Mmm melting moments

We caught up with friends we hadn't seen in a while over these spring break school holidays.  I have been a little less hectic with the baking, not baking so frequently as I used to because I'd been pulling longer shifts at work, and the kids are just as busy as ever with after-school clubs and activities.  But these particular friends that were coming - well, their 13 year old was really getting into baking and I felt that I had to offer them something fresh and new as it was quite likely they'd bring along one of her treats.

I decided to keep things simple and fun, and go for small individual servings rather than a large cake that may not get fully devoured when at its best.  I chose Melting Moments - a sandwich biscuit well-loved but not often enjoyed from my youth - and even used an Australian recipe.  Well, it had to be, didn't it?!  

These beauties needed to have a particular consistency that melted in your mouth and crumbled slightly when you bit into them, but not so much that you lost all your biscuit at the first bite.  So I was a little apprehensive as I started.

Following the recipe to the letter, they rolled into what looked like small cute balls of dough.  I then flattened them with a glass and made indents with a fork.

So far, so good - they looked correct, or should I say, as I remembered.  Once out of the oven, they still looked pretty darn good but had spread a bit bigger.  I hadn't bargained on that, so made a note on the recipe for the next time.  Some were a cute 4.5cm in diameter but others were up to a centimetre larger.  So I took note to choose similar sized ones to sandwich together.

I had some classic vanilla buttercream and also some rich, decadent chocolate buttercream waiting ready to fill them.  Then I thought lemon would taste nice, so chose a lush lemon curd to add to some of the vanilla buttercream - mmm, great idea.

All the taste-testers were impressed, and I am pleased to say that this recipe tastes just like the ones I remember from cafes of my youth.  And all 3 flavours worked really well - a definite recipe to keep.

Double chocolate chip cookies - afternoon tea winner!

It's the second-last day of the spring school holidays here, and we've been busy with play dates (so much fun for me too, as it's too long between catch-ups for us Mums too), sports camp/classes, walks, arts and crafts, general outdoor play and so on.  This week's gymnastics sports camp is getting them pretty tired, so when they asked to go out for afternoon tea today, I didn't really fancy it.  Instead we went home and whipped up some super delicious double chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.

But that will take ages, you might think.  Well, kinda but not really, and it was much more fun and we knew exactly what we were eating.  Mini-1 retired to the couch with her tablet computer and Mini-2 and I got started.

She's keen to be as grown-up and independent as possible, and has listened well on other baking projects, so enjoyed using the hand-mixer - but not cracking the egg.  Why, you ask?  Well, she didn't fancy washing her hands yet again, ha ha.

Two different types of chocolate chips were added - the recipe calls for peanut butter chips but a) we've used up all that we received from the USA a year or so ago, and b) we're kinda over them. Sorry to all our American friends out there.  We'd love to try any other fancy chips you do, not butterscotch though please as we've had them too, but not pb any longer.  No hurt feelings, right?
Anyway, back to the cookies...

We chose to do just small cookies, with a spoon and knife for skill and cleanliness.  We managed to get 40 small mounds of dough out of our mix and popped them in the oven.  A scant 12 minutes later we had hot cookie heaven!!

I couldn't resist and tasted one just moments later - oh my!!  So so good, crisp and crunchy, just the way I like them.  When the kids came through, one had the great idea of sandwiching them with cookies and cream ice-cream to make a Choc Chip cookie Ice-cream Sandwich - oh yes please!  

Peanut butter choc chip banana cookies, or how to use up bananas

As usual, I am way behind in updating you with all the baking that's been going on here at Becca Towers over the last few months.  I always meant, right from the outset, to blog at the very least weekly so that you would have an idea of how often and what types of things we were baking in the The Kitchen.  But then things happen - kids have toddler groups, and then school and after-school activities, and playdates and so on, and updating the blog with all the info and photos on the computer gets moved to the bottom of the priority list.  It's not that it's not important, just not in the same league as getting name tags sewn on to clothes, or organising gym kits, or swimming lessons and so forth.

So there's another baking blogger I like to read, Rose Bakes, and she has much the same issues in her blogging life - she bakes more often than I, and homeschools her 6 kids, so is even busier than me.  I think she just doesn't sleep, otherwise how does she manage?  :)  So anyway, she is honest and just blogs a post and says 'Oh, I made these last October...' so I think I may head along that path...  What do you think??

But just to mix things up a bit, I have a bit of time now so I'm going to quickly tell you about the cookies that Mini-2 and I made a few hours ago!!  School resumed after our lovely long and busy 6 week summer holidays this week, and Mini-2 had asked to make (or technically, eat) some chocolate chip cookies.  Then this recipe popped up on my Facebook newsfeed and I was sold.  I mean, don't you always have one or two slightly overripe bananas in the house?  No?  Oh, just me then, ha ha.

It's been many years that I've been baking regularly, and if you've been following the blog or my Facebook page, you'll recall that Mini-1 is bored of cake - won't even eat it if she's away from home - but Mini-2 still enjoys whatever I bake.  She really enjoys helping too, whether it's baking or cooking we're doing (Mini-1 not so much).  So here she is adding the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

And this next shot is a gratuitous one really, just so we can see that she's grown, but still likes a wee helping hand to reach into the bowl more easily.

Once both the Reese's peanut butter chips (imported by a pupil from his family's holiday to Florida late last year) and chocolate chips were added the mixture had to be cooled.

And thus we have the result - the first batch quite soft and golden-coloured (I didn't like those as much, but The Team preferred them) and subsequent batches more tanned and crunchy.  A not too-strong taste of banana and I'd say we have a winner folks!!  

Aunty Merle's shortbread

We live in Scotland, and quite like shortbread.  It's rather a staple food here - the Scots invented it actually, so there are many good brands from which to choose in almost any shop you visit.  However the last time I fancied eating some, I resisted the urge to buy some.  You see, I remembered this wonderful recipe that my dear friend H had given to me, given to her by her Aunty Merle.

We had first tried it at her homestead in rural Victoria, Australia (as you do) and all loved it!  I made it first a while back and it was nearly as good as hers, so I was determined to try again.

The recipe specified that the butter had to be cold, so I chopped it into little cubes and popped it in the food processor, as directed.

It didn't mix very well for a while, and I began to panic, as I couldn't telephone H for advice due to the time difference between Scotland and Australia.  But luckily the batter 'took' and it all became one large lump of cookie dough quite soon.  

I formed the batter into little balls, about the size of a Lindor chocolate (mmm, don't get me started on how delicious they are!  Have you tried the new coconut one? Heaven).  I had made a note on the recipe the last time that they would spread...

And they did.  Ah well, life's tough sometimes, isn't it?!  ha ha.  These are probably a bit overdone, but they tasted so good, and lasted almost a week in the cake tin that none of us minded at all.  I wonder how they'd taste if I flavoured them with something other than vanilla???  Yummy, thanks H

Sugar cookies part 2 - birthday

Those sugar cookies I made the other day were originally meant to be for this event - a couple of work colleague birthdays.  I have a few different styles of plaque cookie cutter, and love to use them. The birthday recipients were all female, so I could have fun with the icing colours - I really like bright, happy colours and hoped they would too.  

I used a number of different embossers, to change up the fonts a little, and the ladies all loved their little birthday package.  One even took a photo, in case it got damaged in transit to her house to show her children, awww.....

Sugar cookies part 1 - birds

There were some more work birthdays coming up, and I was wondering how I could mark those occasions too.  I wanted something that would suit more than one person, and could be personalised. I follow a fair few cookie pages on Facebook and thought - aha, cookies!  

I have made roll-out sugar cookies before, and tweak the recipe slightly regarding bake times each time.  I haven't tasted anyone else's to compare, but wonder always if mine are the right crunch/soft ratio, or the right colour and so on.  Nonetheless, I went with my tried and true recipe (flavoured with a drop of caramel) and baked up a large batch of birds, circles and plaques (more about them to come).

The birds and circles were spares really, just done for fun - and then Mr Becca mentioned that he had a meeting to attend and did I have any spares for him to share with the participants?  Uh, yup.

As you can see, I had a few chocolate chunk ones, however they didn't bake up as well, because the chunks were a bit large I felt.  (the children ate those ones, and declared them perfect)  I decorated them in gorgeous shades of bright pink and green, and think they looked lovely.  He asked for them to be personalised with an initial, and the participants were all very impressed :)

Mini-2 and the Peppa Pig sandwich cookies

Every now and then, Mini-2 gets the notion to use a box mix of something from the baking aisle of the supermarket.  We've been caught out by these before, because they look nice on the packet, but the taste is never as good as we can make ourselves.  So while we have fun making and baking them, we are not usually impressed by the taste.  This time, I figured I would just go with the flow, because they were Peppa Pig and I can't get her those little edible images any other way.

We followed the recipe on the back of the pack to make the dough, and she enjoyed rolling it out.

Well, mostly she enjoyed it - sometimes the dough got stuck to the rolling pin and it all got a bit messy.

Next it was time to use a fluted scone cutter and cut our the round, and a small diameter circular cutter (neither were provided in the box)  to cut away the interiors.  So it was kind of like making Empire or Linzer biscuits.

Once the dough was baked and had cooled, you made up the chocolate spread for the interior and sandwiched a full and a cut-out cookie together.  Then it was time to pop the little Peppa Pig images out of the icing sheet and onto each cookie.  

And the final result was these super cute Peppa Pig chocolate shortbread cookies.  They look good, but sadly tasted as expected.  But we had fun, and the whole family joined in eating the end product.

This post is our own opinion and we purchased the cookie box mix ourselves, no sponsoring or free product was provided.

Quick no-bake Oreo cheesecake

We hadn't baked anything in class for a week or so, so to treat the 3rd years (freshman or Year 9's, depending upon in which country you live) my teacher, Miss K, decided we'd make Oreo Cheesecake. Well, technically she had planned for them to make Mandarin Cheesecake, but I couldn't help but notice that one of the other teachers was making Oreo Cheesecake with her class...  So I pleaded, and we ordered Oreos for the students (plus enough for us two to make a cake each too ;) ).

It was surprisingly easy, and after crushing the biscuits and adding melted butter for the base, we whipped up cream cheese with double cream for the filling.  Because Team Becca and I love Oreos so much, I crushed biscuits to put in the filling as well.  The Team knew I would be making this cake in class, and had requested I decorate it as a smiley face for them.  Miss K's more adult design is on the right there.

 We managed to hold off digging in until after the children's dinner, then got a sharp knife and cut decent wedges for us each.  And I have to say, it didn't disappoint.  Rich, creamy, chocolately and crunchy - taste sensation heaven!  As you can see, the Smarties faded in colour over the few hours between making and eating, and the whole cake didn't last too well over the next day or so.

This is definitely best eaten on day of preparation.  Enjoy!!

Rolo slice for the work picnic

Mr Becca's work have an annual staff picnic.  I remember my dad's work doing this - only he worked in a HUGE company, so there were rides and tents with food and everything!  To us children it was heaven, and we looked forward to going on the ski-jump ride each year, as we never went to fair or carnivals or fairgrounds or whatever those places are where they have a lot of rides and rubbish food to eat.  The work picnic was our carnival, and we loved it.

Mr Becca's work however, is small.  They have a marquee in case it rains, and a barbeque and some tables laid out for folk to sit at.  There is a large open grass area, and a playpark just through the trees. Actually, for a kid that's still kind of perfect :)

He asked me to make a couple of traybakes to take along with us, and I was happy to oblige.  A kind reader had once emailed me her secret recipe for a Rolo traybake slice and I had bought Rolo's a few months back in preparation, but forgotten about them.  Lucky for me, they were still within their use-by date.

The recipe needed milk chocolate, but I felt it would be a bit sickly, so added in a third dark chocolate.  Don't they look lovely melting up together?  Psst, Mr Becca didn't seem to notice there was any dark chocolate involved, so let's not burst his bubble, ok?  ;)

 

 At this stage, I really wasn't convinced.  I mean, be honest, that doesn't look fabulously tasty now, does it?

But wait, the addition of a layer of melted chocolate, pink glitter and some leftover Rolo's later and voila - That looks better!

 

It was so so good!  The children and adults alike absolutely loved it.  And despite there not being a full complement of staff and families that turned out for the picnic, there was no Rolo slice to take home to Becca Towers.  Score!

Classic chocolate chip cookies for the first day back at school

I don't know if you recall, but last year and the year before (and perhaps even the year before that), The Team had fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies as a treat for their first afternoon tea on their first day back at school after the long summer holidays.  I had seen the idea on another ladies page, and her son was going into his last year of high school (daughter was already at college) and as he left his house that morning he said to his mum, I hope you're baking cookies today.

And I thought that was just lovely, that he still wanted the cookies after so many years!

So I resolved to make our girls cookies, even though they'd forgotten that they'd had the treat for the last two or three years running... 

It was a new recipe I'd tried, one I found on an American page, and purporting itself to be the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. (sorry to say that for the moment I simply can't recall which site. But I promise that if I find out, I'll include the link here so you can try it out and judge for yourself). So I felt it was only right to give it a go.  

And it made so much batter that I made half of it into cinnamon apple cookies!  They were flavoured with a package or two of Whitworth's new little snack bags of cinnamon apple goodness.  These also contained yoghurt covered raisins, so I removed them as I didn't think they'd bake up well at all. These cookies smelled and tasted great, but the kids preferred the choc chip ones.  

There were so many cookies in total that we ended up gifting some to their new teachers, for their first day back treat!  I've never done that before, but am pretty sure the ladies liked it.

Every girl loves rainbows, and cookies

The girls get two weeks off school at Christmas-time, and because it's the Holiday season it kind of doesn't feel like they're really off school in the same way as other holiday periods.  I suppose it's because it's not as easy to arrange playdates the way we normally would - as other children are busy with their own families, cousins, grandparents and so on.  Nonetheless I managed to get hold of one friend, M, who enjoys baking too - and we decided upon using up some Smarties to make Rainbow Cookies.

They were very pleased to each get a chance to do some ingredient adding, some dough mixing and some cookie shaping.  As you can see, Mini-2 needed a helping hand to reach the counter-top comfortably.

Mini-1 is really rather tall, so needed no additional help to roll out the cookies and place them on the prepared baking tray.

Equally tall is her classmate M, who also enjoyed deciding just quite how much mix was to go in each precise dollop of dough...

Once baked, we noticed that the colour seemed to have baked right out!  I asked for advice on my Facebook page, and it was suggested that Smarties have mostly  natural colourings, so they lose them faster. I was recommended to try M&M's next time, as they wouldn't fade out in baking...  Of course, the girls didn't mind at all.  They were thrilled to be able to eat their delicious creations immediately, and take some home for the rest of M's family.  Well done girls!

Cookies and cream bark, and peppermint bark. Christmas treat time

We love to make bark - it's so easy and fun, and there are so many variations and possibilities.  And it always taste so good!  We started, way back when, with classic peppermint bark, and wanted to make a fresh batch for this Christmas.  I did it with milk chocolate, because I had another idea for add-ins for the white chocolate...

We started by crushing the candy canes as best we could with a rolling pin.

And when we'd been in Australia back in October, I'd seen some Christmas coloured M&M's and just had to buy them.  I had felt they would come in handy for something around about December-time, and this seemed the perfect use for them.  

Add in some candy snowflakes, pop it in the fridge for a few hours and crush it up a bit, and Christmas 2014 peppermint bark was born!

Then it was time to try out that new idea I had - strawberry Oreo bark...  We had seen some Strawberry candy canes and bought them specifically for Mini-2, as she isn't keen on mint at all.  Once they were crushed, we added in some crushed mini Oreo's to the mix.

 I added some holly and Christmas tree sprinkles and popped this tray in the fridge too.

Cracked up and popped in a tin lined with baking paper and this new version of bark was ready for dessert too.  Merry Christmas one and all