Cream Scones

I have really fond memories of going to a cafe with my Great Grandmother and having delicious baked potatoes, followed by warm scones with jam and cream. I've tried making scones a number of times but they never really worked out how I wanted them to - until I found this recipe!

These scones are delightfully fluffy, tasty even without condiments, and easy to whip up in the morning (or whenever you want fresh scones!)

Recipe adapted from: American Test Kitchen via Smitten Kitchen
Ingredients
280g flour
15g (1 tbsp) baking powder
40g white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
70g chilled butter, cut into cubes about the size of a fingertip
235mL thickened cream

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 215C (425F).

2. Place the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse for a few times to combine. (If you want to make these by hand, Smitten Kitchen has instructions).

3. Add the cubes of butter to the top of the flour and pulse until the mixture resembles large breadcrumbs. You still want to see little lumps of butter in there.

4. Transfer the mixture into a large bowl and pour the cream in. Combine the cream with the flour mixture using cutting motions with a knife, fork or spatula until a dough begins to form.

5. Pour the dough out onto a clean, dry work surface and knead by hand until the dough comes together into a rough ball. Don't overwork the dough!

6. Shape the dough into a circle about 20cm diameter. I just pat it out with my hand.

7. Place the dough onto a baking tray lined with a silicon mat/baking paper. Cut the circle into wedges and separate the wedges a little bit so they have room to expand while baking.

Of course, you can also use cookie cutters to make circles, or cut them into squares. I just use the wedge method because it's the easiest and there's no offcuts of dough to re-roll.

8. Bake the scones for 12-15 minutes, until the tops are nicely golden brown.

9. Let the scones cool for a few minutes then enjoy! They're best when they're still fresh and warm from the oven. I like to eat mine with jam.

Butterscotch Squares

These are delightfully chewy, sweet squares of goodness. Super simple to make and super delicious to eat!

Recipe adapted from: Husbands That Cook
Ingredients - 20cm (8 inch) square baking tin
125g butter
200g dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 large egg
75g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 175C (350F).

2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter.

3. Add the brown sugar and stir; cook until the mixture comes to a boil. Reduce the heat and let the mixture simmer for a minute. Then remove the saucepan from the heat, stir the vanilla in, and allow the mixture to cool down for about 10 minutes.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg to break up the yolk then whisk a spoonful of the brown sugar mixture in; then add the rest of the brown sugar mixture and stir until combined.

5. Add the flour, baking powder and salt and stir gently until combined.

6. Line a 20cm square baking tin with baking paper and pour the batter in.

7. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the edges look slightly browned and crispy.

8. While still warm, cut into squares. When they cool down more, the chewiness gets much more intense!

Enjoy!

Mocha Fudge Cookies

Fudgy baked goods are my favourite kind of baked goods!  These cookies are rich with chocolate-coffee flavour, chock full of chocolate chips and deliciously soft in the middle.

Recipe adapted from: King Arthur Flour
Ingredients
113g butter
210g brown sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp instant coffee powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

57g cocoa powder

206g flour

170g chocolate chips

170g chocolate chunks*

*(If you don't have chocolate chunks on hand, you can just use 240g chocolate chips; I used 170g dark chocolate chips and 170g white chocolate chips. You can use whatever type of chocolate you like!)

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 175C (350F).

2. Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl.

3. Mix the sugar, baking powder, coffee powder and salt into the melted butter until combined.

4. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined.

5. Fold the cocoa powder and flour into the batter - the dough will be quite sticky, but don't worry, this is fine!

6. Mix the chocolate chips and chocolate chunks into the dough until evenly distributed.

7. Place tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto baking trays lined with baking paper or silicon mats.  You don't need to leave too much space between them as they don't spread out too much.

8. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes.  They should have started to crack along the tops but still be soft when you poke them.  Don't over-bake them because you want them to be nice and fudgy!

9. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool, and enjoy!

Speculoos Ice Cream

After coming across speculoos spread in Belgium I have been obsessed! This ice cream is gorgeous and creamy, packed with speculoos spices, and of course I swirled some speculoos spread through the finished product. I hope you enjoy this recipe!

Recipe adapted from: Three Bears Melbourne
Ingredients
330mL milk
1 vanilla pod, split
4 cm length of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced finely
5 whole cloves
1 cardamom pod
200g dark brown sugar
200mL pure cream (not thickened with gelatine)
4 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla essence
Speculoos spice
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom

Approx. 3/4 cup speculoos spread (a.k.a. speculaas, Biscoff, cookie butter) - for swirling into the ice cream

Method
1. Heat milk until just above body temperature, ensuring that it does not boil.  I did this in the microwave but you can use a saucepan on the stove if you like.

2. Add the vanilla pod, sliced ginger, cloves and cardamom pod to the milk.  (I didn't have a vanilla or cardamom pod on hand so I just used the fresh ginger and the whole cloves).  Let the mixture infuse for 30-45 minutes.

3. When the milk is nearly done infusing, combine the brown sugar and cream in a medium saucepan.  Heat the mixture over a medium heat and stir until the sugar has melted.  When the mixture is smooth, remove it from the heat.

4. Strain the milk to remove the spices, and whisk the egg yolks in.

5. Whisking constantly, slowly pour the milk mixture into the sugar and cream mixture.  The constant whisking is to prevent the egg yolks from cooking.

6. Return the mixture to medium heat and cook until it starts to thicken, about 10 minutes.  The mixture should coat the back of a spatula/wooden spoon.

7. Remove the thickened mixture from the heat and stir the vanilla essence in.

8. Set the mixture aside to cool down to room temperature.

9. Add the dry speculoos spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cardamom) to the cooled mixture, stir until combined.  You can taste test at this point and add more spices to suit your tastes if you like!

10. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and churn as per the manufacturer's instructions.  I churned mine for about 30 minutes.

(If you don't have an ice cream maker, pour the mixture into a freezer-safe container and freeze for about 4 hours.  When almost fully set, take the ice cream out of the freezer and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy, then put back into the freezer.  You can do this another time after a few more hours of freezing if the ice cream is not set enough.)

11. With a knife or spatula, stir bite sized amounts of speculoos spread through the ice cream.  When frozen, the speculoos is really hard so make sure that the chunks aren't too big!

12. Decant the ice cream into a bucket or tin and place in the freezer to set fully.

Enjoy!

May The Fourth Be With You

Star Wars Day (May the 4th) was this week so it's the perfect time to post these BB8 cookies.

But really, you don't need an excuse to make them - look how adorable they are!

I used this sugar cookie recipe, royal icing and M&Ms.  BB8 is a really easy character to make as you only need circular cookie cutters.

I hope that everyone had a great Star Wars Day!

Hershey's Kiss Peanut Butter Cookies

One of my lovely friends gifted me with some Hershey's Kisses - I used them to bake some fluffy peanut butter cookies!

Recipe heavily adapted from: How Sweet It Is
Ingredients
125g butter
35g peanut butter
200g white sugar
40g brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
280g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Hershey's Kisses or choc chips (optional)

Method
1. Preheat your oven to 175C (350F).

2. Beat the butter, peanut butter, white sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Beat the egg and vanilla essence into the mixture.

4. Mix in the flour and baking powder until just combined.

5. Scoop heaped tablespoons of cookie dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper or a silicon mat, leaving a bit of space between the dough balls.

6. Top each ball with a Hershey's Kiss or a chocolate chip.  Of course, you can also make these without the chocolate kisses!

7. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly golden.  You want the middle to still be soft!

8. Allow the cookies to cool on the trays for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cookies sans kisses

Enjoy!

Speculoos Buns

These buns are delightfully soft and chock full of delicious speculoos spread.

Recipe adapted from: The Imaginariyum
Ingredients
125mL buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp dry instant yeast
3 tbsp white sugar
1 egg
250g flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter (room temperature)
1 cup speculoos spread (a.k.a. speculaas, cookie butter)
Optional - about 1/4 cup chopped apple

Method
1. Heat the buttermilk until lukewarm, then mix the yeast in and leave to activate.  It should start to froth up.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the buttermilk and yeast mixture with the sugar, egg, flour and salt.  Mix until combined.

3. Add the butter and mix until it's been incorporated.  Continue to knead the dough with the mixer on low speed for about 10 minutes.  The dough will be a bit sticky. 

4. Place the dough inside a bowl greased with butter.  Cover it with a tea towel or cling wrap and let it rise for about 1.5 hours, or until doubled in size.

5. After the dough has risen, lightly dust your work surface with flour and roll the dough out into a large rectangle, so that the dough is quite thin.

6. Spread the speculoos across the dough.  If desired, you can sprinkle other fillings such as chopped apple or nuts on top.

7. Roll the dough up, starting with the short edge.  Pinch the seam closed and cut the log into about 12 even slices.

8. There are a few options for baking these buns - you can arrange them in a brownie pan for a more rustic approach, or butter a muffin tin and place each roll into a separate cup (this will give you lovely round buns!)

9. Cover the buns with a tea towel or cling wrap and let them rise for another 30 minutes.

10. Preheat your oven to 175C (350F).  When the buns have risen, bake them for about 15-20 minutes.

11. Let the buns cool.  If you've baked them in a muffin tin, after they've cooled for 10 minutes, remove the buns from the tin by loosening the edges with a table knife, then place them on a wire rack to cool further.

These are great when warm from the oven!  If you have leftovers the next day, heating them in the microwave for 10-20 seconds will rejuvenate them and bring back that just-baked feeling.

Enjoy!

Macarons

While macarons are beautiful and rather impressive, they're definitely not the easiest things to make - but when they do work, it's an incredible feeling!

This is my tried and true recipe, with all my tips for macaron success (after a lot of trial and error!)  I hope that this helps with your macaron endeavours.

Do note that macarons' behaviour can differ depending on the climate that you live in, so what works for me may not necessarily work for you.  I encourage you to keep experimenting!

Recipe adapted from: David Lebovitz
Ingredients
180g icing sugar
75g almond meal
3 egg whites from large eggs
97g white sugar

Method
1. Using a food processor, process the icing sugar and almond meal until combined and smooth.  This step helps to break down the almond meal into smaller particles, which will result in a smoother macaron batter.
You can also use hazelnut meal, which provides a lovely flavour, however I find that my macarons don't usually work how I want them to when I use hazelnuts.

2. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until they form soft peaks.  (Top tip - I often use spare egg yolks to whip up some lemon curd!)

3. Add the white sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, beating in between additions.  Continue to beat until firm peaks form. 

4. Fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites in two batches.  (If you are using food colouring to colour your macarons, now is the time to add it!)  Ensure that all ingredients are combined, but do not overmix.

You don't need to be too gentle - the 'macaronnage' technique calls for the mixture to be smeared across the site of the bowl a bit with the spatula to decrease aeration.  The macaron batter should be smooth with no streaks of egg whites.

5. Line baking trays with baking paper.  I usually use a silicon mat and top it with baking paper to ensure that no oils from the silicon come in contact with the macarons.

6. Pipe the batter into small circles with a small round piping tip.  I usually make my macarons around 4-5cm in diameter.  Make sure to leave some space between macarons as they can spread.  Rap the baking tray on your table a few times to flatten the macarons and remove any large air bubbles.

7. Preheat your oven to 185C (365F).  While the oven's heating up, set the macarons aside to set a little - a skin will form on the top which will help your macaron to form a 'foot' when baked.

8. Bake the macarons for 10-15 minutes.  I bake my macarons on the fan setting for around 5 minutes (the foot should form during this time), then turn the fan setting off and lower the temperature to 150C (300F).

If your oven element is on the bottom of the oven, don't put your macarons on the bottom rack as it will be too hot for them and they may crack.  You can also put an empty baking tray on the bottom rack to help block the heat a bit.

9. Let the macarons rest on the tray until cool.  They can be sticky if you try to pull them off the baking paper while hot.

10. Sandwich your macarons with your desired filling - I usually use buttercream or dark chocolate ganache.  You can also make a dam of ganache or buttercream and put jam, caramel or another softer filling in the middle.

A dam of dark chocolate ganache surrounds salted caramel in these macarons!

Nutella Raspberry Rugelach

Rugelach is a Jewish pastry that can be filled with a variety of ingredients such as fruits, nuts or chocolate.  I'd never had rugelach before these but was drawn to the recipe because the filling is Nutella.  I am happy to say that these are absolutely delicious!  I could hardly believe I'd made them myself at home; the pastry was beautifully flaky and they were really tasty!

Recipe adapted from: Bakerita
Ingredients
113g butter
113g cream cheese
145g flour
1 1/2  tsp white sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup Nutella
1/4 cup raspberry jam (optional)
Milk and white sugar (to brush on top of the pastries)

Method
1. Combine the butter, cream cheese, flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl (I used my stand mixer).  Mix on low speed until the dough comes together.

2. Press the dough into a rectangular lump.  Wrap it in cling wrap and let it chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

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

4. Cut the dough into 2 portions and, on a floured surface, roll them out into a large rectangle.

5. Spread the dough with the Nutella, then top with the raspberry jam.  (Alternatively, you can just use Nutella!)

6. Roll the dough up, starting from the long side of the rectangle to make two long logs.

7. Put the logs into the freezer for around 15 minutes to make them easier to cut up.

8. When the logs are chilled, brush them with some milk and sprinkle with some white sugar.  Cut the logs into equal pieces about 2.5cm (1 inch) wide.  Place the slices upright on a baking tray lined with baking paper or a silicon mat.

9. Bake the rugelach for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are lightly golden.

10. Allow the rugelach to cool on wire racks.

Enjoy!

Tahini Choc Chip Cookies

These are absolutely fantastic - they're the classic choc chip cookies we know and love, with an undertone of sesame provided by the addition of tahini in the batter.  They also have a great texture - chewy at the edges with a soft centre.

Recipe adapted from: My Name Is Yeh
Ingredients
125g butter
240g white sugar
110g tahini
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
155g flour
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 cup choc chips (I used dark chocolate chips)

Method
1. Cream the butter, tahini and sugar together until light and fluffy.  I use my stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.

2. Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla; beat together until combined.

3. Add the flour, bicarb soda, baking powder and salt to the batter, mix gently until just combined.

4. Stir through the chocolate chips.

5. Line a baking tray that will fit in your freezer with baking paper or a silicon mat.  Scoop out balls of dough; I make mine a bit bigger than tablespoon size.  If you make your cookies larger or smaller, remember that you'll need to adjust the baking time!

6. Place the tray of cookie dough balls into the freezer and let them rest there for 12 hours/overnight.  This really helps the cookies develop a lovely texture.

7. When you're ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 160C (325F).

8. Place the cookie dough on baking trays lined with baking paper/silicon mats, leaving space between the cookies as they will spread!  You can bake as many or as few cookies as you like - store extra cookies in a seal-able storage bag in the fridge and bake them when you want them!

9. Bake the cookies for 11 minutes; the edges should be lightly golden but they should still be soft.  (Remember you'll need to bake them for a longer time if your cookies are larger.)

10. Let the cookies cool on the trays for a few minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Speculoos Swirl Brownies

I discovered speculoos spread while travelling in Belgium - and truly my life was empty before that day!  Speculoos/speculaas are spiced biscuits similar to gingerbread, and the spread is mostly made up of the crushed biscuits.  It's absolutely delicious.

These cocoa brownies are liberally swirled with speculoos spread.  They're chewy, dense and sweet - so good!

In Australia, I buy my speculoos online from It's All Dutch To Me (search for 'Lotus').  I have also found a different brand at Aldi but I find that less reliable as it's not always in store!

Recipe adapted from: Alice Medrich via Butter Baking
Ingredients - 20 cm (8 inch) square tin
225g butter
450g white sugar
110g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
3 eggs
120g flour
3/4 cup Speculoos spread (also known as cookie butter or Biscoff)

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 170C (325F).

2. Line a 20 cm (8 inch) baking tin with baking paper.

3. Melt the butter in the microwave or over a double boiler.

4. Mix the sugar, cocoa powder, salt, and vanilla essence into the melted butter.

5. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition until the mixture is combined.

6. Fold the flour into the batter then beat it with a spatula or wooden spoon for 40 strokes.

7. Pour the batter into the lined baking tin and smooth out the top.

8. Drop tablespoons of Speculoos over the top of the batter then swirl it in with a knife.  Don't break the blobs up too much but make sure that there will be Speculoos in every slice!

9. Bake the brownies for about 35 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out with a few crumbs.

10. Let the brownies cool (I usually leave them in the fridge for a bit, it makes it easier to cut them up) - finally, cut the brownies into the size of your choosing.

Enjoy!