Bring and Share Desserts

As I said on Sunday last week my friends and I had our Bring and Share Christmas Dinner.

For a look at past dinners click here.

We always split up the meal so each person brings something and this year I was given desserts.

I made an apple crumble, Christmas cookies and a chocolate cake.

This was the recipe I used for the apple crumble. Just some notes I jotted down from my Mum's instructions.

I'd never made one before but I think my first attempt when pretty well.

It was just your standard apple crumble, but I added some dried cranberries in with the apple for a festive touch.

I used a simple sugar cookies recipe for the Christmas cookies and made some into snowmen...

...and some into snowflakes complete with a sprinkling of edible glitter. Because it's Christmas!

There were also some angels, stars and Christmas trees.

The cookies were a big hit with my friends wrapping up the left over ones to take home.

And finally the chocolate cake.

I used this recipe and it is a winner.

I finished it off with some dark chocolate curls from Jordans Mill.

Jordans as in the cereal company, so these chocolate curls are the same ones you get in the chocolate Country Crisp.

We had way to much food so some of these came back home with me - but my family weren't complaining!

Snickerdoodles!

I've already shown you guys the best cookie I ate on my holiday last year.

(Oatmeal and raisin from the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum)

But I bet you were wondering what my second best cookie of that holiday was.

Well, as you may have guessed by the title of this post; it was a snickerdoodle cookie.

Not only that, it was a snickerdoodle cookie served on the flight home!

That was the first, and prior to this baking session, the only time I'd had a snickerdoodle cookie.

I don't know why it took me so long to try baking them myself.

I googled around for a recipe and lots of them had 'cream of tartar' listed in the ingredients.

I was thinking, 'what is this cream of tartar and why do people want me to put it in my cookies??'

Turns out it's kind of like baking powder or bicarbonate of soda.

So with the cream of tartar purchased and a recipe acquired (this one from Nigella, even though I was a bit put off that cinnamon was listed as 'optional'. It's one of the key ingredients!), I started baking.

A key step to baking snickerdoodles is rolling a ball of batter into a mix of cinnamon and sugar.

Mmmmm cinnamon sugar.

The cookies from the first batch didn't seem to be completely cooked on the bottom and they got a bit stuck on the tray, so I put them back in the oven for a bit longer. This didn't seem to do much, and my Mum wasn't home to ask, 'are these done yet??'. I was cooking solo.

I thought maybe it had something to do with the cinnamon sugar getting on the bottom of the cookies, so for the next batch I made sure not to get the cinnamon sugar on the bottom of the cookie balls.

This seemed to make things worse.

That, or turning to oven up a gas mark to see if that helped.

But whether the cookies ended up whole or in pieces they still tasted delicious, which is what really matters.

Though I'm still left wondering; why are they called snickerdoodles??

Best Cookie Ever?

When I was in Nashville I had The Best Cookie Ever.

I'm pretty sure it was the best.

No others from my cookie-eating history stick out as the best.

And, I only had half of it. I only needed half of it cos it was so full of awesome!

(And I was sharing it with my sister)

Here's a fun video of me describing my lunch, which included the cookie, in my best southern accent.

We had an hour to kill before seeing the Kings of Leon. What else was I supposed to do!

(Southern-me cracks me up. Also, who remembers when I didn't have braces?!)

The other day I thought I'd like to do some baking, so I flicked through a recipe book and landed on oat and raisin cookies. And then I thought, 'what if I could make them like the Nashville cookie?'

This is what I came up with.

Note: I was trying to replicate the flavour, not the look of the cookie. Clearly.

I remembered the Nashville cookie tasted of mixed spice and had visible carrot in it.

The recipe I was using had neither of those things, but I put them in anyway!

Yep, I'm a recipe renegade!

The cookies didn't turn out too bad. I'm definitely on the right track.

I think next time I could afford to put in more mixed spice and more carrot.

Also more butter because they were a little crumbly, but the recipe called for 4 tablespoons of butter and I like to be more precise and use grams or ounces like a normal person.

Here's the recipe if anyone is interested:

4 tbsp butter

125g caster sugar

1 egg

50g plain sugar

1/2 tsp salt

(I've just realised I forgot to put in the salt. I didn't miss it)

1/2 tsp baking powder

175g porridge oats

125g raisins

I added: 1 small carrot, grated, and many shakes of mixed spice

15 minutes on Gas Mark 4

What's your Best Cookie Ever?

The Annual Gift Exchange

Another one of the traditions I have with my friends is the Annual Gift Exchange.

Every year we do a Secret Santa between us girls, and this is the occasion when we exchange gifts.

It's at my house so I get to put on a lovely spread.

I made this awesome cookie Christmas tree.

The star cookies came out looking pretty irregular, but when they're all stacked up you can't tell.

I decorated it with sugar balls and edible glitter (it makes your insides shiny!).

I made cake pops! Well, they're more chocolate truffles but who cares because they were delicious.

And how cute do they look as mini Christmas puddings?

I also made your standard Christmas cookies using a Christmas tree cutter.

Yummy.

I decorated the table with a string of Christmas lights and red cups.

You know, red solo cups.

I bought a pack when I was in New York and thought this would be the perfect occasion to use them.

Such fun.

Peanut butter's new best friend

We all know peanut butter and chocolate is a winning combination but what about peanut butter and orange?

What about peanut butter and orange in the form of a cookie?

My sister made these cookies many years ago, just once, but I never forgot about them.

Then when I was looking for a recipe to make these biscuits I came across the recipe for the peanut butter and orange cookies.

It's from the W.I. book of biscuits from 1986.

I'm sure they won't mind me sharing it with you.

Delicious, just as I remembered.

Getting my bake on

I'm home for Easter now and baking always seems more appealing when I'm in my kitchen at home.

(No offence housemates, but come on, you've seen our kitchen) 

I made these sugar cookies with a different coloured, shaped centre after seeing something similar briefly on the internet. So briefly that I didn't make a note of exactly what or who made them. Apologies internet.

The mixture was a bit sticky so the only way I could successfully replace the middle with red stars (which were just cookie mixture with food colouring) was with the help of a lot of plain flour.

My sister and I thought that it would be nice to add strawberry flavouring to the stars, except we both thought of this once the cookies were done. Ah well, next time.

Snowman Cookies

When I saw the melted snowman cookies on Crazy Domestic I had to make some myself.

I used a general sugar cookie recipe from a random book and then decorated with icing for the snow and a marshmallow for the head. I added the scarf, buttons and arms with tube icing but this wouldn't stick to the marshmallows so for the eyes I dipped a cocktail stick in some black food colouring.

Though it's not a requirement, I suggest decorating the cookies, or any kind of Christmas cookies, whilst wearing Christmas/winter pyjamas. It just adds to the whole experience.

My friends thought it was a bit mean to eat these poor little snowman but they soon came around once they discovered how delicious they were.

Om and nom!

Also, my bottle top Christmas tree project has been featured in a Kids Christmas Craft e-book which you can view here on All Free Holiday Crafts. Exciting!