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Chocolate Orange Christmas Freezer Cookies

honeyanddough

November 2, 2014

I am one of those people. (You’re going to hate me.)

I started my Christmas shopping in September. No shame. Bought four presents in one afternoon.

We all know that some of the best parts of Christmas, actually are in the preparation, whether that be in September or December. Getting in the spirit with a Christmas Rat Pack album, scoffing an entire box of mince pies, and forcing your pets into santa hats.

Buying one of those sickly sweet smelling candles called “Sugar Cookie Dough” or “Sparkling Cranberry Ice”, having an in depth discussion about either having a goose or turkey, and getting one of those Christmas countdown apps on your phone.

Having a deep clean, sticking your head up into the loft to see if you can see your Christmas decorations, chucking a couple of bags of chocolate coins in with your food shop. Eying up the tins of Roses in the supermarket, hoarding gift bags and swooning over festive table runners.

These cookies are the ultimate Christmas preparation item. The pressure to pull out home baked goodies when you are trying to wrap a thousand presents or wrestling the cat out of the Christmas tree is sometimes too much. With these, you can make them now when the waters are calm and stuff them in the freezer. Then just cut off what you want. Slap them on a tray. Bake. Pat your past self on the back for forward planning.

These will last a good couple of months in the freezer as long as you wrap them in greaseproof paper well and double up with cling film. Make sure you label them; I like to put the baking instructions on mine to make things doubly easy.

Dotcomgiftshop have asked their favourite bloggers to write a post about Christmas for a chance to win an iPad. Now is a much more socially acceptable time to start your Christmas shopping and Dotcomgiftshop have plenty of cool things to get you started.

Ingredients

140gr unsalted butter

140gr soft brown sugar

115gr caster sugar

1 egg

1tsp vanilla extract

240gr plain flour

1tsp baking powder

Small pinch of salt

Zest of one orange

150gr dark chocolate, chopped into chunks

Method

1, Cream the butters and sugars together until pale and fluffy.

2, Add in the egg and vanilla extract and beat until combined

3, Add in the flour, baking powder and salt and bring together to form a soft dough.

4, Stir through the orange zest and chocolate chips.

5, Tip out half the dough onto a sheet of baking paper and form into a log about 20cm long. Wrap up well and then cover with cling film or foil before freezing.

6, To bake, slice the frozen log into 10 or 12 pieces and place them well apart on a lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes in an oven preheated to 180o/c.

7, Let them cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before moving onto a wire baking rack to cool a little more.

We Should Cocoa Halloween Round Up

honeyanddough

8 comments

October 28, 2014

I’ve always been impressed at We Should Cocoa round ups and this one is no exception. Let’s get spooky…

First, Linsy from Home Cook Food got the ball rolling with Halloween Chocolate Bark. Perfect for using up some of those trick or treat goodies with candy corn and pretzels!

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Laura from I’d Much Rather Bake Than… impressed with cookie butter spread and some kick ass icing with her Treacle Cobweb Cake with Speculoos Spread Icing. The tiny spiders are perfect styling for this creepy cake.

Caroline from Caroline Makes… got super fancy on us with this sophisticated Five Layer Cheesecake which she says would be perfect for a Halloween dinner party. I’m pretty sure we’d all come round for that dinner party actually…

Kicking off the pumpkin based beauties was Laura from How To Cook Good Food with these Spiced Pumpkin Blondies. Super gooey and decadent.

Ghosts are creepy but Kerry from Kerry Cooks made ghosts tasty with these Halloween Ghost Rice Krispie Pops…

and then she went one further with this beautiful, bright Halloween Bark using dark chocolate and orange flavoured and coloured chocolate buttons!

I feel like I forced Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog into Halloween themed treats, but when she created this lush looking Chocolate Pecan Pumpkin Cake, I stopped feeling bad. Added bonus, this cake is a keeper. Added, added bonus, tiny pumpkins on top!

I walk face first into spider’s webs every time I go to the car. Whilst I can’t be annoyed at spiders because , I would much rather walk face first into one of Camilla’s Halloween Chocolate Apples from her blog, Fab Food 4 All. Handy piping tutorial is rad too.

Corina from Searching for Spice also created a spider’s web that I would happily take to the face with her beautiful Ultimate Halloween Cake. Corina has got cream cheese icing and ganache in this cake to make it even more drool worthy.

Check out this little dude! Halloween Chocolate Krispie Monsters from Lapin d’Or were up next. His eyes are the cutest touch!

BRAIIIINNNSSS and other totally awesome Halloween cupcakes came from Kat at The Baking Explorer who is a fellow lover of the spooky season. (Seriously, I’m in love with the brain cupcake though… Braaains…)

Halloween Peanut Butter Pudding from Rebecca at Bake N Quilt with a little slide web sitting in the middle is a serious cute way to serve dessert.

I always feel like someone is watching me… Oh, no, wait! It’s Dom from Belleau Kitchen‘s brilliant Witches Eye-Balls, which are cute mini bundts covered in coconut milk ganache (Coconut. Milk. Ganache. Let that sink in for a moment. *dribbles* ). Dom also had a little baking mishap but if the Goblin Bones included in his post were the outcome then I wouldn’t class that as a fail…

Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker defied gravity with her Chocolate Candy Cake. Whilst I was, initially, convinced that Ros was in fact some kind of awesome witch, that made chocolate hover at her beck and call; but dispelled that myth with a really good and comprehensive set of instructions to explain how she created this showstopper.

Caroline Makes… also stunned me with her Pumpkin Spice M&M cookies. More so stunned me with the fact that she was able to keep the M&Ms for long enough to bake with. Because I would have poured them into my mouth with reckless abandon. Fact. She also ramped up the pumpkin-ness with canned pumpkin. Definitely worth a look!

The problem with The Gluten Free Alchemist’s Halloween Cake Pop Spiders is that they are too cute to contemplate eating. With cake pop insides and liquorice legs, they sound just as tasty as they are adorable!

This Chocolate Surprise Halloween Cake from Rachel at Blissfully Scrumptious is absolutely stunning. Look at the tiny cat on the back of the broom!

Mushroom foraging’s worse nightmare was the look I was going for with my Poison Mushroom Cake. These were most definitely not poisoned.

Sarah from The School of Balance created a healthy Halloween feast including this Halloween Chilli Con Carne. Also courgette worms and cauliflower maggots are also on the menu.

Katie from The Perfect Brownie created the brownie recipe to end all brownie recipes and baked hers inside a pumpkin. Such a brilliant idea!

Elizabeth from Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary‘s entry wraps up the We Should Cocoa round up with her memories of extravagant halloweens and these Zombie Brain Chocolates (BRAAAIIINS!) using some chocolate Día de Muertos moulds.

Edited:

I always turn up to halloween parties fashionably late because getting the perfect eyeliner and fake blood drip is hard work. Late to this party is:

Caroline from Caroline Makes with a spooky Halloween Rocky Road.

and Lucy from The Kitchenmaid with possibly one of the healthiest sweet treats in this round up Pumpkin, Prune and Chocolate Bars.

Thank you to every one who submitted their fantastic recipes, photos and stories. Please check out Shaheen’s blog, Allotment 2 Kitchen for the November We Should Challenge on the 1st November 2014.

Poison Mushroom Cake

honeyanddough

4 comments

October 25, 2014

Let’s talk about fear.

Ok, not actual fear. Specifically, The Fear. If you have ever left a piece of work close to a deadline because you “have time to finish it” but are actually binge-watching as much Always Sunny in Philadelphia as you can manage. Or like when you’ve drunk a butt load of wine and try and write a blog less than an hour before the cut-off. This is The Fear.

I am Queen of The Fear. If I have an assignment to submit on Wednesday and its Saturday night, have I started it? Have I fuck. Am I trying to finish this blog post with only 6% battery on my Macbook? Hells yes. The Fear is scarier than any ghost or zombie….

Ingredients

Meringue Mushrooms

2 egg whites

100gr caster sugar

¼ tsp white wine vinegar

Green and red food colouring

Chocolate Cake

This is the luxe version of the economical chocolate cake I made for the £1 Chocolate Cake We Should Cocoa’s May challenge

140gr self raising flour

30gr cocoa powder

85gr unsalted butter

85gr sugar

Milk

Method

1, Make the meringue mushrooms first by making sure that your bowl and whisk/whisk attachment is spotlessly clean.

2, Beat the egg whites until they are foamy and add in the vinegar.

3, Carry on beating the egg whites until they reach soft peaks.

4, Turn the speed up and slowly start adding in the caster sugar.

5, Carry on beating the mixture until you can rub a tiny bit between your fingers and it doesn’t feel grainy.

6, Preheat your oven to 100o/c

7, Line two baking sheets with non-stick or greaseproof paper

8, Spoon half the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a large round nozzle.

9, Pipe stems by holding the piping bag vertically and evenly squeezing the bag and lifting the nozzle. This will give you a little pillar of meringue. Use a finger dipped in water to flatten the top of the pillar.

10, Divide the remaining mixture in half again and dye one half red and one half green. Fill a clean piping bag with the green meringue and pipe caps. To pipe caps, again hold the piping bag vertically to the lined baking tray and squeeze. Let the meringue form a little disc, keep squeezing and lift the piping bag slowly. Again, use a damp finger to smooth out any peaks or ripples that may have formed. When you have finished piping all the green meringue out, add the red straight into the same bag and repeat. This will give you the red and green poison mushrooms.

11, Bake for an hour and then turn off the oven. Leave the oven to get completely cold. You can make these well in advance and store them in an air tight container.

12, Next make your cake by preheating your oven to 180o/c and line a seven inch cake tin.

13, Sift the flour and cocoa powder together and then stir with a whisk to fully combine

14, Rub in the margarine, much like you would when making pastry, until it it fully combined and there are no lumps.

15, Stir in the sugar and then add in enough milk to give it a soft, cake batter-esque, consistency.

16, Decant into your cake tin and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until it is completely cooked.

17, Turn out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.

18, Assemble the cake by adding a thick green glace or buttercream icing and gently adding the mushrooms. You can use a bit of the green icing to glue the caps to the stems or alternatively use a little melted chocolate. Sprinkle the cake with a tiny bit of cocoa powder. You will have plenty of meringue mushrooms left over.

I’m entering my Poison Mushroom Cake into We Should Cocoa, this month hosted by yours truly with the theme of Halloween. You can read all about We Should Cocoa, how to enter and look back at previous challenges by clicking here. You can see the round up of last month’s jam challenge here.

Plum & Sloe Gin Hand Pies

honeyanddough

6 comments

October 12, 2014

Those ceramic steam birds that you put in pies? It upsets me when they go in the oven.

I used to cry when I was younger because inanimate objects could come to life and it was a horrible thought to think of that poor little bird dying in the oven. And I haven’t ever really got over it. We got gifted one last Christmas and he has been no where near any pie. Until he took a glamourous photoshoot between these buttery little flaky pastry hand pies.

Which is why, these little pies are perfect for not committing fake aviancide.

Makes around 15

Ingredients

Plum Filling

4 firm eating plums

1tbsp caster sugar

2tbps sloe gin (you could use any alcohol here, like ameretto or whiskey. Or you could just substitute it out with a couple of tablespoons of water)

Pastry

170gr plain flour

1tbsp granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

120gr cold butter, cut into chunks

60ml ice cold water (plus extra)

Method

1, Preheat your oven to 200o/c. Prepare the plums by cutting them into eight segments and destoning. Place them in an ovenproof dish and sprinkle over the sugar and pour in the sloe gin.

2, Toss it all together until the plums are covered and roast in the oven for 10 minutes. Leave this to cool completely before filling the pies.

3, Make the pastry by sifting the flour into a large bowl with the sugar and salt. Toss in the butter and using your fingertips, rub it into the flour until you have a shaggy and lumpy consistency. This will make the pastry light and flaky.

4, Using a butter knife, add in the cold water, a tablespoon at a time and using a cutting motion, bring the pastry together. You want a soft but not sticky dough. Chill this for around fifteen minutes. It doesn’t need a really long chilling time.

5, Preheat your oven to 190o/c and line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper. Roll out your dough to around 3mm thick. Stamp out as many rounds as you can, approximately 7.5cm in diameter. You can reroll any leftover dough. I made around fifteen altogether.

6, Divide the cooled plums between the pastry discs, heaping it to one side. I used about two or three segments in each pie. Dampen the edges around the filling with a little egg wash and fold the unfilled side over the top to form a semi circle.

7, Crimp the edges with a fork, brush with the egg wash and place on the prepared baking sheets.

8, Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and crisp. Cool slightly before eating.