12 Tastes of Christmas: White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies

An oven full of cookies has to be one of my favourite smells ever. And biting into a warm, soft, freshly baked cookie one of my favourite things ever.

 

White chocolate and cranberry is the perfect Christmas cookie. You can bake them as thick cookies, my personal favourite or, bigger, flatter ones (see recipe for how to make each) and the use of bread flour, which came about because I’d used up all our plain flour actually makes the cookies chewier in the middle which is just how I like them.

This recipe makes a lot of dough so it’s great if you have people coming over or if you want to give them as a gift and if not, make up the log/balls as you want to bake them and chuck them in the freezer ready to throw into the oven when you fancy one or when you have an unexpected Christmas visitor. Just add an extra 5 minutes to the cooking time if cooking from frozen.

Ingredients

250g butter, melted then cooled to room temperature

100g granulated sugar

250g light brown soft sugar

1 tbspn double cream

2 eggs

100g plain flour

200g strong white bread flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 baking powder

100g white chocolate chips

100g cranberries

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170° and pour the butter into a free-standing electric mixer with a paddle attachment. Add the sugars and and mix thoroughly on a medium speed until well incorporated then add the cream and mix again.
2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well in between each, be sure to scrape around the bowl too to make sure that there are bits stuck on the bottom or sides that haven’t been mixed in.
3. Sift in the flour, salt and baking powder in two halves, mixing well in-between each and again, scrape the bowl.
4. Stir the white chocolate and cranberries through so they’re evenly dispersed the either:

– Roll the dough into a long log shape and put in the freezer until hard (about an hour) then, cut 2cm discs from it for big cookies.

or

– Shape the dough into small balls with your hands then flatten them slightly before putting in the fridge or freezer until almost hard (about 20 minutes) then put the balls onto a baking tray, placing two on top of each other then pressing them down slightly (see below) to form smaller, thick cookies.

    5. Bake in the centre of the oven for 10-15 minutes.

    6. Cool slightly on a baking rack then tuck in while they’re still warm.

LG x

National Baking Week

Tomorrow marks the first day of National baking Week which obviously means everybody has to bake so to inspire you, I’ve rounded up all my baking recipes from my blog.

I’m not sure what else these is to say apart from, in the words of Sue and Mel, Ready, Steady, Bake…

Apple Cake

Blueberry Muffins

Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies

Eton Mess Cupcakes

Chilli Chocolate Brownies

Banana Bread

Skinny Chocolate Cake

Sponge Cake

LG x

Chilli Chocolate Brownies

I love brownies. Gooey, rich, chocolate-y brownies. And a little kick of chilli can’t be bad, it takes the chocolate right back to it’s routes with the Mayan’s where it was used as a spice and chilli hot chocolate was born- it’s amazing what you learn from a trip to Cadbury World.

If you don’t fancy the chilli then obviously you can leave it out but try it, you might be pleasantly surprised. The key to Brownies is not to overcook them or they become too cake like and you loose that gooey-ness that’s essential to a good brownie.

I hope you like them; sorry for lack of photos/slightly rubbish photo.

Ingredients

150g butter

200g soft brown sugar

3 eggs

1 egg yolk

125g dark chocolate

50g plain flour

35g cocoa powder

1tspn bicarbonate of soda

Optional

75g milk chocolate (chopped or chips)

75g white chocolate (chopped or chips)

1 chilli, finely chopped

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180° and grease an 8inch square baking tin.
2. Put the chocolate, butter and 150g of the sugar in a bowl and melt over a pan of boiling water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Stir occasionally.
3. Meanwhile, beat the eggs, egg yolks and remaining sugar together.
4. Once the chocolate mixture has melted, mix in the egg mixture, flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda.
5. Add the chocolate chips and or chilli if you’re using them and mix well so the pieces are evenly spread through the mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 15-20 minutes or until springy with a slight crust but gooey middle.
7. Enjoy!

LG x

Oatmeal, Raisin and Chocolate Cookies

Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days! Exams/work/excessive baking and a little business enterprise of mine have been getting in the way. I’ve been a bit quiet on here but I have of course still been cooking; on Sunday night I helped at an event at my local golf club, waitressing and working on the sweets (There were 200 if you’re wondering, that is a lot of strawberries…) in the kitchen. I’ve also been getting ready for my first little business venture which I’m super excited about, I’ve got a stall at a Jubilee Festive in my local park selling cakes and bakes, I’ll be sure to post some photos of it after the event and check out my Twitter for updates.

Anyway, now back to today’s recipe: I was, scrolling through a load of blogs and recipes the other day when I stumbled across an oatmeal and raisin cookie recipe on Katie Cakes and as our biscuit tin was empty and had been for far too long, and I’d been wanting to try an oat-y biscuit recipe for ages, I tried it out. I’ve had a little tweak and this is my version of the recipe.

Ingredients

60g butter (Preferably room temperature)

120g brown sugar

100g plain flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

2 tsp cinnamon

100g raisins

50g dark chocolate (Chips or chopped)

160g oats

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together and add the sugar, mixing until well combined- I tend to do this by hand but if the butter’s been in the fridge an electric whisk will be useful here.
2. Sieve the baking powder, bicarb, cinnamon, salt and plain flour into the bowl and mix well.
3. Add the chocolate, raisins and oats and mix so they’re distributed evenly throughout the mixture.
4. Chill the dough for about 15 minutes before putting tablespoon dollops onto a baking tray and bake for 12-18 minutes at 180° or until golden brown and cooked to your liking.
5. Enjoy!

LG x

Whoopie Pies

Firstly, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and now for my first post of 2012, it came around very quickly!I mentioned in my last post that I’d been making Whoopie Pies and here they are. I’ve often looked at them on the Humming Bird Bakery website and wanted to make them for ages but I’ve never quite got around to it. I came across this recipe a couple of weeks ago though and thought I’d give it a go.The results were amazing! I can’t fault the cakey-bits- anybody know what they are called?- but I had a few problems with the filling. It was a little too thin, this is probably partially due to me getting bored of whisking it after about half the recommended time and partially because it was a recipe that didn’t use marshmallow fluff. A little more icing sugar and some time in the fridge got it to just about spreadable consistency though and it still tasted great so all was not lost.