Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies

Christmas to me is all about coming home to a warm house with the smell of freshly baked goodies. To say that my mum and I go a little mental baking-wise over the festive season is an understatement. Sadly, this is the first Christmas that I’ve been too busy to bake everything that I want! Cookies are one of the easiest things to make though, so if you’re stretched for time like me, bung these in the oven and bask in the Christmassy smell.

This is a Nigella recipe from her book Nigella Christmas. I know she’s been getting a lot of bad press at the moment but I really don’t give a damn, she’s still a domestic goddess to me. I did omit the pecans however, because no one really likes nuts in their cookies, do they?!

Ingredients

150g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

75g rolled oats

125g soft butter

75g dark brown sugar

100g caster sugar

1 egg

1tsp vanilla extract

75g dried cranberries

50g pecans, roughly chopped (optional…)

150g white chocolate chips or chunks

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C and line 2 or 3 baking sheets with parchment.

Measure the flour, baking powder, salt and rolled oats into a large mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

Beat in the egg and vanilla extract.

Fold in the flour mixture.

Stir in the cranberries and white chocolate. The original recipe says to use chocolate chips but personally I prefer roughly chopped chunks in my cookies.

Spoon walnuts sized balls onto the prepared baking trays, leaving plenty of room for spreading, and lightly squish the tops with a fork.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Leave them to harden on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Serve on a ridiculous Christmas plate which you only get to use once a year.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

I’ve not had that much time to bake recently, busy working and being an adult and all that lark, but it’s Christmas soon so I will be baking some festive things if it kills me! I made this cake for another Clandestine Cake Club meeting last weekend. The theme was ‘winter spice’ but being awkward I hate all things like fruit cake so I thought I’d make something chocolatey. I tried it first as a traybake, and then as a round cake and it works well as either. This cake is really tasty and feels quite Christmassy too.

Ingredients

180g butter

½ tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp nutmeg

150g brown sugar

150g black treacle

150g golden syrup

1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

250ml milk

2 eggs

280g plain flour

30g cocoa powder

150g milk chocolate, chopped

To Decorate

80g butter

4 tbsp cocoa powder

3 tsp fresh ginger juice or syrup

25ml lemon juice

180g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180⁰ and line your tin of choice. Just keep in mind if it’s a deeper tin then the cake will take longer to cook.

Melt the butter in a saucepan.

Add the spices, sugar, treacle and golden syrup and heat until the sugar dissolves.

Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in a tbsp of the milk.

Lightly beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl.

Whisk in the butter mixture.

Add the bicarbonate of soda and the rest of the milk.

Sift in the cocoa powder and flour and gently fold in.

Stir through the roughly chopped chocolate.

Pour into your prepared tin and bake for 45mins-an hour or until the cake is springy to the touch and completely cooked through. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, gently heat the butter in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.

Add the cocoa powder, ginger and lemon juice.

Sift in the icing sugar and whisk until dissolved and the icing is thick.

Ice the cake and leave it a good ten minutes to set. For my round cake I made the icing without adding the ginger and lemon, and instead added that to a simple white icing to decorate. It’s delicious either way!

Pumpkin Scones

These are something that I made a couple of weeks ago but I’ve been ridiculously busy so I’m only just getting around to posting this. There are still pumpkins in the shops though so I would definitely give this a try because they are sooo tasty. To make the pumpkin puree cut the pumpkin in half, scrape out the seeds and bake in the oven until soft. There’s something about spiced things that just make you feel happy in this cold, dark weather.

Ingredients

70g soft brown sugar

115g butter

1 egg

115g pumpkin puree

260g self-raising flour

1tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Pinch salt

1tsp ground cinnamon

1tsp nutmeg

1tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp clove

Icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 200⁰C and line two baking trays with parchment.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

Stir in the egg and pumpkin.

Sift the flour, raising agents and spices and mix until combined.

At the point my mixture was ridiculously wet and very un-scone like so I added some more flour. Most of the recipes that I’d read said that you should turn out the mixture, roll, cut the scones etc, but this one is way too wet. What I did was use a large spoon to dollop rough blobs onto the prepared trays. It should make around eight large scones so divide the mixture equally this way, and smooth the surface slightly so that spikey edges don’t burn.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

When they are completely cool mix together some icing sugar with a very small amount of water to make a simple icing. Drizzle liberally all over the scone.

I have to say that these are fabulous warm, with or without some butter. If you’re feeling pumpkin nuts, then have one with a pumpkin spiced latte.