Shortbread biscuits

Chilli Chocolate, white chocolate, ginger and plain all-butter shortbreads. I often make shortbread, and It always goes down well with the in-laws. 

Chilli Lily Vanilli Gingerbreads

Valentines Scone Round

Not being hopeless romantics, myself and my better half Neil had not planned a soppy night in for valentines day. We cobbled together a meal from left over veg and ended up with fish finger wraps, and, as odd as it might sound, it was bloomin' tasty! 

We were going to treat ourselves to a dessert, but didn't get around to going to Tesco to get something, so I decided to knock-up a quick Scone Round. 

I made this scone ring a lot when I was younger, under supervision of my Mum. I would make it on a Saturday morning and take a slice for my Grandad when we met him for coffee in town at the 'Turtles cafe'. He always seemed pleased to receive it!

I recently asked my mum to dig out the recipe for me and tonight must be the first time in about 15 years that I have used it! 

5 mins to prepare, and a further 20 mins or so in the oven made for a speedy dessert. 

8 oz self raising flour

2 oz butter

2 oz currants and mixed peel

1 oz golden caster sugar

1/4 pint of semi skimmed milk. 

Oven: 180 degrees C for about 15 mins - but I had to turn the oven up to 200 as it was taking longer than it should!!!

Rub in the butter with the flour, add sugar and dried fruit. Add the milk slowly until everything is well mixed and you have a smooth dough.

Place on greased backing tray in a ball, and gently roll until about 3 cm thick.

Score with a blunt knife and then put in the oven. 

Serve with jam. Yum!

Marmalade Cake for the 'in-laws'.

This is one of my most baked recipes. It's from the GBBO (Great British Bake Off) series II recipe book. It is a simple sponge cake with the added ingredient of marmalade. I am not a huge marmalade fan but I do love the sweet, stickiness that it adds to this otherwise ordinary sponge.

I made it last weekend when Neil's family came to stay; I had made it for the 'in-laws' before and they enjoyed it, so decided to treat them to it again.

For the sponge:

175g unsalted butter, softened

175g of caster sugar

3 large free range eggs, at room temperature and beaten

175g self raising flour, sifted.

¼ tsp baking powder

3 tbsp prune jam

2 tbsp semi skimmed milk

To decorate:

3 tbsp marmalade jam

100g icing sugar, sifted

2 tbsp warm water, roughly.

Cream butter and sugar, gradually add the eggs and the marmalade. Fold in the flour and baking powder then add the milk. Spoon mixture in to a 20 cm springform cake tin (base lined with baking paper) and bake at 175 degrees for 45 mins - this time is shorter than stated in the original recipe but any longer I find the edges get too brown. I also cover with foil for the last 10 mins of cooking time so that the top stays a nice golden colour and doesn't get too dark.

When just out of the oven, cover the top of the cake with the marmalade (I usually heat it for a few seconds in the microwave to make it easier to spread) and leave to cool completely. Then make the icing and pour over the cake randomly. I found dripping from a height works pretty well!

Chocolate Digestive Biscuits

The finished biscuits (I think they look more like hobnobs)

For Cake Club's guilty pleasures theme, I decided to make chocolate digestives. My reason for making these was simple; I love eating them! 

Ingredients

•  4oz/100g wholewheat flour

•  4oz/100g medium oatmeal 

•  2oz/50g soft brown sugar

•  1 teaspoon baking powder

•  pinch of salt

•  4oz/100g butter

•  1 tablespoon of milk to mix

Method

I mixed together all of the dry ingredients and rubbed in the butter. The first time I made these, I used my fingertips and got a dry breadcrumb texture. The second time, for speed I used a food mixer and the dough came out quite wet.

Next, the recipe (by Gary Rhodes), told me to add up to 2 tablespoons of milk to make a soft dough. As my first batch was dry, I did add the recommended measure of milk (2 tablespoons), but for the batch made in the mixer I only added a very small amount, certainly no more than 1 tablespoon. For the record, I preferred the texture of the biscuits with less milk in.

Next I wrapped the dough in clingfilm and refrigerated for 15 minutes to firm the mix.

When rolling the dough, Mr. Rhodes recommended that it should be rolled between two pieces of clingfilm to prevent sticking and cracking. This worked well and would use this technique again.

I rolled the dough to a thickness of about 5 mm and cut out circles using a cutter with a 6 cm diameter. This produced about 11 biscuits.

I used a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper that I lightly greased with butter to bake the biscuits on. I baked them for about 20 mins at 180ºC (gas mark 4/350ºF).

When cooled, I melted about 200 g of milk chocolate and spread a generous amount on each biscuit. When cooling, I used a metal cake tester to drag vertical and then horizontal lines through the chocolate to make the standard chocolate digestive pattern. At this point I realised I had been a bit too generous with the chocolate - the lines were much more effective on the biscuits with a thinner layer! 


I then popped the finished biscuits in the fridge to completely set the chocolate, and then stored them in a plastic container at room temperature.