Chocolate Truffle Cookies

These cookies are probably some of the most delicious things on the planet, and are incredibly simple to make.  They're like brownies, except crunchier on the edges, filled with chocolate chips, even fudgier (le gasp!) and much easier to eat.  If you are in need of a chocolate hit or just something to cheer you up, make them.  You won't be disappointed.

Recipe Adapted From: Handle the Heat
Ingredients
280g dark chocolate (to melt)
90g butter/margarine
3 eggs
250g sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
75g flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter/margarine)
185g chocolate chips


Method
1. Melt the 280g dark chocolate with the butter and stir until smooth.  Set aside to cool.


2. Whip eggs and sugar until thick and pale; it should take about 2 minutes.

3. Stir in the vanilla essence and the melted chocolate mixture.

4. Fold the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into the chocolate mixture.  It's best to sift the cocoa powder, otherwise you'll end up with huge lumps of powder in your cookies.


5. Fold in the chocolate chips.


6. Cover the dough and leave it in the fridge to chill for an hour or overnight.


7. When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 F).


8. Roll the dough into tablespoon-sized balls and place onto a baking sheet with a fair amount of space in between.  They spread quite a bit.

9. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.


10. Allow the cookies to cool on the trays for about 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack.  Alternatively, you could just eat them all while the choc chips are still melty.  Your call.

Enjoy!

Marbled Blueberry Cake

*flails wildly*

I'm back, and I have cake this time.  A delicious, swirly blueberry vanilla cake, which is delightful when consumed warm out of the oven.  It's pretty, too!

Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from: Homestyle Cookies, Muffins and Cakes

Ingredients (20 cm (8 inch) cake)

1 tbsp white sugar

195g fresh or thawed frozen blueberries

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

125g butter

165g self-raising flour

125g caster sugar

2 tbsp brown sugar

Icing sugar to dust

Method

1. If using frozen blueberries, weigh out 195g and leave them out to defrost.  Leave the eggs out to warm up too.

2. When the blueberries are thawed, preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 F).

3. Grease and line a 20cm (8 inch) diameter round cake tin.

4. Place the white sugar and half (approx. 95g) of the blueberries into a small saucepan.  Stir over a medium heat until the blueberry juice begins to run.

5. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the remaining blueberries.

6. Beat the eggs lightly then add the vanilla and butter, beat well.  Mine looked terrible for ages (probably because the eggs were cold) but suddenly conglomerated.  If yours looks like mine did, do not despair!  Just keep beating them.

7. Mix the self raising flour and caster sugar.  Make a well in the centre and pour the egg mixture in.  Fold the two mixtures together.

8. Transfer 3/4 cup of the cake batter into the blueberry saucepan.  Mix the cake batter into the blueberry mixture until combined.

9. Drop random spoonfuls of blueberry and vanilla batter into the prepared cake tin.  Try to alternate white and blue.

10. Use a knife or skewer to swirl the batter and create a marbled effect.  Just do it gently - if you over mix then it'll turn out all blended instead of swirled.

11. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the top.

12. Bake for 45 - 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

13. Let the cake cool for a few minutes before removing from the tin.  

14. Serve the cake warm and dusted with icing sugar.

There's Always Time for Love {Flooded Almond Cinnamon Biscuits & Chocolate Biscuits}

Here I am again, surfacing from the bottomless sea of Year 11 homework.


Well, no, I haven't really surfaced yet - I'm just floundering on the surface for a moment before I sink back under.


But don't mind my maths homework lurking in the corner, my friends.  Instead, take a look to the right of your screen and you'll see a 'World's Greatest Shave' button.  This button will take you to my fundraising page.


I am supporting the Leukaemia Foundation this year and I just shaved my head last weekend.  Yes, I am a teenage girl and yes, shaving off all my hair was a bit hard - but it's for a good cause and I'm proud of my efforts.  The purpose of the Shave for a Cure, if you haven't heard of it, is to raise awareness about leukaemia and for participants to have a small feel for the side effects of leukaemia treatment (losing your hair).


It would be greatly appreciated if you would sponsor me, by donating as little or as much as you can at my sponsorship page.  The money goes towards improving leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma treatment, finding cures as well as supporting leukaemia patients and their families.  I've raised over $2500 online and in cash so far.
All donations are appreciated!

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Happy belated Valentine's Day, everyone!

This year, to give to my friends and family, I made Almond Cinnamon Biscuits and Chocolate Biscuits then flooded them in pink and white.  Though the rolling out of dough, cutting, refrigerating and transferring can be tedious, I loved icing them and seeing them all on their trays looking pretty.

My friends loved them and so did my Great-Grandfather!

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Recipes adapted from: Homestyle Cookies, Muffins and Cakes

Almond Cinnamon Biscuits

These were...annoying to make.  The dough was super sticky and didn't really taste that good (so I didn't want to snack on it much), and cutting out the biscuit shapes was lame because the dough stuck to the cookie cutters.  The resulting cookie was slightly crunchy and very chewy, but they had a very nice almond-cinnamon taste.


Ingredients
200g blanched almonds (or 200g almond meal)
90g caster sugar
40g icing sugar
3 tsp ground cinnamon
100g flour (plus a lot more for dusting and kneading)
30g self-raising flour
2 egg whites


Method
1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C (300 F)


2. Place the almonds, sugars, cinnamon and flours into a food processor.

3. Process for 30 seconds or until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

4. Add the egg whites and process for 30 seconds, or until a soft, sticky dough forms.  Add some more flour a little bit at a time if the dough is too sticky.

5. Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface and knead, adding flour as you go until the dough is easily handle-able.  Make sure your work surface has quite a bit of flour on it - if there's an un-floured patch, the dough will stick.

6. Roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper to about 5mm thick.  I found it very difficult to roll out.

7. Cut the rolled out dough into whatever shape you want using strong cookie cutters.  I made little stars and love hearts.

8. Place the cut out cookies onto a baking tray covered with baking paper (or a silicon mat).

Bake for 12 minutes, or until the biscuits are lightly browned.


9. Transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool completely.


10. Ice with royal icing.

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Basic Chocolate Biscuits with Royal Icing

These chocolate biscuits are very chocolatey, dark and rich.  They have a great shortbread texture and royal icing goes on them very well.

Ingredients

125g butter/margarine

90g icing sugar (use more if you want a sweeter biscuit)

1 egg

200g plain flour

1 tbsp corn flour

4 tbsp cocoa

100g dark chocolate

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 F)

2. Melt the chocolate and set aside to cool.

3. Beat the butter and icing sugar until light and creamy.

4. Add the egg and beat until smooth.  My egg was cold when I added it so it took a while for the mixture to conglomerate - if it won't come together, just keep beating.  Patience, my young apprentice.

5. Add the flour, corn flour and sifted cocoa and mix until well combined.

6. Mix in the chocolate.

7. Wrap the dough in clingwrap and refrigerate.

8. Roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper until about 5 mm thick.

9. Cut the dough into shapes using cookie cutters.  Peel some of the dough away from the outsides of the cut shapes and freeze for a few minutes.  I find that freezing the dough makes it much easier to transfer to baking trays.

10. Place the cookie shapes on baking trays and bake in the preheated oven for 10 - 12 minutes, or until golden.  (You can't really tell with these cookies because they're so dark in the first place, so just go with the time)

11. Transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool completely.

12. Ice with royal icing.

I left some of the dough white (just didn't add the cocoa and chocolate).  The dark brown and white makes for pretty biscuits.

Lots of love.

Chewy Hazelnut Chocolate Blondies with Nutella - World Nutella Day

There are many unspoken taboos in my household.  Nutella is one of them.


Unfortunately, I love Nutella.  I've got a whole pile of recipes that use the delicious hazelnut-chocolate spread stashed away, begging to be baked, but I have been unable to answer their pleas.

UNTIL NOW.  Yesterday, the 5th of February 2011, I celebrated World Nutella Day.  (Seriously, who comes up with these days of celebration?  Whoever they are, they're awesome.  I praise you for bringing Nutella to my life.)
Mum was browsing through Foodgawker, came across a promising recipe and learnt of World Nutella Day.  When she told me about it, I asked when it was.
"The 5th of Feb," she said.  I looked at my diary.  OMG IT'S TODAY.  Abandoning my plan to watch The Parent Trap on TV, I rushed to the supermarket to buy Nutella with Mum's blessing.


Here's what I made: chewy hazelnut chocolate blondies.  Nutella Blondies for short.  With some suggestions from Mum, I made my first major adjustments to a recipe and I am pleased to say that these blondies came out amazingly.  Chewy, dense, hazelnutty, chocolatey, slightly crunchy and (most importantly) covered in Nutella.  Oh yes.

Recipe Adapted From: Cooking Canuck
Ingredients (21 x 31 cm (8 x 12 inch) brownie tin)
105g flour
100g hazelnut meal
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter or salted margarine)
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (it shouldn't matter if you don't add this)
150g butter/margarine
100g Nutella
170g brown sugar
230g white sugar
2 eggs
3 cups rolled oats
60g hazelnuts
80g chocolate chips


For the topping:
Lots of Nutella.  I didn't weigh it, I just piled it on and spread it.  Yeah, I'm so precise, I know.
60g hazelnuts
60g choc chips


Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F.  Line a 21 x 31 cm (8 x 12 inch) baking tin with baking paper.


2. Whisk together flour, hazelnut meal, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.  Set aside.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar, white sugar and Nutella until light and fluffy.


4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

5. Add the flour mixture gradually, in about 3 lots, mixing between additions.

6. Roughly chop the hazelnuts.

7. Mix in the rolled oats, chocolate chips and chopped hazelnuts into the batter.

8. Pour the mixture into the baking tin and flatten with a spatula or spoon.

9. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes.  The top of the blondies should be golden brown, but the middle shouldn't be dry.  You want to keep the blondies moist and chewy.


10. Let cool in the pan then lift the blondies out to cool completely.


11. Now you need to prepare the topping.  Using a food processor, process the chocolate chips (60g) until there are some in chunks and some completely grated 'dust'.  Add the hazelnuts and process until the hazelnuts are in rough chunks.  Don't process for too long!

12. Spread Nutella onto the top of the blondies using a knife.  The thickness of the topping is up to you!

13. Sprinkle the ground hazelnuts and chocolate onto the top of the Nutella and press down lightly so they stick.  Make sure all the Nutella is covered.

I mainly devised this topping so that the blondies wouldn't stick to each other when I put them into the box.  It worked.  Genius plan!


14. Chop the big blondie bar into squares or rectangles or whatever shape you want, really.  I chopped them into large squares but Mum sneakily made them into smaller rectangles when I wasn't looking.

15.  Eat.

Happy Nutella Day!