Cranberry and citrus cookies and an 80th birthday cake.

Recently at my weekly yoga class we held an informal 80th birthday party for a lady who attend regularly and is a great advert for the benefits of yoga, amazingly enough she had just returned from a month long tour of New Zealand too, so I for one will be carrying out practising yoga as long as I can.

As part of the birthday celebration my contribution was a lemon meringue birthday, which I was pretty proud of (the base recipe being a Fiona Cairns recipe from The Birthday Cake Book), as our yoga class is a quaint country church hall I couldn't adore the cake with candles through fear of setting off the fire alarm, so I resorted to raiding the garden for suitable edible greenery and flowers. I plumped for the fragrant yellow day lily and freshly picked lemon balm leaves.

As the birthday cake was topped with blousey meringues I had a couple of egg yolks left over so I came up with this recipe which is takes it inspiration from several sources, a Gino D'Acampo recipe for sultana cookies from Italian Baking and a lemon drizzle biscuit from Biscuit by Miranda Gore Brown.

What you need

• 85g butter - softened (needs to be very soft)
• 115g caster sugar
• 2 egg yolks - left over from the meringue making
• Couple of drops of Fiori di Silica essence (from Bakery Bits)
• 175g plain flour - I used gluten free
• 50g fine cornmeal
• 85g dried cranberries - drained after being soaked in warm water for 20 minutes or so

What you do

• Pre heat the oven to 180c
• Mix all the ingredients except the cranberries in a mixer , until you have a course dough
• Add the cranberries to the mix and just incorporate until the mix comes together
• Take walnut sized lumps of dough and roll into balls, place on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and flatten slightly
• The mixture makes approximately 18 - 20 cookies
• Bake for 15 -20 minutes until golden 
• Cool on tray for a few minutes before carefully removing o a wire rack to cool fully
• Store in an airtight tin

We are linking up this month to Simply Eggcellent , the theme this month being anything goes created and hosted by Dom over at Belleau Kitchen. As this is recipe that uses egg yolks after making meringues.

                                              

We are linking up to Treat Petite this month - the theme being Lets Get Fruity ! created and hosted by Cakeyboi , as the resultant cookie is very fresh and fruity.

                                  

                                 

And also to Bake of the Week over at Casa Costello , which is a challenge for all things baking....

                                                

Peanut butter, oaty raisin cookies

Who doesn't love a cookie ?

These cookies are based on a recipe in River Cottage "Light and Easy", with a few tweaks as I didn't have all the required ingredients as recommended. The resultant cookies are soft and tender and not overtly nutty or sweet, great for an afternoon treat and easily whipped up in a flash.

Ideal for snacking on whilst having a brew and a quick browse of a magazine, low in sugar and gluten free, whats not to like.

What you need

• 200g smooth peanut butter
• 50g Honey
• 1 egg - free range please
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 70g raisins
• 100g porridge oats 

Makes approx 12 cookies

What you do

• Pre heat the oven to 170c, prepare your tray either line with baking parchment or use a silicone sheet if you have one
• Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl until you have a firm stiff chunk dough
• Roll dessert spoon sized balls with slightly moist hands, place on baking tray and press down to make a cookie shaped round
• Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until golden , cool initially on the tray and then gingerly transfer to a wire rack to cool fully
• Store in an airtight tin

Caramel Buckwheat choc chip cookies - gluten free

My adventure in buckwheat continue and I have discovered a recipe that Mr LF likes ! see told you I would. It also features one of my favourite purchases from the recent Cake and Bake Show in Manchester. On the wonderful Bakery Bits stand, I disovered this fantastic range of Italian essences, there was a show offer on so I purchased 3 bottles, Caramel, Fiori di Sicila and Aroma Panettone. All smell amazing and contain only natural ingredients, so I am really pleased with my purchases, they are great in many different bakes.

                              

Buckwheat is a naturally gluten free flour and is married beautifully with the caramel essence in this bake to provide a caramelly slightly sea salty adult cookie studded with chunks of dark chocolate. A batch is so easy to whip up when that nothing but a cookie will do feeling strikes, my other tip for a succesful bake is to use a good quality silicone sheet to bake on, so you have no worries about cookies sticking to trays or paper.

The recipe is based on one I discovered on Glutenfreecooking but with a couple of tweaks the main one being the caramel essence, I used a 1tsp in the mix, I have also made a batch with the Aroma Panettone essence and that was fab too.

What you need

• 1 generous cup of buckwheat flour (Co-incidentally Bakery Bits sell buckwheat flour too )
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter (or you could use coconut oil) - need to be soft
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 egg large - free range
• 1 pack of dark chocolate chips (100g pack)
• 1 tsp caramel essence

What you do

• Preheat your oven to 180c (fan)
• Place your baking silicone sheet on baking tray (s)
• Mix the sugar and egg in the mixer until light and fluffy
• Now add the soft butter and the rest of the ingredients, mix until just mixed
• Add the chocolate chips last
• Spoon generous teaspoons of the mixture onto the trays and remember they will spread whilst baking
• Bake for 10 minutes or so until colouring nicely and only slightly soft to the touch
• Allow to cool on the tray
• Once cool, store in an airtight tin ( they won't last long !)

I have just spotted for this month's Biscuit Barrel Challenge that the theme is favourites so I am going to enter this delicious cookie as its currently my favourite.

                                               

The challenge is hosted by I'd much rather bake  , so pop across and see the other great enteries.

Queen of Hearts Cookie Company

"The Queen of Hearts baked some tarts cookies all on a summers day" and guess what they were all for me ! 

Queen of Hearts Cookie Company is a true Lancashire, based in the heart of the delightfully scenic Ribble valley. Queen of Hearts focus is on baking and creating exquisite cookies for all special ocasions, their cookies are made and decorated with love, care and attention and oodles of creativity too. Only quality local ingredients are used to create these gorgeous looking biscuits.

My sample arrived well packaged in cute sparkly box all tied up with a cerise ribbon and a vintage style label. On opening the package a sealing label invited me to indulge with the  "eat me" on the label, so I opened the tempting parcel, the delightful scent of freshly baked vanilla cookies tempting me further.

Sorry but the vintage plate is not included !

In the tissue paper parcel were beautiful little vintage style decorated cookies, hearts, butterflies, chicks, bunnies and flowers, all sumptuously decorated with pastel lustre icing and detailed with lacy designs, flowers, vintage patterns and swirls and dots, utterly utterly gorgeous. I felt very guilty sampling them but sample them I must.

Each petite biscuit is a crunchy buttery vanilla mouthful, the cookie and icing combination not too overtly sweet. These cookies have been made with love and its shows, my mind ran with ideas of how these cookies could be used

• wedding favours, themed to the brides dress or colours
• Christenings
• Births or Baby showers , cute little bunnies or chicks - pink or blue 
• Easter / christmas
• Valentines - wouldn't they be stunning for a proposal ?
• Significant birthdays
• Children events
• Corporate events
• Many many more 

I understand that commisions are welcomed and the biscuits can be made in a variety of flavours and types, such as Spice, Rose, Chocolate and even gluten free and organic.

Queen of Hearts has a website and a facebook page were you can contact them and place your order.

Clitheroe already features a mad hatter themed teashop and now has a cookie company which is fit for a queen too.

I was approached to undertake a review of Queen of Hearts Cookie Company  as a local food blogger and provided with a sample free of charge.

Have Your Cake and Eat it too ! Sally Bee's new book !

As regular readers of my blog will know I really admire the work and personal courage of Sally Bee. I have been really lucky to be given the opportunity to review her latest book "Have your cake and eat it too !", her ethos being that life is too short to miss out on cake and puddings just because you are trying to eat healthy. Along side her common sense advice of positive thinking and living an active life, she has re worked all your favourite cake and dessert  recipes to be more heart healthy.

The book is presented with a sensible wipe clean cover for the busy cook and is well illustrated, the recipes are laid out in different sections to cover all the options for a sweet treat, Large cakes, small cakes, cookies, puddings, ices, etc. Each recipe is easy to follow and the instruction are comprehensive and feature healthy ingredients which should be easily sourced at your local supermarket, recipes are also provided for healthy toppings and frostings for your delicious creations.

This book makes a great addition to any cooks bookshelf, whether a beginner or a more experienced baker, and is available from Amazon or your local book shop. I can  so recommend the Blueberry Muffins !! 

Cox Cookies and Cake - Adults Only cupcake book

What do you get when "Cake Boy" Eric Lanlard & fashion designer Patrick Cox work together ? a very funky uber hip twist on the cupcake. Cox Cookies and Cakes is a baking recipe book with a difference. the complete opposite of the saccharine sweet twee recipe books that feature gingham, butterflies and small furry animals. 

The black glossy book has shocking pink page edges and is distinctly aimed at the more adult market, showing how cupcakes and cookies can still be hip and cool. Kylie and Liz Hurley can't be wrong can they ! Heh the foreword is even by Sir Elton John no less. 

Eric as a master patisserie insists that his cakes taste amazing as well as looking amazing, something that other cupcake books seem to forget. Most of the recipes in the book are illustrated, but some of the pages are black so it could be difficult to read the finer points in a dimly lit kitchen, the recipes range from Red Velvet cupcakes to Black Skull cakes and look to be detailed. 

Content wise there are some more unusual bakes which may intimidate the more inexperienced baker and some of the decoration may be a bit edgy, thongs for example, for those used to the butterflies and flowers style, but the recipes I tried came out well.

I experimented with the Espresso brownies, which in the book features crystallised ginger not something I normally have in my store cupboard store I skipped the  ginger from the recipe. The brownies were moist with a mocha choc flavour and in celebration of the style of the book I used a gold glitter spray to decorate them. 

I was lucky to be given the opportunity to review this book by Octopus Publishing, the book is available to purchase on Amazon.

Agave nectar baking - cookies

I have an interest in more unusual ingredients (you may have noticed) and also slightly more healthy recipes ( I know how can cake be healthy !), so I thought I would give Agave nectar a go. This a natural sweetner extract from the mexican wild agave cactus. You need to adapt your standard recipes but there are plenty on the internet for you to try.

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup spelt, whole wheat flour
• 1 cup ground almonds
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ cup raisins
• ¼ cup dried cranberries
• ½ cup agave nectar
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• ½ tsp. vanilla paste

Method

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, preheat oven to 180c, place small balls on dough on a oiled baking sheet, press down well, bake for approx 10-15 minutes, cool slightly and then transfer to a wire cooling rack until fully cool.