Red velvet and white chocolate cookies

I have to confess to feeling pretty pleased with myself right now.  I'm sitting writing this with a cup of tea and a homemade cookie.  Not just any homemade cookie I should add but one from a recipe of my own creation.  I know I didn't invent the concept but not being able to find a British recipe (i.e. one that didn't require a cup of butter, as if anyone can get butter into a cup to measure it!) I thought I would just try and adapt a well-tested cookie recipe.  I didn't expect it to be successful the first time but to my surprise, it was!  These cookies have a special place in my heart as I first ate one last year while the husband and I were on honeymoon.  Since then I have often thought about their firm yet chewy texture, double chocolately taste and deep red colour but have been too afraid to try them for fear of spoiling the idea of them forever.  They may just be a slightly fancy chocolate chip cookie with some cocoa powder and red food colouring but they've certainly made my weekend!

I used:

100g soft butter

100g light brown sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

135g self raising flour

15g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

50g white chocolate, cut into fairly small chunks (or you could use white chocolate chips)

1 tsp red food colouring

Makes 20

Pre heat the oven to 170°C

Cream together the butter and sugar.  When light and fluffy, add the golden syrup and vanilla extract.

Add the flour, cocoa power and chocolate and mix until it starts to clump together then add the food colouring and finish bringing together by hand (I wore snazzy latex gloves so I didn't have to spend three days with red hands). I have said one teaspoon of colouring as this is roughly what I used but it will depend on how red you want the cookies to be and also on the colouring you are using. If you are using the colouring paste then you will need even less. I keep meaning to get some of that but somehow never get around to it so turn to the trusty bottles of colouring in my baking drawer.  If you're feeding kids then the paste is definitely a much better investment.   You are aiming for a deep burgundy colour to the dough as the colour will change during cooking.

Roll small pieces of the dough into a ball, don't flatten them, and put them on a greased baking sheet leaving at least an inch all the way around each ball of dough.  At this point they look like little meatballs on a tray but once in the oven they will flatten themselves and spread into cookie shapes.  

Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until they start to firm up at the edges.

I made smaller cookies but if you wanted bigger ones just make bigger balls of dough and leave more room around them. 

I say this makes twenty cookies but twenty one balls of dough went into the oven, I ate the other one the second they came out before they had started to firm up.  And I'm not sorry either.  

Almost angelic...

After last weekend's surprising baking success I decided that I would bake something every weekend as far as possible.  I spent most of the week thinking about what I could make and then found this blog post and could not stop thinking about rainbow cake.  I know that baking seven different coloured layers of sponge and sandwiching it all together is still beyond me but I could not shift the thought of gloriously coloured cake and this thought led me on a trip down memory lane.  I don't seem to remember my mum baking much when I was a child but if we were well behaved children, which was rare, then she would pick up some angel cake from the supermarket.  I know that cheap supermarket cake tinted with nasty food colouring is about as far away from real cake as I am from a prima ballerina but it still has a nostalgic feel for me plus it fulfilled the brief of having different coloured layers.  I hit on a snag that I only own two matching cake tins rather than the three I would need for the pink, yellow and white layers and decided to lose the white (how do you make cake white anyway?!) and give a nod to it with some white frosting.  Not just any white frosting but white chocolate frosting. So this is my homage to my childhood favourite, I'm calling it almost angelic cake:

I used:


225g very soft butter
225g caster sugar
200g self raising flour
25g cornflour
4 large eggs
1 tsp baking powder
3-4 tbsp milk
Red and yellow food colouring.


Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. This is so much easier since I took the plunge and bought an oven thermometer, it really does make a difference!
I am a convert to the Nigella method of making a victoria sponge which is all this really is and indeed this is her recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess.  Put everything but the milk into a food processor and blitz until smooth, the butter really does have to be very soft for this.  I put it in the microwave until it is nearly melting to get it soft enough for the lumps to blitz out easily.  Then pulse the mixture while adding the milk a tablespoon at a time until it has a dropping consistency.  
Divide the mixture into two bowls and add yellow food colouring to one and red to the other until the desired colour is achieved.
Pour into two greased cake tins (I think mine are 8" ones) and cook for 25 minutes until a skewer or knife comes out clean.


For the frosting:
140g butter
140g icing sugar
100g white chocolate, melted


This made a bit too much frosting but half would probably not be enough to sandwich the cakes together and have frosting on top so if you're not really greedy and addicted to frosting like us you may need to find a way to use up the leftovers rather than just slapping it all on like I did.  
Melt the chocolate in the microwave and leave to cool.  I saw on the Sport Relief GBBO last week that it's easiest to use melted chocolate if it's close to the temperature of the other ingredients.  I don't know if this is true or not but I let mine cool for a long time.
Cream together the butter and icing sugar, the Kitchenaid really is a godsend for this!
Add the chocolate and spread onto the cake.


Eat with a cup of tea and a big childish grin!

Lemon, thyme and prosciutto risotto

I can remember the first risotto I ever ate.  It was in a tiny little Italian restaurant in West Didsbury in Manchester and it was a chicken, asparagus and thyme risotto.  I loved the comforting ooze and the warm feeling that seemed to wrap itself around me while eating it.  Probably a bit over-dramatic for what is basically a bowl of rice but my adventures in risotto land took off from there.  Adventures is a bit of an exaggeration (not that I am prone to that at all!) as I prefer to keep it simple. I have even been known to have a make up some arborio rice with only stock and then throw in a large handful of parmesan at the end when I've been feeling lazy but in need to comfort.  Over complicated risotto just doesn't work, too many flavours compete and it doesn't seem to lull me into the same sense of security and comfort, plus it requires far too much effort for what is my version of comfort food. Last night's new experiment was another idea stolen from Jamie Oliver but again made up as I went.  I simply fried off some prosciutto in a little olive oil while I cooked the rice with stock and white wine.  Not long before the rice was ready I added the juice of a lemon and the leaves of a few sprigs of thyme and let it cook for a couple of minutes to permeate through the rice.  Once the rice was cooked I threw in a large handful of parmesan (although there really isn't any other kind of handful of parmesan in my house) and put the crunchy prosciutto on top and voilà, dinner in a little over twenty minutes.  My bad attempts at photography don't do justice to the magnificence of this bowl of food as both the husband and I scraped the bowl clean.  

Domestic Goddess at last!

Baking has never been my forte, the precision involved seems to flummox me every time.  I'm persistent however and today my persistence finally paid off.  I managed to create a gloriously delicious and soft sponge cake that actually resembled a sponge cake rather than the strange sponge-based burnt on top volcanoes I usually take from the oven. I may have slightly burned the caramel but the slightly bitter taste is actually not bad against the sweetness of the cake and all the frosting so I'm declaring it a success.  My new oven thermometer shows my oven is at best 20 degrees hotter than the thermostat so I'm hoping the thermometer will help me improve my baking even further.  I'm already searching around for next week's inspiration.

The recipe was taken from Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess and today, for the first time, I felt like one! 

Comfort food for a battered ego...

I have to admit the macaroon episode dented my confidence so this weekend I felt the need to return to something closer to my comfort zone: pie!  A couple of weeks ago I watched Jamie Oliver make a steak, Guinness and cheese pie on the TV and I had to have a go.  A friend coming round for relaxed Saturday night dinner was the perfect excuse to not only make the pie but to convince the husband to take a trip to the butcher's to buy some steak instead of relying on the supermarket.  I have to take a moment here to praise our local butcher, Crown Butcher's in Stourbridge. The quality and service is fantastic and you do definitely get what you pay for.  It's not every month we can afford to go, and frankly sometimes the supermarket is just far too convenient, but when we do it really is worth it.

I decided not to follow Jamie's recipe but sort of make my own up following similar principles and it was truly wonderful.  So wonderful in fact that we didn't wait to photograph it so you could see it but just dived straight in!  You will have to take my word for it looking nearly as good as it tasted!

I used:

About half a kilo good quality braising steak diced

One carrot, diced fairly small

Roughly 100g mushroom, quartered

One bottle Guinness

150g strong cheddar cheese, grated.

Fresh thyme

Salt and pepper

500g ready made block of puff pastry

I first of all put the carrots into a  frying pan and fried in a little olive oil until softened.  If you had a heavy bottomed casserole dish you could just use this and save yourself washing up an extra piece of equipment but mine's heavy and not easy to manoeuvre so I use a frying pan and transfer.  When soft, add the mushrooms and fry until they colour.  Transfer both of these into the casserole dish.

Add a little more oil to the pan and add the steak, browning all over.  You may need to do this in batches if the pan isn't big enough.  When brown add 1 heaped tablespoon of flour and mix in to coat the meat, this will help thicken the gravy.

Add to the casserole dish and pour over the Guinness.  Top up a little bit with water if needed which will depend on the size and width of your casserole dish.

Add some chopped fresh thyme and salt and pepper and put in a 100-120 degree oven for 1½ hours.  

After this time the liquid should have reduced slightly.  If not, spoon some off as you want a thick sauce for the pie.  If it is too wet then the pastry will never cook through.  You can always reduce this extra liquid on the hob and use as a gravy to serve with the pie so it won't go to waste (this is what I did anyway!).

Cook for another hour in the oven and if it is still a bit wet then put the casserole dish on the hob and reduce the liquid down  then allow to cool for a couple of minutes.

Turn the oven up to 200 degrees to preheat.

Cut two thirds of the pastry off the block and roll out on a floured surface to be the base of your pie.  Grease the pie dish and allow the pastry to fall into the bottom of the dish rather than forcing it and let the overlap hang over the edge.  

Add the cheese to the filling, stir through and pour on top of the pie base.

Roll out the remaining one third of pastry to be the lid.  If you have eggs in the house (which I didn't), the best way to do it would be to trim the base slightly, egg wash around the rim and then put the pie lid on top, crimpt together with your fingers and egg wash the whole thing to keep it stuck together and make it golden on top when cooked.  As I had no egg I put the lid on top and folded the edges all the way around like a cornish pasty to keep it all together.  Some of the pastry didn't quite cook but it didn't bother us!

Put two holes in the pie to allow steam to escape and put in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

We had this with mashed potato, peas and extra Guinness gravy that I took from the filling and there was not a scrap left.  This should probably be enough for four normal people or three greedy people like us!

All is not lost....

I like making things instead of buying them.  Although it rarely looks better, it generally tastes better and is a more satisfying process.  Until this weekend the only exception I could think of was puff pastry.  Standing for hours folding and refolding pastry is not for me when there is a perfectly good packet of it at the supermarket.  I am now adding macaroons to this list.  I realised it might be an ambitious task for me as I'm not brilliant with precise measurements and methods but I thought I would give it a go and just read very carefully what I had to do many times before even switching the mixer on.  I used the recipe from The Pink Whisk (incidentally a great blog written by last year's GBBO runner up, Ruth Clements) and made sure I knew inside out what I was supposed to do when.  I followed it to the letter only to have my heart cruelly broken when the first batch of macaroons came out of the oven looking like some kind of patisserie-based nightmare.  They were flat and had cracked on top and I clearly hadn't left enough space in between them as I had several large macaroons instead of the many more small ones I had piped.  (Whilst trying to pipe them I had also managed to cover myself and the whole kitchen in the mixture, making a mess much more in my skill set than piping it turns out). My funny looking macaroons were also grainy and even tasted a bit funny.  My husband convinced me to have another go and this was marginally more successful.  This batch at least were smooth and shiny on top and had risen the tiniest of amounts.  I had tried to be so careful when adding the almonds and icing sugar to the egg white and sugar but obviously I was too clumsy and had knocked too much air out.  They also weren't the lovely orange colour they were supposed to be but had a strange biscuity hue to them.  As they were just about serviceable I sandwiched them together with chocolate orange ganache (also from TPW) which was the saving grace of the whole afternoon. The ganache was so good I licked the bowl clean.  Now I have to find a way to make this wonderful orange, creamy chocolate goo again that doesn't involve making those blasted macaroons again.

For Ruth's Macaroons recipe (which I'm sure a more patient and less clumsy person would have more luck with go here: http://www.thepinkwhisk.co.uk/2011/01/how-to-make-perfect-macaroons.html.

Pheonix from the culinary flames

The panacotta experiment was not successful.  So unsuccessful I couldn't even bring myself to write down how much of a failure it was.  Cooked cream should be straightforward, right?  Wrong. Needless to say I was feeling a bit dejected and not overly confident going into tonight's ravioli mission.  Not least because I have tried to make ravioli in the past using one of those little mould trays that someone once bought me as a gift.  The ravioli split and was watery on the first effort, and the second, and the third.  The ravioli mould went to the charity shop although I did keep the mini rolling pin that went with it.  After a long cooling off period (about three years) I decided that I could give it another go and just freehand my ravioli.  It would have a lot less finesse than the little identical ones but it might actually work.  First I had to dust off my pasta maker that hadn't been used in a few years and remember how to make pasta.  I found at least a dozen different recipes and methods on the internet so I decided to stop looking and just give it a go and I even surprised myself as after many minutes feeding pasta through the machine over and over again I was actually holding what looked like proper pasta in my hand!  I filled it with a spinach and ricotta filling and dinner was looking close.  A pan of salted boiling water later and for the first time I had accomplished successful homemade ravioli and I was pretty chuffed with myself! What do you think?

I had mine with some garlic and parsley butter I had knocking around and parmesan.  I knocked up a quick tomato sauce for the husband and dinner was served!


For the pasta:
2 large eggs, beaten
150g plain flour
50g semolina (optional, if leaving out just use an extra 50g of flour)


For the filling:
1 large bag spinach
150g ricotta


Egg wash


Cook the spinach in a dry pan until wilted.  Leave to cool and then squeeze the moisture out.  Add the ricotta with salt and pepper (I should have put some nutmeg or even a smidge of lemon zest but I forgot!).  Put in the fridge to firm up.
Mix the semolina with the flour either on a clean work surface or in a large bowl.  Make a well in the centre.
Add the eggs to the well and pull the dry ingredients into the eggs.  Work until it comes together in a dough, it shouldn't be too sticky but also not too dry.
Work the dough through the pasta machine on the thickest setting, fold the resulting strip of pasta into three and feed through the machine again.  Don't worry if it falls apart a lot at this point, just squidge it all together and keep going.  Repeat on each setting of the machine three times and you should have one long strip of smooth pasta.  The semolina will make it quite grainy but gives it a nice texture when cooked.
Lie the strip of pasta flat on a floured surface and divide in half.
Place large balls on the filling at equal intervals along one half of the pasta, there should be at least at inch of space in between the piles of filling.
Brush with beaten egg along the four edges of the pasta and also in between all of the piles of filling, this will act as the glue to keep your ravioli together.
Starting at one end, place the second sheet of pasta on top of the first.  It is important to make sure there is no air trapped between the two sheets so you will need to press around the filling to push the air out before sealing the ravioli.
Once you have a long strip of the two sheets of pasta with filling in the middle, trim the edges and cut into individual ravioli.
Cook in salty boiling water for 4-6 minutes depending on how you like your pasta, drain and serve.


I got seven large ravioli from this amount which was enough for both of us with some bread.  My ravioli were never going to be delicate but they were definitely tasty. Almost tasty enough to stop me wanting panacotta.  Almost.