Tag: cookies

Recipe: Valentine’s Day Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

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Do you celebrate Valentine’s day? I always have, but never in a big way. Last year when we were in lockdown I just cooked us a nice supper and made som heart shaped cookies with a yummy cream cheese frosting. Pink of course!

The cookies were quite fiddly to make, but really delicious, and the frosting recipe is now a go-to, courtesy of the brilliant Ina Garten.

Valentine’s Day cookies with cream cheese frosting

Recipes adapted from Rachel Parcell (via Mary Orton) and Ina Garten. It’s a large batch for the cookie dough and it can easily be halved.

2 cups (475 ml) butter, softened (I used salted)

6 eggs

2 cups (475 ml) caster sugar, heaped

2,5 tsp vanilla

6 tsp baking powder

6-7 cups (1420-1655 ml) flour

Frosting:

430 g Philadelphia

340 g salted butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

680 g icing sugar

food colouring, optional

sprinkles, optional

Mix wet ingredients with sugar using an electric whisk, then slowly add baking powder and flour. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes. Roll out the dough until quite thick, approx 3 mm, use a cookie cutter to shape hearts and carefully place them on a parchment paper lined baking tray. Bake for 5-7 minutes at 190C, until still pale and soft. Leave to cool on a wire rack before icing.

Mix together the ingredients for the icing using an electric whisk. Add a few drops of food colouring (I prefer the gel colours) to the frosting, mix well and spread onto the cooled cookies with a small spatula. Add sprinkles if using.

I kept the icing in a bowl covered with cling film for a few days, icing the cookies as we ate them so they wouldn’t soften.

Recipe: chewy chocolate cookies (gf)

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These deliciously chewy chocolate biscuits happen to be gluten-free, and that’s why I decided to make them in the first place; for a friend who can’t have gluten, but as I suspected they were so lovely that I will keep making them for myself as well.

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Because they don’t contain gluten-free flour they’re not a regular cookie made into a gluten-free version. Instead the technique is completely different using eggs and corn flour to bind a mixture of mainly melted chocolate. Yes, they’re THAT chocolate-y!

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Gluten-free chocolate cookies with sea salt, makes 20-25

Translated from and adapted after Brinken Bakar’s recipe.

135 g caster sugar

40 g butter, softened

2 eggs

45 g corn flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

250 g dark chocolate 

120 g white chocolate, chopped

sea salt

Pre-heat the oven to 160C fan. Melt the dark chocolate in a Bain Marie and leave to cool slightly. Whip the butter with electric beaters fir approx 2 minutes, then add the sugar and beat for another 3 minutes. Add the eggs; first one, then whisk and then the other and whisk. Mix corn flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and add to the egg mixture. Add the melted chocolate. If the mixture feels too runny leave it to thicken for while. When the mixture is cool, add the white chocolate. Spoon out the mixture onto baking tray covered with parchment paper. Scatter with sea salt and bake in the oven for 8-9 minutes. Leave to cool. They are best stored in an airtight container in the fridge. 

Crispy oat and raisin cookies

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Last week I baked for the office again after a little break over the summer. I made chewy meringues, Zuleika cake (recipe to follow) and these wonderful oat and raisin cookies. The recipe is courtesy of my mother who got it from a baker, so no wonder they’re good!

They are wonderfully crisp and the whole batch disappeared in a few hours, which certainly is proof that they are delicious.

Crispy oat and raisin cookies, makes about 40

200 g caster sugar

130 g plain flour

130 g oats

100 g raisins

220 g salted butter, softened

1 2/3 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Mix butter and sugar in a bowl. Mix flour, oats and bicarb separately and add to the butter mixture. Add the raisins and combine. Roll teaspoon sized balls and place with plenty of space in between on a lined baking tray. Bake until golden (approx 12 mins) at 175C. Leave to cool completely. Keep in an airtight container. 

Crumbly chocolate cookies

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These little darlings were very popular in the office a little while ago when I brought them in. In Swedish the name of these translates to ‘dreams’, but I have no idea why, but they certainly are dreamily delicious…. 🙂

Crumbly chocolate cookies, makes about 24

Translated from Karin’s recipe.

100 g salted butter

300 ml (240 g)caster sugar

100 ml rapeseed oil or other neutral oil

400 ml (240 ml) plain flour

100 ml (40 g) kakao

1 pinch salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baker’s ammonia / ammounium carbonate – this may be difficult to find in the UK supermarkets, but available on Amazon. It cannot be substituted in this recipe. 

Beat butter and sugar pale and fluffy. Add the dry ingredients and the oil and mix. Cover a baking tray with parchment paper and roll the dough into balls, approx the size of a dessert spoon. Bake in 175C for 8-10 minutes. Leave to cool on the tray before moving them. Leave to cool completely then transfer to an airtight container. 

Almond butter chocolate chip cookies

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A lot of my cooking inspiration comes from cookbooks, blogs and TV programs, but a lot also comes from necessity.

I live with flatmates which means that I haven’t got a lot of kitchen cupboard space so I try to use things up before buying something else. And it is actually a fun exercise to come up with something tasty with the ingredients you have at hand.

This recipe is an altered version of peanut butter cookies. I changed the peanut butter for almond butter as I had some I wanted to use up and because I had some chocolate I hand I threw that in too.

This turned out to be a nice combination as the almond butter is less pungent and a more mature flavour than peanut butter so it needed the addition of chocolate to make it interesting.

Serving idea: Break into pieces and serve with three minute icecream and chocolate sauce.

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Almond butter chocolate chip cookies, makes 25

275 ml plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

100 ml caster sugar

100 ml soft light brown sugar

100 g softened butter

100 ml almond butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla 

70 g chopped chocolate of your choice

Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and almond butter. Whisk in the egg. Mix the flour with baking powder and salt and add it to the batter. Add the chopped chocolate and stir to combine. Roll the dough into small balls and place on a lined baking tray. Flatten the balls slightly with a fork. Bake in 190-200 degrees for 8-10 minutes.