Merry Christmas Everyone!

I know that this is not a recipe! but I hope that everyone had an AMAZING Christmas! I know that I certainly did! The kitchen cupboards are now filled up with nice new shiny utensils! Later today I hope to share one more festive treat for you all!

In the coming weeks running up to the new year, I will show you how the simply make, marzipan, Royal icing and how to decorate a showstopping cake for your New years parties!

Peanut butter pretzel bites

Sticky peanut butter sandwhiched between seasalted pretzels, dipped in dark chocolate.

These simple bites are a sneaky treat (especially at Christmas!) and can disapeer in seconds! There are some tips though! The salty peanut butter and pretzels are topped off with dark chocolate, but make sure its at least 70% cocoa solids so that the chocolate isn't too sweet as it will make the snack sickly. you may have seen a similar recipe on Sally's Baking Addiction and I have spoken with her and she agrees that, since I thought of and made these before I even knew about her recipe, she doesn't mind me sharing these with you!

With this recipe its important that, once the mixture has been cooled, that you keep you hands cool at all times so the mixture keeps workable!

I always like to melt chocolate by steaming it, by putting it in a glass bowl on top of a small pan that has a little water in it, once brought to the boil the steam will melt the chocolate!

    Ingredients:

     

    4 (plus) tbsp peanut butter

    10g plain flour for every tbsp

    100g baking chocolate

    Salted Pretzels

  

   Method:

  

    Mix the flour and the peanut butter together, chill for at least 2 hours. Melt the chocolate over medium heat until smooth. Remove mixture from the fridge and roll into small balls. Sandwhich between two pretzels. Immediately dip in chocolate and allow to set

Death by chocolate Cookies

Soft, sweet chocolate cookies with a Christmas ginger caramel sauce. And a scatter of edible glitter... 

Since its almost Christmas, I wanted to share a very much loved recipe of mine, but with a gingery twist to spice my Christmas spirit. They are perfect for the party and for the lunchbox! A treat no sweet tooth could say no to! This is a surprisingly easy recipe!

Now to achieve a neat looking 'zig zag' of caramel (unlike mine*) you will need to make the caramel of the right consistency, I unfortunately left mine abit runny simply because I ran out of ginger bread! (make sure you check your cupboards before hand!) The caramel was I admit, a 'winging it' recipe. 

*in a nutshell, I apologize for the un-neatness

Decoration all depends on your own preference, personally I think about the taste, BUT presentation is very important to me, the thing I love so much about cookies is they can look as scruffy as you like but still look great, Like mine.

Don't worry if your mixture is sticky, It is very sticky! This means its necessary for it to be refrigerated

   

    For the cookies:
    125g plain flour
    75g cocoa powder
    1 tsp salt
    115g butter
    100g granulated sugar
    100g caster sugar
    30ml whole milk
    1 egg
 
    For the Ginger Caramel

    100g ginger bread biscuits (crushed)
    Milk*
    Caster sugar*

*add all by eye, depending on how dry or watery it is.

   method:

pre heat oven to around 140*c
  Mix the flour, cocoa powder and salt together in a large bowl, set aside and melt the butter in a pan on low heat. slowly add the melted butter, and the two sugars into the powder mix. Mix until think and sticky (it may be slightly dry) so add the egg. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Take out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes so its not to hard. form dough into balls and place of a lined baking tray and cook for 10-15 mins

Crush you ginger bread and add the milk and sugar, mix until of caramel texture, add milk or sugar in necessary.

Remove the cookies from oven and allow to cool before drizzling the caramel over the cookies. Et voila!

Mochachino Cupcakes

A rich, dense mocha flavored cupcake, topped with a creamy buttery frosting, and lightly dusted with cocoa powder.

These nifty little cupcakes are like biting into a perfect mochchino! My love for coffee and chocolate came together in this simple cupcake recipe, and the frosting had been left unflavored to mirror the idea of cappuccino foam. The decoration was simply to strengthen this idea more, and if desired the cookies can be replaced by gingerbread on even left out completely.
Since its Christmas, I decided to share this recipe with you!

As you can see from the picture above, the cake is very dense, this simply means, not that it is dry, but that because the mixture is so compact, barely any crumbs if any fall all over the place; this means they would be perfect for a party!

The trick with this recipe is the ingredients have go to be at the right temperature, (room) and also to avoid burnt tops, don't over mix the mixture. The results you should hope to get will be similar to below.

If you mix the mixture correctly you will achieve a nice smooth cupcake top rather that a mushroom top! I have found purely by experience that even though a recipe might say 180`C I often lower it to 160`C or even 140`C and just check its cooked after the set amount of time.

The mixture in this recipe will be extremely think and gooey! perfect for licking the spoon at the end! 

As you can see, this mixture had not been worked to hard and is dense. For this reicipe to work you must not 'worry' the batter, for all you will get is air filled cupcakes. Below you can find the recipe.

   
Ingredients-

    

       For The cakes:

       115g unsalted butter

       100g cocoa powder

       1 heaped tbsp coffee (instant)

       95g self raising flour

       salt (pinch)

       2 eggs (at room temperature)

       100g granulated Sugar

       1 teaspoon vanilla extract

       30g cooking chocolate

       

       For the frosting:

       75g unsalted butter

       175g icing sugar

       1 tbsp milk (if required)

  Method-

  For the cakes:

   

   Line a cupcake baking tray with 12 cupcake holders. pre-heat the oven to 180`c

  Melt the butter and chocolate together in a glass bowl placed on-top of a small saucepan with a little water in it, until smooth. Put aside to cool.

In another bowl, mix the cocoa, flour, coffee and salt together till combined, set aside. In a large bowl whisk the egg, sugar and vanilla extract till well combined. Add the butter chocolate mix and combine. Add half of the flour mixture and mix till thick, add the other half and repeat.

Evenly fill each cupcake holder with mixture, don't be easy on it, the wont rise much. Place in the oven for about 18 mins, or until a knife comes out clean. When they come out of the oven let them cool whilst you make the frosting.

For the frosting:

Beat the butter until smooth and creamy, then sieve in the icing sugar, add the milk if necessary and beat all till its creamy.

       

Recipe schedules

MERRY COOKIE CHRISTMAS

Cristmas is on it's way, and since the weekend has finally let me put my feet up, I will be hopefully making some christmasy cakes and bakes! 

As I am sure you all are, christmas is a very busy time of year, and I am extremely sorry there are no recipes featured here yet... I hope you all keep up to date with this blog! Please also let me know if there are any recipies you want me to feature on  here!

Christmas Wishes  Hannah