Banana & Peanut Butter Bread

May 17, 2013 7 Comments

Sunday is World Baking Day, so I thought what could be more appropriate for the first recipe after my hiatus than a baking one.  One of my favourite Sunday night suppers when I was little was bananas mashed up on toast:  super fresh bloomer that was bread lightly toasted, spread with salted butter and topped with bananas mashed up with a drizzle of honey.  It was so yummy.  I can actually taste it now!  In the Domestic Residence, we’re quite partial to peanut butter, so I thought I’d try and create something that was reminiscent of my Sunday night suppers combined with peanut butter.  The result is my Banana and Peanut Butter Bread, which I’m looking forward to having a slice of on Sunday evening with lashings of salty butter!

Banan & peanut butter bread

Makes a 2lb loaf tin (23 x 13 x 7cm (9″ x 5″ x 2¾”) )

Ingredients

  • 175 grams plain flour
  • 2½ tsp baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 125 grams unsalted butter, softened
  • 180g soft light brown sugar
  • 175g crunchy peanut butter
  • 2 large eggs (approximately 100g)
  • 5 small ripe bananas, roughly mashed (approximately 400 – 500g flesh)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 170C/340F/gas mark 3.
  2. Grease and line a 2lb / 23 x 13 x 7cm / 9″ x 5″ x 2¾” loaf tin.
  3. Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into a medium-sized bowl.  Put to one side.
  4. In a large, separate bowl, cream together the sugar and softened butter – I use my KitchenAid for this.  Then slowly beat in the eggs one at a time.
  5. Now mix in the mashed bananas and crunchy peanut butter.
  6. Add the flour mixture a tablespoon at a time, giving it a good stir each time to make sure it’s all incorporated.
  7. Scrape into a loaf tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 55 to 70 minutes.
  8. When a skewer or tooth pick comes out fairly clean, your loaf is ready.
  9. Pop the tin on a cooling rack and leave in the tin until completely cold.
  10. Serve either plain or spread with cold salted butter.

Domestic Princess tips:

  1. For a more indulgent loaf, add 200g Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups, or 200g roughly chopped milk chocolate at stage 5.
  2. Whilst banana bread is brilliant for using up over-ripe bananas, they don’t need to be at the completely black stage.  I’ve made a loaf with just yellow bananas, and the end result is exactly the same.  What you don’t want to use, are green bananas.  The benefit of over-ripe bananas is the mashing is super easy!
  3. Smooth peanut butter can easily be substituted for the crunchy one.
  4. To make this a dairy-free cake, substitute the softened butter for vegetable oil.
  5. If you fancy making this a bit more showy, then you could add a frosting:  mix equal quantities of softened butter with icing sugar, half the amount of crunchy peanut butter and beat together.  Add a drop of milk if the frosting needs loosening.
  6. Bangaloreans, since our bananas are on the tiny size, you’ll need more like 7 small bananas.
  7. If you notice the bread browning too fast, lower the temperature and loosely cover it with foil.
  8. Also, be careful not to over-stir the batter, as the texture will become crumbly and your loaf will just fall apart.

All you need now is a cup of tea and peace and quiet for 30 minutes!

Hope everybody has a lovely weekend.  We’re off to watch the IPL tomorrow night.  Come on Bangalore!

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

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Salted Caramel & Nutella Fudge Squares

November 6, 2012 1 Comment

Well, I am pleased to say that normal service has been resumed and I’m back with a truly decadent sweet treat, involving chocolate of course!  And not just chocolate, but chocolate and Nutella!  I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise that I ADORE Nutella.  I love it on toast, on crusty french bread, in pancakes, straight from the jar off the spoon!  I just really enjoy it!  I used to love when we used to go on holiday to France or Italy, as there would be the small little packets in bowls at breakfast, and I would sneak a couple to eat later on the beach!  I wasn’t alone in doing this was I?!

I feel quite guilty that I haven’t shared this divine recipe before now, so for that, I apologise. Now, you might be wondering where my photo of this glorious recipe is?  Well, if you scroll down you’ll see it…..not pretty huh?  So, it’s time to fess up….this was my second (!) attempt at making this for the purpose of taking a picture for the blog.  You see, the first time, I took my eye off the (soft) ball and ended up with a salted caramel layer that would crack the hardest of teeth (still delicious, but definitely a workout for the jaws!).  So, on my second attempt, I was soooo worried about making it too hard again, that I didn’t boil the caramel for long enough, so as you can see from the picture, it’s on the soft side.  I can assure you though, that it’s still delicious.

Makes around 25 small squares 

Ingredients

  • 200g Digestive biscuits or Graham Crackers
  • 70g unsalted butter
  • 60g golden syrup or corn syrup
  • 250g caster (superfine) sugar
  • 2tbsp water
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • 150ml double (heavy) cream
  • 1 1/4tsp of sea salt
  • 40g 70% cocoa dark chocolate, chopped
  • 175g milk chocolate, chopped
  • 200g Nutella

Method

  1. Crush the biscuits, either by bashing them in a zip lock with a rolling pin (very therapeutic if you have pent up anger/frustration!), or as I do, whizz them in the food processor.
  2. In a small saucepan melt the butter and 30g of the syrup.
  3. Mix the butter and syrup mixture with the biscuits until it resembles damp sand.
  4. Pat the biscuit mixture firmly into a tin (I use a 20cm/8 inch one) and put in the fridge to firm up.
  5. Put the cream and salt in a saucepan and bring to just below boiling point.  Set aside.
  6. In a heavy-based saucepan, put the sugar and water and give a good stir.  Turn on the hob to a medium heat and let the sugar dissolve in the water and start to boil.
  7. Once the sugar has dissolved, pour in the rest of the syrup and if using a sugar thermometer let the temperature rise to around 238/240F.  If you’re not using a sugar thermometer, then put a bowl of very cold water next to the stove and after around 18 minutes, drop a small amount of the caramel mixture in.  Put your hand in and try to form a ball with it. If you can bring it out and it stays whole, then it’s ready.  If not, carry on boiling until it reaches a ball stage.  N.B.  Please be VERY careful making the caramel.  Sugar burns are horrible. 
  8. Once the sugar mixture has reached the correct temperature, take off the heat and whisk in the salted cream and vanilla.  Be careful, adding these in will cause the sugar mixture to bubble up.
  9. Once the caramel is ready, take the biscuit base out of the fridge, pour the caramel over in an even layer and pop back in the fridge for 2 hours to set.
  10. Once the caramel has set, it’s time to make the chocolate layer!  In a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water, put the dark and milk chocolate and leave to melt.
  11. After the chocolate has melted, take off the heat and stir in the Nutella until it’s all combined.
  12. Pour over the caramel layer and put in the fridge until set.
  13. Cut into small squares and enjoy.

Domestic Princess tips

  1. If you’re not a fan of salted caramel (why not?!), then just omit the salt from the cream.  If omitting the salt, there’s no need to heat the cream.
  2. As in the Homemade Twix recipe, if you don’t fancy making the caramel layer yourself, then melt 250g of shop-bought caramels/toffees with 1tbsp of cream, 1 1/4tsp of salt and carry on as per step 9.
  3. If you want a more bitter topping, use 100g of dark chocolate and 115g of milk.
  4. And if you’re not keen on Nutella (again, really?!), then add 200g extra of milk and dark chocolate. I’d probably do 120g milk and 80g dark, but this can be altered according to your tastes.
  5. To give the squares some more crunch, stir in 200g roasted and chopped hazelnuts into the caramel before pouring onto the biscuit layer.

salty caramel & nutella fudge squares

I love sweet and salty flavours, so the saltiness of the caramel against the sweetness of the chocolate, and crunch of the biscuit base, is my idea of heaven!

With much gooey, salty caramel and Nutella love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

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Carrot cake with an orange cream cheese frosting

October 19, 2012 7 Comments

Wow!  How did Friday come around so quickly?  It seems like only yesterday I was waxing lyrical about the homemade Twixes (has anybody tried to make them yet?), but here I am a week later sharing another recipe with you.  As the saying goes, “time flies when you’re having fun.”  Anyway, today’s recipe should be a savoury one, working on my unofficial schedule of sweet one week / savoury the next.  However, as I said in yesterday’s post, this week is National Baking Week in the UK and I felt it would have been criminal to blog a savoury recipe, so am going with another sweet one.  For all you savoury fans, don’t fret, it’ll be back next week.  Now, these pages could easily become awash with chocolate recipes – you all know how much I love chocolate, and whilst that would please me no end, I fear I would quickly lose a lot of readers.  So with this in mind, today’s recipe is for my scrumptious (well The Domestic Prince tells me it is!) carrot cake with an orange cream cheese frosting. Some of you may be looking at the picture saying: “hhhmmm, that doesn’t look like cream cheese frosting to me!”  Well, you’d be right in thinking that, but I promise the ingredients I used, are the ones listed below, it’s just the cream cheese was frozen and then defrosted (Bangalore has a shortage of cream cheese some days, so I keep a stock in the freezer). And whilst cooking with previously frozen cream cheese is perfectly fine, uummmm making cream cheese frosting with it clearly isn’t.  Hence the more of a glazed frosting look, rather than a nicely fluffy cream cheese one.  Despite how it looks, the taste is exactly the same.  I hope you can all forgive me?

Makes a 2lb loaf

Ingredients

For the carrot cake

  • 200ml unflavoured oil (something like vegetable or sunflower)
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 125g light soft brown or light muscovado sugar
  • 75g golden syrup
  • 200g plain flour
  • 1tsp baking powder
  • 1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2tsp mixed spice
  • 1/2tsp salt
  • 200g carrot, grated

For the orange cream cheese frosting

  • 150g icing (powdered) sugar
  • 25g unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 65g full-fat cream cheese, cold
  • 2tbsp orange marmalade (I like one with the peel in, as it gives it more of a tang against the sweetness of the icing sugar)

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 160C (fan).
  2. Line a 2lb loaf tin.  I use these loaf liners, as life is too short to be faffing about lining a loaf tin!
  3. In a free-standing mixer (or a bowl and hand whisk), whisk the oil, eggs, sugar and golden syrup until they are all combined.
  4. Slowly sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, cinnamon, mixed spice and salt into the wet ingredients.
  5. Stir in the grated carrots and pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin.
  6. Place on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean.
  7. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for around 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
  8. In your food processor, put the icing sugar, unsalted butter, cream cheese and orange marmalade and whizz until all the ingredients have come together.  If you don’t have a food processor, beat the cream cheese and butter together and add the icing sugar a spoonful at a time (this will help limit the icing sugar going everywhere).  Once all the icing sugar has been incorporated, beat in the marmalade.
  9. Smooth the frosting on top of the loaf cake and serve!

Domestic Princess tips:

  1. Don’t use frozen and thawed cream cheese for your frosting!
  2. Don’t overbeat the cream cheese, as this can make it runny.
  3. If not using a food processor to make the frosting, I’d suggest buying a peel-free marmalade, unless you fancy chopping up the peel before adding it in!
  4. Feel free to swap the plain flour for wholemeal flour, as that works well too.
  5. If you don’t want an orange frosting, just omit the marmalade.
  6. This cake freezes really well. Wrap tightly in foil before freezing.
  7. Bangaloreans, loaf tin liners can be purchased from Lifestyle on Richmond Road.

So, there you have it – a cake recipe from me that didn’t involve chocolate!  Carrot cake counts as one of our five a day, right?!  So it must be positively good for us…

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

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Homemade Jaffa Cakes

August 25, 2012 4 Comments

I love Jaffa Cakes.  They remind me of childhood trips to see my Granny and Grandpa, where there was always a packet or two of these little gems to be found in the larder, as they were Grandpa Jack’s favourite biscuits (although technically they’re classified as cakes!).  Living in India we don’t get to have them very often – probably a good thing for our waistlines!  However, the other day the Domestic Prince said he really fancied a Jaffa Cake and since we didn’t have any in our stash of goodies, I set about trying to make them.  I came across a recipe for them by Simon Rimmer and as the Domestic Prince will tell you, I can’t just follow a recipe, I need to tweak it to make it mine.  So this recipe is a tweak of Simon’s.

Makes 12

Ingredients

For the sponge base

  • 40g of caster sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 50g of plain flour

For the jelly layer

  • 1 pint of orange jelly mix (I used the Cloudy Orange one from Marks & Spencer)
  • 2tbsp of orange marmalade (Tiptree is my favourite)

For the topping

  • 175g of 70% dark chocolate

Method

  1. Make-up the jelly according to the instructions, adding in the 2tbps of marmalade and pour into a greased baking tray to form around a 1cm layer.  Pop in the fridge to set.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to 170C.
  3. Lightly grease a 12 tin muffin tin.
  4. Put the eggs and sugar into a glass bowl and whisk until they’re combined.  Put some water into a saucepan and bring to the boil.  Suspend the glass bowl over the boiling water, ensuring that it’s not touching the water.  Whisk the eggs and sugar over the boiling water for around 5 to 6 minutes, until they form a thick, moussey-like consistency.
  5. Sift the flour into the egg and sugar mixture.
  6. Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 muffin wells and put in the oven for 8 to 9 minutes, or until they are pale and golden on top.
  7. Leave to cool completely.
  8. Once the jelly is set, cut 12 small discs out and place on top of the cooled sponges.
  9. Chop the chocolate up into small pieces and melt in a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water, making sure that the bowl doesn’t touch the boiling water.
  10. Pour the melted chocolate over the jelly and sponge and leave to set.

Domestic Princess tips

  1. If you don’t have access to packet jelly, you can make your own using orange juice and gelatine.  One gelatine leaf is required for approximately 100ml of liquid.
  2. If you want to make these more child-friendly, leave out the marmalade and use either a combination of milk and dark chocolate, or just milk chocolate.

 

They are truly divine and dare I say it, maybe a bit nicer, more luxurious than the shop bought ones!

Normal blogging service will resume on Monday.

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

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Kitchen Gadgets – Part 3

May 30, 2012 6 Comments

I think it’s pretty obvious that I love spending time in the kitchen, but baking has to be my favourite activity.  Yes, I enjoy cooking say a pie or rustling up a quick supper, but creating sweet goodies fills me with joy!  Living in India is great in many ways, however, there are days that can be very challenging!  On days like those, I find baking something can soothe and restore my happy mojo!  So, today in part three of my kitchen gadgets series, I’m sharing with you what I use for baking.

High on my list is either my KitchenAid or Magimix, which featured in part two of the kitchen gadgets series.  Then there are mixing bowls, spoons, whisks and spatulas that I shared in the first post.  And because baking is more a science than an art, I wouldn’t dream of making a cake without my trusty digital weighing scales and measuring spoons!

Today is all about the other paraphernalia I use when baking.  My collection of bakeware has been built-up over the years.  Where I purchased cheap tins that were thin, they’ve warped and have had to be replaced, since they weren’t conducting the heat evenly.  As I’ve been replacing my old tins with new, I’ve opted for mainly silicone ones for these reasons:

  1. They don’t need to be lined.  Just a smidge of butter wiped around does the trick.
  2. The material is flexible making them easier to store.
  3. They don’t break or bend when you drop them (always a good feature when in my hands!)
  4. They can pop in the dishwasher.
  5. They don’t rust.  Quite a few of my traditional tins have rusted.
  6. It’s easier to remove the cake or traybake from the “tin”.
  7. They are available in a much wider choice of shapes and sizes.

Most stores now sell silicone bakeware.  I think the majority of mine have come from John Lewis.

My collection of bakeware, is by no means the “must-have” list.  As I’ve said, I’ve built my collection up over many years, and as new recipes required different shapes or sizes, I have added to my collection.  If just starting out baking, I would suggest numbers 1 through to 5, are probably all you’ll need.

  1. Two 7” x 1½”  (18cm) or 8” x 1½” (20cm) round tins (or silicone).  This will allow you to make a huge variety of cakes.  The amount of mixture necessary for each size will be stated in the recipe.
  2. An 8″ x 8″ x 2″ (20cm x 20cm x 5cm) traybake tin, as I mentioned in the Chocolate Brownie post a few weeks ago.  It can be used for lots of different types of traybakes.  I have a recipe for a delicious one, which will be up on The Domestic Princess very soon!
  3. A 2lb (900g) loaf tin.  I tend to use this for loaf cakes, as opposed to bread, as I have the bread maker.
  4. A 12-hole bun tin for baking mini muffins, cupcakes or fairy cakes.  I love my silicone one.
  5. Two to three baking sheets or trays for making delicious cookies or biscuits.  I find the 14” (35cm) ones are perfect.  They need to be heavy, flat and rigid.  Oh, and make sure they fit in your oven!
  6. Deep round loose-bottomed 6” (15cm) cake tin.  I use this for making a small Christmas cake.
  7. Square loose-bottomed 7” (18cm) cake tin.  If I’m making a larger Christmas cake – this is my favourite tin to use.
  8. Spring-form 9″ (23cm) round cake tin.  This is great for making cheesecakes, as the metal release clip makes it super easy to remove the contents, with minimal risk of damaging it on the way out.
  9. Silicone baking sheet.  I use this when making biscuits or to roll out my pastry on.  I even use it for chocolate and sugar work and any burnt bits are easily removed.
  10. Silicone 6-hole muffin tin.  I don’t actually use these for making muffins, but for making giant, puffy Yorkshire puddings.  Maybe I’ll try muffins in them one day.
  11. Various shaped silicone cup cases:  rounds, rectangles and hearts etc.  My mood on the day determines which one I use!
  12. Selection of cookie cutters, including numbers, letters, hearts, 6 circular ones ranging from 2” to 4” that have a fluted side and a smooth one (I used the smallest one to make the Jam & Custard Cream Buttons), animals, gingerbread men, characters from fairy tales and Christmas themed ones.  I’m trying to replace my metal ones with plastic ones, as the metal ones are starting to rust.  Nowadays there is every imaginable shape available.
  13. 3½” x 1½” round cooking rings, which I use to make homemade crumpets, but they can also be used to make potato rosti, creating a perfect circle for presentation, or the larger size can be used to create a tower for a real wow factor!
  14. The last one in my cupboard for bakeware are my mini pudding moulds, which I use to make delicious (even if I say so myself!) hot chocolate fondants.  I have the 3” x 2” ones, which are the perfect size for individual puds!
  1. Thermometer.  I’ve recently been trying to make toffee, fudge and sweets – largely inspired by my Heston Blumenthal at Home book.  A thermometer is by no means a necessity, nor a showstopper if you want to make home-made candy.   However, I didn’t trust myself to use the “soft-ball” method, so decided to invest in a good thermometer and I’m super pleased I did!  Next on my list to try are marshmallows.
  2. It’s only recently that I’ve had a proper cake tester – previously using anything long and spiky available (normally the cheese fondue dipper or a chop stick!).  However, my gorgeous godson, Maxi, gave me this for Christmas, so now I have a proper utensil for quickly checking if my cakes are fully cooked.
  3. Rolling pin.  My version of this is probably controversial amongst the bakers out there, who advocate a wooden one without handles is best.  Why controversial?  Well, I have a stainless steel one, where you can add water to “the belly” of the rolling pin, which reduces the surface temperature, and helps to eliminate sticking.  A must-have tool for any baker living in a hot country!
  4. Baking beans (for blind baking).  Now, I can spend money like the best of them, but spending between £5 to £10 for a set of these when some dried chickpeas for 95p do the job just as well, just didn’t stack up!
  5. Sieves.  I’ve now built my collection up to around 3 of various different sizes, for different tasks.  However, I still have “sieve envy” when I’m around the lovely Alice’s house, as her collection must extend to at least 10, which all sit neatly inside each other!  In addition to sifting flour, I also use them to make super smooth soup and for removing seeds from a raspberry puree.  I’ve recently upgraded my sieves to strong stainless steel ones, to replace the misshapen wire ones.
  6. Cooling rack.  For sometime I used the rack from our grill pan, until one day I needed to use the grill whilst my cake was still cooling, so decided to finally buy one!  This is essential for all bakers if you want to avoid soggy cakes or cookies from the steam trapped under them when left to cool on a flat surface.
  1. Piping bag.  Before going on my cupcake-decorating afternoon that was part of my fantastic hen party, I used to use a traditional nylon-piping bag for icing.  However, after a few fabulous hours of trying to master icing cupcakes, my eyes were opened to the joy and ease of disposable icing bags.  They’re strong and can be cut to fit any size nozzle.  Plus, I no longer have icing all over my hands from the leaking seams on my old nylon one.  There’s no going back for me now!
  2. Icing nozzles.  I’ve got a collection of icing nozzles, but I think my favourite ones are the star and rose tips.  On my next trip abck to the UK, I’ll be looking to buy plastic ones, as the metal ones are starting to rust.
  3. Palette knife.  This is brilliant when icing cakes and needing to spread and smooth the icing over and around the cake.  Make sure it’s very pliable to get the most out of it.
  4. Decorating pen.  This is a new gadget in my kitchen, and is yet to be used.  But, I can see it becoming a firm favourite!
  5. Cupcake corer.  This is a great nifty gadget for creating a little surprise in cupcakes.  You simply press the corer into the cupcake, twist and remove the centre, and then fill the hole with either a different flavoured icing, or a surprise of some sort!  Maltesers are always very popular!

So, has this list got you wanting to bake-up a storm?  Do you love baking?  And what’s your favourite baking recipe?

With much love

The Domestic Princess

xoxo

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Jam & Custard Cream Buttons

May 18, 2012 10 Comments

Today’s post was meant to be a savoury recipe, but since discovering that Sunday 20th May is World Baking Day, I felt I should put up a recipe more suitable to celebrate it!

I don’t know anybody who doesn’t enjoy dunking a biscuit into a cup of tea and my favourite for this is Marks and Spencer’s Jam Sandwich Creams, which my lovely friend Catherine introduced to me about 2 years ago.  Living in India with no access to a fabulous M&S Foodhall, prompted me to try to recreate these delicious biscuits.  Although not exactly the same, I think they come very near!

Makes around 18 to 20 buttons

Ingredients

Biscuits

  • 200g of plain flour
  • 4tbsp of custard powder (I prefer Bird’s)
  • ½tsp of baking powder
  • 2tbsp of icing sugar (powdered sugar)
  • 2tbsp of caster sugar
  • 125g of unsalted butter
  • 1¼tsp of vanilla extract or ¾tsp of vanilla bean paste
  • Raspberry or strawberry jam (quantity will depend upon how jammy you want the buttons to be!)

Filling

  • 3tbsp of custard powder
  • 100g of icing sugar (powdered sugar)
  • 50g unsalted butter
  • 1tsp vanilla extract

Method

  1. Put the flour, custard powder, baking powder, icing sugar and caster sugar into a food processor and give it a quick blast to blend the ingredients and get rid of any lumps and clumps.   If you don’t have a food processor, sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl.
  2. Add in the butter and vanilla extract and pulse until it forms a dough.  Again, if you don’t have a food processor, you can either use a hand whisk, or a bit of good old fashion elbow grease to combine the butter and vanilla extract with the dry ingredients.
  3. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and put in the freezer for 10 minutes.
  4. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
  5. Flour the work surface, remove the dough and roll it out to around 3mm to 5mm thick.
  6. Using a 5cm / 2 inch round cutter, cut out rounds and place them on a lined baking tray.
  7. Using a fork or a corn-on-the cob skewer, prick the top of the rounds to make them look like buttons.
  8. Place the baking tray in the fridge for 5 minutes.
  9. Pop them in the oven and bake for between 11 and 14 minutes.  They should be a pale golden hue.
  10. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.
  11. To make the filling, sieve the icing sugar and custard into a bowl (or put it in your food processor and give it a blast) and then beat in the butter and vanilla extract using either a hand whisk or a standmixer, until it is light and fluffy.
  12. To assemble the buttons, take two cooled biscuits and spread one half with the custard filling and the other half with jam, then sandwich together.

  Domestic Princess Tips:

  1. Halfway through baking turn the tray around to ensure that the biscuits are baked evenly.
  2. Make sure the butter is at room temperature.
  3. Be as quick as you can rolling out the dough, because the warmer the dough becomes, the harder it is to work with.
  4. If you’re only using one baking tray, pop any unused dough back into the freezer so it doesn’t get too warm, removing it to make the next batch as required.
  5. I prefer to use seedless jam when making these to give the recipe greater authenticity.
  6. If you fancy a chocolatey biscuit, replace the custard powder in both the biscuit and filling ingredients with cocoa powder.
  7. For a bit of variety, and especially if baking with little ones, you could use different types of cutters for cutting out the biscuits.

I hope you’ll enjoy these as much as we do – they received a rapturous reception from our godchildren after supper yesterday evening!  Are jam sandwich creams your favourite biscuits?  If not, I would love to hear which ones are!

With much love

The Domestic Princess

xoxo

 

 

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Soft Chewy Gingerbread Cookies

May 11, 2012 7 Comments

I love a soft, chewy, milk choc chip cookie and also the taste of a gingerbread man, but not so much the crunchiness of it.  So I’ve been experimenting trying to create the texture and chewiness of the cookie, with the flavour of the gingerbread.  I think this recipe achieves just what I was hoping for!

Makes approximately 40 cookies

 Ingredients

  • 180g of soft brown sugar
  • 140g of butter at room temperature
  • 1 egg lightly beaten
  • 3 tbsp of golden syrup (light corn syrup)
  • 1 tbsp of dark treacle (molasses)
  • 1 tsp of baking powder
  • 2½ tsp of ground ginger
  • ½ tsp of mixed spices
  • ½ tsp of ground cinnamon
  • ½ tsp of ground cloves
  • ¼ tsp of salt
  • 280g of plain flour (all purpose)

Method

  1. Cream together in a bowl the softened butter and soft brown sugar.
  2. Add the beaten egg to the cream and sugar mixture and mix.
  3. Beat in the golden syrup and dark treacle.
  4. In a separate bowl, sieve together the baking powder, ginger, mixed spices, cinnamon, cloves, salt and flour.
  5. Slowly incorporate the flour and spices into the butter mix, making sure it’s all properly combined and there are no lumps of any one ingredient.
  6. Cover the bowl with some cling film and pop it into the fridge for 1 to 2 hours to firm up.
  7. Pre-heat the oven to 180C about 5 minutes before you’re ready to put the cookie dough into the oven.
  8. Shape the dough into walnut-size pieces and put them on a baking tray; press down lightly on each one with the back of a fork.
  9. Bake for 7 – 9 minutes in the centre of the oven.
  10. After 5 minutes remove the cookies and put on a cooling rack to cool completely.
  11. Enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee!

Domestic Princess tips:

  1. Make sure you don’t place the walnut size cookie dough too close together on the baking tray, as they’ll merge to form one massive cookie.  About 2 inches apart is a good distance.
  2. Your egg should be at room temperature before adding it into the mixture.
  3. Replacing the soft brown sugar with muscovado sugar, will give the cookies a more treacley / caramelly flavour.  Jaggery sugar is the alternative to soft brown sugar if you’re in Bangalore.
  4. If you can resist eating them on the day of baking, they taste even scrummier the day after if you store them in an air-tight container.
  5. Bangaloreans, you can buy golden syrup and dark treacle from Food World Gourmet on MG Road.
  6. Check the cookies after 7 minutes.  If they have a golden colour, take them out then.  The longer you leave them in to cook, the less chewy they’ll be!
  7. If you would like a stronger gingery flavour, add another 1/2 – 1 tsp of found ginger.
These are definitely on my baking list for this weekend!  What will you be baking?
With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo
Filed Under: Food&Drink, Recipes Tagged With: , , ,
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