Cranberry and white chocolate cookies

I just started my three week Christmas holiday (I'm writing this on Friday night, and schedule it to be published early on Saturday morning). I can't remember the last time I would have three weeks off work. Possibly not in ten years, possibly never. In about four hours we are heading off to the airport to go home to Finland to spend Christmas with friends and family. I will be exhausted when the alarm clock goes off, I'm even contemplating just staying up all night.

The weeks leading up to today have been chaotic, both me and the Culinary Consultant have been working long hours, so everything else has been pushed aside. No proper cooking, no house cleaning, very little crafting and certainly no time to plan what to pack and very little thought about Christmas presents. This year we will make do with very few presents. And I don't mind at all! There has been several difficult times this fall, but everyone has made it through and all I want to do is take it easy, do nothing and just enjoy the simple things. Cook nice food. See friends. Spend time with family. My only regret is that my baby Sis, who is doing a wonderful job on her first year as a medical doctor, can't join us this year. 

I am just sitting on the sofa, writing this while the Culinary Consultant (who has to stay awake tomorrow morning for the two hour drive to the airport) is sound asleep upstairs. I'm really tired too, but at the same time I'm so wound up about travelling tomorrow (oh wait, correction, later today!) that I can't really sleep. I keep going over things in my head. Did I really pack everything I need (most likely not, but it won't really matter) and did I really put the passport in my bag (yes, it was there the last seventy-two times I checked, so I'm sure it's still there). Is my phone charged? Yes. Will I remember to pack the phone and the charger tomorrow morning? Yes, because I never go anywhere without my phone. That's pretty much what is going on in my head at the moment. Oh and that little nagging voice saying I should be in bed, and that I will regret this tomorrow morning. No wait, correction again, later this morning. 

I better get on to today's recipe. I had some leftover cream cheese that just "had" to be used up. And when the Culinary Consultant went digging in one of our kitchen cupboards he found a bag of dried cranberries. So it wasn't so much we wanting cookies as it was divine intervention I think. I used this recipe from a blog called Gimme Some Oven. I didn't make any other changes to the recipe apart from halving it, as I thought two dozen cookies should be enough.

Cranberry and white chocolate cookies (makes about 24):
For the cookies
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (I used less as I always think recipes use too much salt)
115 g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used 1/2 tsp vanilla paste)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup cranberries

For the frosting:
115 g cream cheese
1/4 cup white chocolate chips, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
1 cup icing sugar

For the topping:
finely chopped dried cranberries
small chocolate chips or melted white chocolate

The howto:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F). Mix the flour, soda and salt. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugars using an electric mixer. Add the egg and vanilla and keep on whisking. Gradually add the dry ingredients, and mix until batter is smooth. Gently fold in the chocolate chips and cranberries. Wrap dough in cling film and chill for at least an hour.

Place tablespoon sized dollops of the dough onto a parchment paper covered baking sheet, well separated as the cookies expand quite a lot when baking.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. Bring cream cheese for the frosting to room temperature.

When cookies are completely cooled, prepare the frosting. Using an electric mixer, mix the cream cheese with the melted chocolate. Make sure the cream cheese is at room temperature, otherwise the chocolate will solidify. Add the vanilla. Reduce the speed of the mixed and incorporate the icing sugar. Spread onto the cooled cookies. Decorate with cranberries and white chocolate.

The verdict:
These cookies were very sweet. If you don't like very sweet cookies, don't make them, or alternatively just exclude the icing. But if you do like very sweet things, you will love these. And the tartness of the cranberries does cut the sweetness a bit. Needless to say, these disappeared very quickly from our kitchen, I can't imagine who could have eaten a huge batch of cookies in just a few days... They are so pretty with the red cranberries on the white frosting, very Christmas-y and perfect for the season.

Biscoff and chocolate cookies

Many food bloggers are are always trying to find the ultimate cookie recipe. Some like their cookies crunchy, others like them chewy. I like any cookies. Soft, crunchy, chewy or any other kind. They are just different aspects of the same ultimate delight. So while others work hard trying to perfect their recipes to be just so-and-so or this-and-that, I just enjoy the cookie recipes they create. There are all these ideas about how cookie dough improves when it's stored in the fridge for a few days. A few DAYS? I can't even leave it to chill for a few hours. When I want my cookies now, I want them NOW. And that's the ultimate genius with cookies, they are pretty quick to make, if you don't insist on leaving them in the fridge for days. About 10 minutes to whip up the dough and then about 10 minutes in the oven. If you are in a cookie emergency, like I was the other day, you can have cookies on the table in less than half an hour. Now THAT's what I call a perfect cookie!!

On a side note, how ironic is it that this recipe uses Biscoff spread, which basically is cookies made into a spread, to make cookies. Yes, it's a bit weird. At least this time I managed to save enough cookie butter to actually make cookies, last time I bought Biscoff spread I just ate it straight out of the jar and had almost none left to bake with. 

This recipe was one that I have pinned ages ago, just in case of a Biscoff cookie emergency. It's from a blog called Buns In My Oven, but it's originally from a book by Katrina Bahl called The Biscoff Cookie & Spread cookbook. The original recipe says it makes about 30 cookies, I made mine bigger so I got 16 cookies and hence had to increase the cooking time a bit. I don't like small cookies, they just make me sad. A cookie should be a good size, it's very rewarding to have a big cookie in my opinion. But you can of course make the cookies any size you want.

Biscoff and chocolate cookies (makes 16-30):
120 g butter at room temperature
120 g Biscoff spread
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla (I used 2/3 tsp vanilla paste)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt (I omitted this as I used salted butter)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup chocolate chips

The howto:
Cream together butter, Biscoff spread and the sugars. Keep on whisking and add the egg and vanilla. In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients and combine with the butter and sugar mixture. Fold in the chocolate chips. 

Make balls or use a cookie scoop to drop balls of cough onto a cooke sheet, leaving space between for the cookies to expand. Place in fridge for 30 minutes to chill (I have a confession... I skipped this step and the cookies still turned out nice, although if you have more patience than me you should probably do it to give the butter some time to chill before baking).  Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F). Bake for 8-15 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies. The original recipe, which says the recipe makes 30 cookies says to bake them 8-10 minutes, my larger cookies (16 cookies from the dough) were done in 15 minutes. Place on wire rack to cool.

The verdict:
These were very nice cookies, soft on the inside and slightly chewy on the outside. The one thing that did surprise me was that the Biscoff flavour did get very mild after baking the dough compared to how the dough tasted before baking. 

I used dark chocolate chips as that was what I had in my cupboard when my cookie craving struck. I can't stockpile milk chocolate chips as I just eat them straight out of the bag... But I think milk chocolate would go great with these cookies as well, and that's what recommended in the original recipe. The cookies are perfect served with a glass of cold milk.

Happy Blog Birthday!!!

It is exactly one year ago since I wrote my first blog post. I had planned to celebrate by baking a really impressive 1st birthday cake. However, life got in the way and I'm having quite a stressful week and I just can't motivate myself to do anything outside of the things I need to do in real life. And yes, real life doesn't include anything fun like cooking, blogging or card making... The only thing I could manage was to whip up a batch of these super easy oatmeal, raisin and fudge cookies. You might (or might not) remember my previous disastrous attempt with oatmeal and raisin cookies. This time, I used Ina Garten's recipe hoping the resulting product could be identified as cookies and not a baking sheet sized blob of cooked cookie dough. I only made a minor adjustment to the recipe as I didn't use pecans, and didn't have quite enough raisins so I substituted some fudge chunks. 

I would love to add some musings about the past year, but I can't stretch myself to write anything that's not work related. So unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for you...) I will jump on straight to the recipe. Hopefully my life situation will sort itself out soonish, and I will have time and energy to annoy you with my endless stories again. Until then, I leave you with these wonderful cookies, only slightly modified from the Barefoot Contessa's recipe on the food network. I only made half the recipe so the measures below are half of the original recipe. (Also it's close to midnight and I want to publish the post on the right day!!)

Raisin, oatmeal and fudge chunk birthday cookies (makes about 15):
115 g butter (original recipe says unsalted but I only had salted butter)
1/2 cup (1.25 dl) light brown muscovado sugar
1/2 cup (1.25 dl) caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup (1.9 dl) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt (I omitted this because I used salted butter)
1.5 cups (3.75 dl) oats (the old fashioned kind, not quick cook oats)
1/2 cup (1.25 dl) raisins
1/4 cup (0.6 dl) small fudge chunks

The howto:
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F). Using an electric whisk (or electric mixer if you have one, you lucky lucky you) beat together the room temperature butter, muscovado sugar and caster sugar until fluffy and white. Continue to beat in the egg and the vanilla extract. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and cinnamon (and salt). Add to the buttery mix, and only mix enough to incorporate the flour, but don't over mix. Fold in the oats, raisins and fudge chunks.

Scoop a total of about 15 mounds of dough onto parchment paper lined baking pans. Leave enough room between cookies to let them expand, I used two baking sheets for my 15 cookies. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly browned. Let cool on a rack.

The verdict:
I'm so happy I had better cookie karma this time around. The cookies turned out looking exactly as they should. And more importantly, they tasted really good. I might omit the cinnamon next time though. But the cookies had a lovely texture, they were soft in the centre but had a bit of crisp around the edges. I baked the first batch maybe a minute too much, but the second batch turned out perfect. Oats give the cookies such a wonderful texture, and I used extra jumbo raisins as I love to bite into one of those juicy little gems. This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Card of the day:
Obviously today's card had to be a birthday card. I made this using three single stamps from the HobbyCraft Mini Clear Stamp range (Monkey, Lion and Giraffe). I stamped using HobbyCraft black pigment ink and embossed using Ranger Super Fine Detail Clear embossing powder. I used Tim Holtz distress inks as watercolours to colour the animals (you rub off a bit of ink from the pad onto baking parchment (or a craft mat) and then use a wet watercolour brush and water for blending to colour). I used foam to apply Distress inks around the edges (it's a while since I made the card, but my guess would be I used broken china, peeled paint, wild honey, milled lavender and spun sugar). I cut small banners from card scraps and stamped the sentiment from the HobbyCraft Clear Stamps General Sentiments 21 pk using the same black ink as before. I matted the picture onto black card and snailed it all onto C6 Kraft card from Craft UK Limited. I think it turned out to be very appropriate for a first birthday.

Lo-Lo cookies

This is my kind of math!

Lo-Lo, or Love Lotus! I read the joyous news on The English Kitchen. The thing known as Biscoff spread, Speculoos spread or Lotus spread is finally available in the UK. When I first started food blogging about a year ago, the US food blogs were ablaze with Biscoff recipes. Biscoff cake, Biscoff cookies, Biscoff ice cream, Biscoff macaroons, Biscoff buns, you name it, they had a recipe for it. I had no idea what this Biscoff thing was, and it seemed to be impossible to get hold of it even on Amazon. So I gave up on Biscoff, telling myself it probably wasn't that good anyways. However, last fall I had to fly to San Francisco for work, and I finally had my chance to get some Biscoff spread. There were quite a bit of other things I also needed to fit into my suitcase, so I only brought one jar of Biscoff with me. 

For a while, the jar was just sitting there on the shelf, as I wasn't sure which of the hundreds of Biscoff recipes I should use it for. So I decided, maybe I'll just taste it, just a little bit, to see what it's like. Maybe that would help. So I dipped in my spoon, and had a lick. Oh my god! My taste buds had an orgasm. So I scooped a bit more into my mouth. And a bit more. What the heck, half a jar would be enough for baking, so I just kept spooning the spread into my mouth. Then I quickly closed the lid and put the jar back in the fridge. Only to be back in a few minutes for another taste. I pushed the jar all the way to the back of the fridge. Over the next few days, I had a spoonful here and there, thinking I could still bake something from the last quarter of a jar. However, very soon there was only a sad little spoonful left at the bottom of the jar. So I took pity on that little leftover dollop, and ate it too. And, as I had no upcoming trips across the pond, I thought that was the end of my very short, but ever so passionate love story with Biscoff. 

That is until a few weeks ago, when I read Marie's post. Lotus spread is available at Waitrose. I did a little happy dance! I live a bit away from the nearest Waitrose. Last Friday, I decided not to get my regular bus home from work, but to get on the bus which would drop me off right next to Waitrose. And I marched in there, and got me two jars of the heavenly goo. And happily walked the 45 minute walk home, thinking of all the amazing things I would bake with my little treasures. However, as soon as I got home, it looked like the jars would suffer a similar fate to my first ever Biscoff. Luckily today, when I was browsing the food blogs I follow, and had a look at this lovely Gooey Butter Cake from Brown Eyed Baker. The little section featuring the "Today a year ago" recipe was for no-bake Biscoff cookies.  And obviously, I couldn't resist. I thought maybe I'll make them in the weekend? But then again, why wait. I was going to clean my apartment today, and finally wash the piles of dishes that someone keeps leaving all around. Filthy little bugger... But no, instead I decided to make a batch of cookies. And after I tasted them, I realised I have to immediately share this little gem with you. 

So if you have never stumbled upon this amazing product, what you need to know is that is a spread made out of cookies. It might sound a bit weird, it sure did to me, but don't knock it until you try it. Biscoff is often compared to peanut butter. Why, I have no idea, as it has nothing to do with peanuts. The texture is pretty close, I guess that's why. Other than that, it's made of Lotus cookies, a cinnamon spicy type of cookie, which apparently is often served on airplanes. The recipe for the no-bake cookies is by Brown Eyed Baker, but it was featured as a guest post on Sugarcrafter. I used it without any modification, except I halved the recipe, because somehow eating half a batch of cookies doesn't sound quite as horrible as eating a whole batch of cookies. Tomorrow, I'm going running. Pinky swear.

No bake Biscoff/Lotus/Speculoos cookies from Sugarcrafter/Brown Eyed Baker (makes about 10 cookies):
3/4 cups caster sugar
1/4 cup milk
56 g (1/4 cup) butter
a pinch of salt
1/3 cup Lotus spread
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup oats

The howto:
Measure the sugar, milk, butter and salt in a pan, bring to a boil, and let boil for one minute. Take the pan off the heat, and add the spread and vanilla. Fold in the oats. Dollop onto parchment paper or a silicone mat to form cookies the size you like. I spooned the dough into cookie cutters to make shapes out of my cookies. Let cool until set, for the impatient cookie monsters out there, this can be expedited by placing the cookies in the fridge. 

The verdict:
Ooh my!! These no bake cookies are super decadent. The sugar-butter-milk mixture together with the spread combines perfectly into a fudge like matrix which hold the chewy oats in place. The spicy flavour of the Lotus spread comes through very well (and ever better once the cookies have cooled completely, a state which only about half of my cookies managed to achieve...). The super rich sweetness is held in check by the dry and chevy oats. These cookies are not only ridiculously good, they are also really quick to prepare, and perfect for that late night sugar craving.

The cookies that snuck up on me

I just can't help it, I seem to be attracting recipes for all sorts of baked goodies. Take today as an example. I had no plans to bake at all, after all it's Monday, and it's yet again another week when I should avoid any and all goodies. I was heading for an appointment with my physio (the neck is still being a bit of a pain in the... well neck). Being a bit early, as I usually am, I decided to pop into a lovely cafe called Bill's which is conveniently located on the way. I was craving some sort of hot beverage as the weather was once again very UK-ish and miserable. So I got in, ordered a hot chocolate with my barely there voice (I always lose my voice when I'm coming down with the flu) and sat down in one of those deep leather chairs you sink into and never want to get out of. There was a huge bookshelf covering the whole wall, and I was almost getting out of my seat to find a book to browse while I was enjoying my hot chocolate when I discovered there was actually a book on the table in front of me. It had a white and red checkered pattern on the cover that immediately made me think of a cookbook, so I excitedly reached for it. Not only was it indeed a cookbook, it was a cookie cook book called Milk and Cookies by Tina Casaceli. You can have a look at the first few recipes of the book on Amazon if you follow my link. Anyways, my point was, I seem to be attracting cookbooks and recipes even when I'm trying to be good and stay away. And of course this had to be a sign from above, so I had to try one of the recipes in the book. I love my iPhone, it's so handy to always have a camera with you, so I snapped a photo of the recipe for the oatmeal cookie dough. Weirdly enough I got a craving for raisin and oatmeal cookies, not chocolate ones. I'm afraid that lack of chocolate craving might be proof that I'm sick with something really dangerous and incurable.

I'd like to call these self deception cookies, as you could almost imagine that they are a bit healty as there is no chocolate in them. And raisins are basically dried fruit, and fruit is good for you. And oats are practically health food. So I justified to myself that it's perfectly all right to bake these although in theory I'm on a strict diet. Well, let's just say I have once again stretched the limits of diet all the way to the extreme. Almost stretched them as far as I have to stretch the waistband of my trousers to be able to wear them. Next I'm switching to dresses, as there is more room for my wobbly tummy. Denial? Me? Never!

Oatmeal cookies from Milk and Cookies (I halved the original recipe in parenthesis to minimise the damage should I end up eating the whole batch of cookies in one go):
170 (85) g all purpose flour
1 (1/2) tbsp ground cinnamon (I actually replaced this with 1 tsp ground cardamom as I'm not a huge fan om cinnamon)
1 (1/2) tsp baking soda
1/2 (1/4) tsp salt
340 (170) g butter
200 (100) g light brown sugar
100 (50) g caster sugar
2 (1) large eggs
1 (1/2) tbsp pure vanilla extract
260 (130) g rolled oats
80 g (1/2 cup) raisins
45 g (1/4 cup) mixed dried peel

The howto:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Combine flour, cinnamon (or cardamom), baking soda and salt in a bowl. Beat the butter, and slowly add the sugars and beat until light and fluffy (original recipe says about 4 minutes). Add the eggs and beat to incorporate. Beat in the vanilla, and then slowly the mixture or dry ingredients and the oats. Before the dough is completely mixed, pour the dough out on a floured surface, flour your hands and do the final light kneading of the dough by hand as an overmixed dough will produce dry and hard cookies. You only want to have all the ingredients mixed, but don't overwork the dough. Ok, at this point I have a confession to make. I did use the electric whisk to mix the whole dough together. But I only gave it a really quick swirl. In theory I totally appreciate the danger of overworking your dough, but I feel like doing it by hand would risk overworking me as I would have to clean up the tabletop and my gooey dough-y hands. Anyways, you should probably do as the lady says in the book, she has made a business out of selling cookies to people so she should know her stuff. I'm just a lazy amateur baker.

Once you have mixed your dough in one way or another, roll the dough into balls about 4 cm (1.5 inches) in diameter and place on a lined baking sheet. The cookies will flatten out quite a bit during cooking, so don't place them too close together, and a maximum of six per baking sheet. The original recipe should make about two dozen cookies, so the halved one makes about a dozen. Gently flatten each ball with your palm a little. Bake for 15 minutes, or until lightly browed around the edges. The centre of the cookie should be slightly soft to the touch. Cool on a rack. The recipe states that the cookies will keep in room temperature for up to a week. In my kitchen there might be one or two left over for the next day. Maybe. 

Still looking like cookies going into the oven... 

Coming out of the oven not so cookie like anymore...

The verdict:
I'm not a very avid cookie baker. Which most certainly doesn't mean that I'm not a fan of cookies. Quite the opposite, I love a good cookie. People tend to divide into two kinds of cookie people, the hard and crunchy cookie people and the soft and gooey almost cake-y type of cookie people. I'm most certainly one of the latter ones, I want my cookies with a bit of a crunch on the outside, but with a chewy, gooey centre. I also don't like my cookies with chocolate chips. I want them with chocolate chunks. The bigger the better. I might have mentioned Ben's Cookies before, but I have to mention them again. There isn't a more perfect cookie in the world than Ben's cookies. They have huge chocolate chunks in them and they are nice, sweet, buttery and chewy. Best eaten while they are still a bit warm from the oven. My favourites are white chocolate and cranberry and the milk chocolate and orange ones. I'm eternally grateful there are isn't a Ben's around in Cambridge, the closest one is in London. Otherwise I might have already induced death by cookie.

The other day however, I surprised myself with a craving for really hard crunchy cookies. You know the type that you buy from supermarkets, and they have a best before date sometime in the next century. I bought a pack of Marks & Spencers white chocolate all butter cookies and they really hit the spot on that day. That was very weird. And they didn't even have huge chocolate chunks in them, just chocolate chips. And then of course there is the cookie my colleague introduced me to when I first moved to Cambridge: Sainsbury's Taste the Difference White Chocolate and Raspberry cookies. I love love love them. They have the added benefit that if you freeze them, they only need a few minutes to thaw and are perfect to eat almost directly out of the freezer. They used to be my go-to self deception cookies, I bought a whole pack of them, ate one and put the rest in the freezer for "later". Sometimes "later" was later that evening, or maybe the next day. But they were all gone very quickly. So now I just can't buy them at all out of fear of inhaling a whole pack before even realising it. 

So what about these cookies? Well, as you can see from the picture, aesthetically they turned out to be one big disaster. I put all fourteen cookies on one baking sheet and they just all melted into one big cookie-y mess. I went back to my recipe to re-check the amounts of ingredients, but I did get it right. So lesson number one is that you shouldn't even try to get more than six cookies per baking sheet if you want them to stay separate from each other and not form a huge giant cookie-pie. Aesthetics aside, the cookies turned out very good. Extremely crunchy and chewy on the outside, but nice and soft on the inside. And strangely enough, I didn't miss chocolate at all. I love the sweetness of the raisins and orange peel and the oats gave the cookies a great crunch.

One thing I found surprising with the recipe was that the dough was not rested at all. Most cookie recipes require you to rest the dough in the fridge from anything around an hour to several days (see this post on recipegirl.com for an in depth discussion on how resting affects the consistency of the cookies). Obviously, there is no way I would ever have the patience to actually rest my cookie dough for days, so I think I will never be able to test how cookies turn out from different doughs. In theory I do understand the need to let the gluten in the dough relax. Also, in a dough that has such a large amount of butter, resting the dough in the cold probably makes a difference. I will certainly use this recipe again, but maybe add just a tad of flour and maybe take down the butter a tad as well. Just for the consistency. But the taste was pretty terrific. Also, you could substitute raisins and peel with pretty much anything you want. Other options I remember from the book was butterscotch, different nuts, sweet or bitter chocolate chips, almonds and Amaretto or Disaronno, orange peel and Grand Marnier. I also want to try candied ginger, I think that would go great with the oats.  

Friday choc quickie

 I had such a crappy day today. Without going into detail, I really need to get more involved in the micromanagement of my life, and once again my inattention to detail has screwed me over totally. Do you ever have those moments when you just want to go home, pull the duvet over your head and cry for a few hours? I was also reminded of the fact that the last thing you should do on a crappy day is go grocery shopping. Unfortunately, I didn't have a choice, as I won't have time to do my weekly grocery shopping any other day this weekend. So into Tesco I went, and came out with over a kilogram (yes, scary, and I have no idea wtf I will do with it all...) of cheese (a girl needs her calcium, right??). And some deli meats (well it's kind of healthy, it's proteins. Never mind the fat and salt). And dark chocolate (I mean, it's pretty much health food, it's 70% cocoa dark chocolate). And milk chocolate. Ok, can't rationalise that no matter how hard I try. Maybe some more calcium? All I know is, I just have no self control. Truth is, I had a reason for those choccy chips. It's this recipe from a lovely blog called My Happy Place that I stumbled upon when browsing Pinterest. Ever since I bought my cute little pink ramekins (more about them in an upcoming post soon), I have been obsessed with cute little things that can be cooked in individual portions. And of course the good thing about tiny small recipes is that once you have finished your individual portion, there won't be anything left over to binge on when the craving hits. 


Anyways, this is a single serving choc chip cookie, cooked in the microwave. It is as dangerous as the microwave choc cake I blogged about earlier. The cookie takes exactly one minute to make and another minute (or 50 seconds) to bake. From sugar and fat to belly fat in less than two minutes... This is the reason I can't stock choc chips at home, I would make these every day. Although I'm sure that in desperate times, I could make this with cranberries or raisins if I didn't have any choc chips. Unfortunately the rest of the ingredients are all things I stock at home at all times.


The single woman's choc chip cookie from My Happy Place:
1 tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp dark sugar
1 tbsp melted butter
a few drops of vanilla extract (I used 1/2 tsp vanilla paste, which I like better)
egg yolk
pinch of salt
1/4 cup (40g) white flour
2 tbsp (or more...) choc chips 

Whoops, almost forgot the egg.

The howto:
In a small bowl, mix sugars, butter, vanilla, egg and salt. Add flour, and finally choc chips. I used a generous heaping, 2 tbsp just seemed so... sad and lonely. Put the dough in a ramekin or other small microwave proof bowl, and microwave for 40-60 seconds. I did 60 seconds in 700W, and next time I think I will do 50 seconds. Serve immediately.

Ready to be nuked.

Add a few raspberries, and it's practically health food...

The verdict:
The problem with the single serving goodies: there is just one single serving!! I could have eaten at least three of these (which doesn't mean it's a small serving, it's perfectly adequate, but my sugar craving knows no boundaries). This was even better than I had imagined. You know how cookie dough is always better than the actual baked cookies. But sometimes it can be a bit overwhelmingly... sweet and gooey. Well, this is the perfect missing link between fully baked cookie and raw cookie dough. It's warm and has those great gooey melted choccy bits, but it's cooked enough not to be too overwhelmingly sweet. Ok, it is sweet, it's actually very sweet. Not too sweet for me, but I can understand if people with normal carbotolerance think it is a bit too much.  


I used a very dark brown sugar, because I love the caramel-ly flavour it gives to the cookie. I also used vanilla paste instead of vanilla extract. It's a syrupy dark paste with vanilla bean seeds, and I think it gives a much nicer and more rounded vanilla flavour than vanilla extract. It is rather expensive to buy, but one jar will last you a really long time, and it also doesn't go bad (I think I have had mine for at least six months). 


This recipe is so dangerous. Not only is it quick and easy, there are also endless opportunities to do different variations of it. Orange and chocolate, raspberry, strawberry, lime, nut praline, white chocolate, rum and raisin (of course!!). Make it a bit more healthy by reducing sugar, replace some of the flour with oatmeal and the chocolate with dried berries. Be warned, this is really addictive. It's just too easy to make and tastes way too good. I'm now lying on my sofa typing this, suffering from a very bad carbo-coma. Oh well, it's Friday, and sugar makes me forget all about my worries. And no, I don't have an addiction, but thank you for asking.

The obligatory picture with melted choccy goo.

The end. Which came way too soon.

Stilton and walnut cookies

A while ago, I bought a book called Step-by-step baking, by Caroline Bretherton. I wouldn't say I need a step by step guide to baking, I'm pretty good at it. But it has the most amazing recipes. And really good pictures as well. I have never understood cooking or baking books which don't have pictures. How are you supposed to choose what to make if you don't have pretty pictures to look at? Are they seriously suggesting you should read the recipes themselves? And they are no fun to browse. Well, this book certainly did it for me, I have spent countless hours drooling over the pictures. For me, the way food looks is definitely part of the enjoyment. I know you wouldn't always think so from the pictures on my blog (I'm getting there though, I'm trying to shop for some nice new plates so you wouldn't always have to look at the rather aesthetically unpleasing beige ones I have...)

Anyways, back to my obsession with cooking and baking books. As much as I love to read blogs, sometimes you just want to feel the weight of a proper book. You can take it with you to bed and browse pictures of cakes before going to sleep. Or curl up on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate and amazing pictures of cookies, macaroons or whatever. (As an aside, I now own 13 flavours of Whittard's hot chocolates. To be quite honest, I'm a bit disappointed with them, many taste very much alike. There are some gems in there, my favourites at the moment are white choc and rhubarb, orange and Rocky Road).



There are so many things in the book I want to try, there are recipes for making your own croissants and pain au chocolate which I will definitely brave at some point. Interestingly however, the first recipe I tried from this book wasn't even a sweet one, it was a savoury cookie recipe. That was quite a surprise to me, as I usually would go straight for a cake, cookie or muffin with at least three different types of chocolates. So here you go, a recipe I have stolen without even making any small changes to it.



Stilton and walnut cookies (makes about 20-25):

50g butter

120g blue cheese

125g flour

60g walnuts, chopped

egg yolk

black pepper



The howto:

Let butter and blue cheese soften in room temperature. Using an electric whisk, mix together butter and cheese until soft and creamy. Add the flour rubbing with your fingers so you get a crumbly dough (I can't be bothered to get my hands dirty, so I actually just mix quickly with the electric whisk). Add walnuts, egg yolk and black pepper and mix to form a stiff dough. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least an hour.



Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. On a floured surface, knead the dough lightly, then roll out to 5mm thickness, and cut out shapes with a pastry cutter. If you don't have one, use a glass, or just make small blobs out of the dough and flatten with your palm. You can also chill the dough as a log and slice it with a knife to make round cookies. Bake for 15 minutes, turn cookies and bake another 10 minutes (to be honest, I couldn't be bothered to turn them, I just baked for about 23 min, and they turned out perfect)

The verdict:

These cookies are a great savoury snack, and would be great with a glass of red wine. I have made a few batches, and they turn out better if you use a strong blue cheese, the Stilton I used for the first batch wasn't strong enough in my opinion. The second time I used Tesco Strong Danish Blue and the blue cheese flavour came through much better. However, when using a strong blue cheese, the dough will turn to a rather unpleasing green colour, but don't worry, the cookies turn beautifully golden in the oven.



Another point worth making is that for my second batch, I chopped the nuts in a food processor, and chopped them way too finely. I recommend hand chopped nuts, as the chunks are bigger and give the cookies a much nicer texture.



So with these two tips, chunky nuts and strong cheese, these make a perfect savoury treat. I served these to some colleagues who seemed to enjoy them. Like I said before, perfect to combine with red wine. Maybe go crazy and have some cheese on top, and a grape or slice of pear. Mmmmm....