Tim Tam truffles

Tim Tam truffles.  Tim Tam truffles.  Sounds good, doesn't it?  Kinda rolls off the tongue, don'tcha think?  Kinda like Becca Bakes, one might say... Only in the UK, these chocolate, chocolate sandwiched and covered biscuits aren't called Tim Tams.  Oh no, they're not as mighty, not as tasty (to me anyway) and  not called Tim Tams.  They're called Penguins.  Yep, seriously.  And Penguin truffles just sounds a little bit wrong to me.

I found the recipe on an Australian site called Best Recipes, along with the one I used for the first school bake class, for Anzac biscuits.  It's here, and it's wrong.  Mind you, that's rather blunt, and disrespectful.  Most unlike me.  I should be more polite, and say that I couldn't get it to work at the quantities specified.  That may well be because Penguins aren't the same as Tim Tams.  But either way, I had to modify the recipe along the way.

I had to use 18 Penguins (360g worth) in the end, and 8 digestive biscuits too, to get the right consistency for rolling once the sweetened, condensed milk had been added.

And I didn't fancy grating chocolate, when I had chocolate line sprinkles to hand.  They were ready in time for the girls getting in from school (or technically, they were ready in time for me to clean up and refrigerate them before walking to collect the girls from school).  So they were super easy, super quick and super sickly tasty.  A three-way win, a trifecta even!  Ha ha

Peanut and chocolate chip cookies

Thanks to the Banoffee pie we made as a treat for Mr Becca a few days ago, we had condensed milk to use up.  I went onto the Carnation website for inspiration and found this recipe for Hazelnut and Choc Chunk cookies. 

It used a method that I've read of, but never used before, and sounded easy enough for myself and Mini-2 to manage on a quiet morning before lunch and nursery.  So off we went...

The mix wasn't actually that gloopy, despite the addition of the condensed milk, and with the peanuts (we didn't have any hazelnuts in the cupboard) and chocolate chips (they're much faster to add than chopping up a bar of chocolate, and much more fun for Mini-2 to pinch) it smelled amazing and looked so good.  But it had go into the fridge to chill for at least half an hour, and up to a week, so we did Peppa Pig jigsaws whilst waiting.  (Actually, she did them all herself, they're a bit too easy for her now, which gives me a great idea for a birthday gift).

Then on to the cutting and baking of the cookies...

You see here Mini-2 wearing her current favourite stripy trousers and 101 Dalmations jumper, cutting rounds for baking.  And here we see those rounds ready to be baked...

Mmmm, full of big chunks of peanut and chocolate.  A mere quarter hour and a fantastic smelling house later, we got these lovelies out of the oven.

They tasted amazing, and we have one and a half sausages of cookie-mix in the fridge for later.  I shall try more every few days to see how the mix bakes up