Marmalade Ginger Cream Cookies

I love sandwich cookies. My sister states that they are useless but I strongly disagree. Instead of taking one cookie, you get two at once. It gives you a cheeky chance to eat far more cookies than it looks like plus you get the bonus of a silky sweet filling the middle. What’s not to love?I recently made some disappointing ginger cookies using a sub-standard recipe. They turned out strangely smooth and powdery, lacking in flavour. But I hate it when something goes wrong so was determined to improve on the situation. Thankfully, these cookies provided the perfect solution. They’re chewy and textured from the oats and chunky marmalade, softened only slightly from the creamy filling speckled with stem ginger. A proper mouthful, a proper cookie, properly delicious. If I were to make these again, I would further enhance their chunky, chewy goodness – adding sultanas or coconut. However they were scrumptious as they were, and the absence of those other flavours let the ginger shine through. The buttercream was unusual to me, as it had cream added to the regular butter and icing sugar. This definitely showed in the end result and was good for added silky smoothness to finish off all that crunch of cookie. I love stem ginger, and the spiciness of the ginger chunks in the icing were perfect sparks of flavour. The final good thing about these cookies – a totally simple recipe. Enjoy!

Marmalade and Ginger Cream Cookies, from Sainsbury’s Magazine

Makes about 14

Ingredients: 50g soft unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
50g light brown soft sugar
finely grated zest of one orange
1 large egg yolk
50g thick-cut marmalade
50g plain flour
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g rolled oats
For the ginger cream filling: 250g icing sugar, sifted
75ml double cream
50g soft unsalted butter
75g stem ginger in syrup, drained and shredded

1. Preheat the oven to 170’C/fan 150’C, gas 3. Beat the butter, caster sugar, brown sugar, orange zest and egg yolk until smooth then beat in the marmalade. Mix in the flour and bicarbonate of soda, then stir in the oats.

2. Place rounded teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto three lined baking sheets, spaced 5cm apart, then flatten slightly. Bake for 12-15minutes until just coloured at the edges. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack until cold.

3. Beat the icing sugar, cream and butter until smooth then stir in the stem ginger. With a knife, spread a generous amount on the base of a biscuit then stick the bottom half of another biscuit to form a sandwich. Repeat with all biscuits.

Lemon Cream Fruit Tarts

The English May Bank Holiday has just been and, true to form, it rained. Although the day is truly meant to symbolise the coming of summer, the day just caused cravings for the sticky winter food I was just beginning to leave behind. So with my Granny coming for the day the first idea was to make a simple cake. But having just made the carrot cake I really wanted to welcome summer by making something light, zingy, fresh and bright. Which is just what I got from these delectable little tarts. These are so simple because they are basically just an assembly job. You take a little shortbread cup…Add a dollop of whipped cream…  Spoon on some lemon curd… Swirl the two together with a thin cake skewer…Top with slices of fresh strawberry!A bit of a fiddle to eat but totally gorgeous. The pastry was crumbly, the cream silky soft, the lemon curd sharp and the strawberries sweet. Perfect combination and perfect eaten warm in the sun. I used a Mary Berry recipe, but there’s not much too it really! The only true baking is the shortbread…

• 100g plain flour
• 50g caster sugar
• 100g butter
• 50g semolina or cornflour

1. Set the oven to 160C/gas 2.
2. Place all the ingredients together in a food processor and whizz until the mixture forms a smooth dough (if preferred this can be done by hand in a bowl using soft butter).
3. Roll out the dough to 5mm thickness and cut circles out with a cutter. Place gently in a bun tin. 4. Prick gently over the bottom with a fork. Bake for 10-15 minutes until firm and golden. 
5. Set aside to cool a little and slide out of tin onto a wire rack to cool before filling. Only fill when you are ready to eat!

Carrot Cake

Everybody’s tastes are slightly different. When you Google “chocolate chip cookie” you will get hundreds of thousands of results. Everyone has their own recipe for what they call the best chocolate chip cookie or ultimate brownie, and spend a life time tweaking it to perfection. But its not only chocolate cookies and brownies – the perfect carrot cake is a recipe I’ve been searching for for a long time. I’ve previously tried ‘perfect’ recipes which turned out too eggy, too oily, cakes where the sultanas/ cinnamon/ pineapple overpower the decent carrot flavour. But now, I feel I’m maybe getting closer. The recipe came from Nigel Slater’s new vegetable book, Tender and is apparently a recipe he is constantly asked for. Even in a book based purely around vegetables I will find a sweet recipe! The layers of cake baked up quite small and crunchy round the edges, so the icing complemented it perfectly. Although Nigel Slaters’ recipe was a mix of mascarpone and cream cheese I went full cream cheese and pumped it full of orange flavour.  I’m not going to say that this is the best carrot cake you will ever find because I’m sure it can be improved. But it is soft and decadent, it is full of different flavours that benefit each other and it is a good all-round treat. Give it a go!

Pitta Crisps

My Mum made these for a party the other day, and let us try them straight out of the oven beforehand. Bad idea. Very quickly, a large proportion had disappeared and more had to be rustled up – with the order to Eat. No. More. Tricky stuff. There’s just something about the sharp crunch and the salty olive oil coating that makes these irresistible. Plus, they are a snap to make so perfect for a last-minute canapé or pre-dinner nibble. Personally, we enjoyed these in front of the Friday night television – they make a great change from Kettle Chips!

First, take one pitta bread. Then, cut all the way around the edge of the pitta, leaving you with two halves – one thicker and doughy and the other thinner.

Take one pitta half and cut in half again. Using two cuts, take one of these halves to form three triangles of pitta bread. Repeat this with all the pitta breads, preferably keeping the thinner pitta crisps separate from the doughy ones (they cook at different rates). Spread a bunch of either thick or thin triangles on a baking tray sprinkled with olive oil and toss them to be covered on both sides. Sprinkle with a zatar seasoning, and place high in a hot oven for 4-6 minutes.Remove from the oven, pile high on a plate and enjoy!

White Chocolate Cookies

Sometimes in life, it is the simple things which are the best. A decent book, a sunny day, a single flower, a cosy hoodie. Its the same with food: a perfectly boiled egg, crunchy toast, a simple bowl of yoghurt and honey, a warm cookie. A warm white chocolate cookie, to be specific.And often, what seems so simple turns out so much more. I figured these would be a decent white chocolate cookie – sweet, satisfying and moreish. My friend P and I gave up chocolate for Lent, and decided to bake these after Lent as a celebration of the chocolate return. Along with Chocolate Honeycomb cupcakes, we had a marvellous day baking.The golden syrup in these cookies gives them a caramel flavour, as well as making these fudgy and chewy inside – when warm the larger ones verge into blondie territory! I was worried that once cool they would harden up and become all crunch no fudge, but happily the fudginess was there to stay :) The perfect sweet treat, much more than just a plain cookie and yet have that vital cookie characteristic – dangerously addictive. Enjoy!

White Chocolate Cookies
4oz (120g)  Butter
4oz (120g) Sugar
2oz (60g) Golden Syrup
8oz(240g) Self Raising Flour
4oz (120g) White Chocolate Chips
A few drops of Vanilla Essence
1 egg, lightly beaten 

1. Preheat the oven to 350F/Gas Mark 4/180’C  and butter baking sheets - or line with baking parchment.
2. Cream together the butter, sugar and golden syrup.
3. Add the vanilla essence, chocolate chips and the beaten egg.
4. Mix in the flour until all the ingredients are combined to form a firm dough.
5. Form small balls of mixture (about a rounded teaspoonful) onto the prepared baking sheets, allowing a little room for the biscuit to spread out, and press it down.
6. Bake in or near the centre of your pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
7. Leave to cool on the trays. 

Jam Doughnut Muffins

Its been a while! 2 weeks, the Easter period. I have been spending it in sunny(-ish) Cornwall, enjoying the seaside and cream teas. It was a very nice holiday and after giving up chocolate for Lent it was gorgeous to enjoy my eggs :) I hope everyone else had a lovely Easter too and it is good to be back blogging once more.
Whilst enjoying the Cornish cream teas, I was re-introduced to jam. This sounds weird, I realise, but true. For a long time I didn’t like jam of any sort and refused to enjoy it. Then I became the sort of person who only likes jam in certain situations – in jam tarts yes, spread on toast no. Now, I am a full jam fan and these muffins are the perfect way to show this new found love.I still don’t touch blackcurrant jam. But these were made with delicious raspberry – by far my favourite flavour. From the outside, these muffins look sort of plain, not very exciting. But open it up… and you are met by a juicy raspberry swirl. Plus from the top… the sweet sugar-dipped crown of each muffin is revealed. Suddenly these are a whole lot more delish. Gorgeous! Made especially for my sister’s 18th as she loves doughnuts and every birthday girl deserves a little bit of what they love. You can find the recipe here and then quickly get baking!