowl and chill.

Today I left this to chill for about 3 hours while we baked the rest of our things. I would normally leave it up to 8 hours. I made sure the mix was shallow so it would chill quickly.

I went and collected my freezer bowl. With the kitchenaid freezer bowls they have to be in a freezer for at least 15 hours prior to using them.

**TIP** Do not pour your mixture into the freezer bowl before starting the mixing. It's cold in there and it'll just freeze and cause a few issues **END OF TIP**

I poured my mix in as the arms were turn and waited. I can see were this tune of "I scream, you scream" comes from. It took about 25min before it started resemble ice-cream. I left my mixer on the slowest speed. After about 35min I was happy wit how it looked. Took it out, tasted. Was happy with how it tasted. If you have any left after making this just pop it in a box and leave it in the freezer.

Michelle's Chocolate Cookies

So we were so prepared and moving with great speed and poise Michelle decided she'd make a batch of chocolate cookies. She had been given a recipe from a friend but decided to tweak and change a few things today.

What you'll need:

• 140g unsalted butter, softened
• 90g brown sugar
• 80g caster sugar
• 1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
• 200g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 150g dark chocolate, min 70%
• 200g chocolate chips

Beat butter and sugars in a bowl till it's nice and creamy. Add the whole egg and mix, the add the yolk and mix again. Sift the flour, salt and bicarbonate together and gently mix into the mix. Leave to once side. Place a bowl over a pop of gently simmering water and melt down the 150g of dark chocolate. Once with melted add the the mixture. Mix well to combine. The mix is stiff so don't worry if it's difficult to stir. Finally mix in chips.

Preheat your over to 180ºC/ gas 4. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper. Using an icecream scoop pick up big helping of the cookie mix and place on the trays with a good with of space between each mound. we made rather large cookies today so we just had 10 mounds. You could easily half the size for more cookies in the end. Bake for around 25min if you are making large cookies, otherwise jsut 18-20 for smaller. They'll come out of the oven a little soft. leave them on the tray for 5min then place onto a wire rack to cook completely.

Lemon Drizzle Cake

So I asked Michelle last week what she'd like to learn to bake, she said "ice-cream"....so that was find....then she said "Lemon Drizzle" a few days later. So that was also grand, talking to her yesterday I found out we were going to make both :) This was actually the second thing we started this morning. We began making ths once the custard for the ice-cream was cooling. But not to worry we'll begin here!

What you'll need:

For the Cake:

• 175g softened butter, plus a bit to grease the loaf tin
• 175g caster sugar
• pinch of salt
• Finely grated zest of 2 unwaxed lemons
• 2 eggs
• 75ml milk
• 175g plain flower
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

For the glaze:

• 100g caster sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon

Preheat your over to 170°C/gas 3. Butter a 1kg loaf tin and line the bottom with baking paper. Beat the softened butter, sugar and salt in a large bowl till light and fluffy. Add lemon and whisk well till it's incorporated. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after you add in each one. (it kinda looks like scrambled eggs at this stage) Then add the milk. Combine. Sift in flour and baking powder together. Fold the mixture till it's well combined. Try not to over mix! Pour it into the prepared tin and level it off. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave it to stand in the tin for about 15 minutes. Turn it out onto a rack and leave to cool the rest of the way. Once cooled place it on your serving tray. To make the drizzle combine the lemon and sugar in sausepan. Stir gently till the sugar is dissolved. Keep heating till it becomes syrupy. Don't let it boil!

Prick the top of the cake, then pour the syrup all over the top. Don't let hot sugar land on your hand...it's not cool. The cake keeps in an airtight tin for about 4 days.

Making/Baking with the Sister.

What a day we had! Michelle arrived at 9:30 or so this morning. I knew we had to go show a wonderful tourist around the city in the afternoon. So we had to get as much done in as little time as possible. With Michelle learning some of these recipes I am reluctant to do any prep work and we start everything from scratch. The only thing I got around to doing yesterday was leaving the freezer bowl for the icecream in a freezer. So in the order that they emerged from the kitchen!

Click of the pictures to go to the posts! Ah-Yay!

Michelle gently holds her new cookies:

It was great to see Michelle's mind off things for a while today. We had a laugh. For people who don't know which is the majority of you, at the start of the year we lost our Father and Grandad one week apart. It's been particulary hard for my little sister and sometimes I worry that I don't know what to do for her. If this helps her feel better in any little way I'd gladly spend all week creating tasty things with her. But at least for the moment it'll be once a week and it'll be wonderful. Thanks for reading!