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

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.

Blonde Rocky Road for a meeting

Mr Becca has a pretty stressful, customer-facing job and when it comes time for staff meetings - they have decided to have them after-hours, to not impact customer service.  Which is exceedingly kind of them, don't you think? :) 

I knew that this one would run late, as I overheard him talking to a colleague (and I wasn't sure if he was joking or not, so took it at face value) saying he had added a point 20 to the agenda. Eek!

So I offered to make him a sweet treat to take along, to gee everyone up when their spirits were flagging.  Because a hit of sugar always perks you up - it's a scientific fact!

I gave him my recipe binder and said, choose what you want (because frankly, he had no idea and neither did I).  So he chose this one from the archives, Blonde Rocky Road by Gizzi Erskine. Although having Googled it just now to add in the link for you, I notice she spells it without the e at the end, hmm.  

Either way, here are the add-ins, plus the crushed all-butter Scottish shortbread that is underneath these goodies.  The recipe calls for macadamia nuts, which I used when I first made this recipe a few years back, but we had eaten all of ours, so I chopped up some blanched almonds instead.  

 

It took hours and hours to set, and even then wasn't fully hard.  But I was able to cut it straight from the fridge, then made sure to keep it in the fridge for as long as possible.

As you can see, it's super-rich and decadent, and had a slight coffee taste even with me just using half a teaspoon of powder.  After all, it was a late night meeting and I didn't want them being too wired! Plus I knew our kids and friends would want to taste-test it too. 

You can see here the fudge I used, and some of the remaining mini marshmallows.

And one last gratuitous shot of that divine rich treat...  all gone now I'm afraid.  But you'll be pleased to know that it got rave reviews.

Mr Becca's birthday treat, Millionaire's Shortbread

Mr Becca is not mad-keen on dessert, as a menu option.  He prefers savoury food, and will almost invariably have a starter and then not always be hungry for a dessert after his main course.  He likes them super-sweet so doesn't like dark chocolate with anything, because it's too bitter.  Every once in a while I make something that by chance he loves, but that I can't eat because it's too sweet.

I remember once,  long ago, we went out for a meal on my work (I won the meal as a reward for getting a customer satisfaction survery score of 100%) and he wasn't hungry enough for a dessert so we ordered two anyway.  For me.

Anyway, this year for his birthday I didn't want to make a cake ( like last year's butterscotch one, or the butterscotch one of the year before) a) because I wasn't confident I could find yet another butterscotch cake recipe that he'd like and b) because, quite honestly, he simply wouldn't eat a whole cake and thus make it worthwhile.  But then I remembered how much he likes Millionaire's Shortbread, and that I'd never made it successfully.  For those of you who don't know, or who know it by a different name, it's a 3 layer traybake of shortbread on the base, caramel in the middle and chocolate on the top.  I had made this once before, years ago, and not lined the tin.  I maintain that the recipe never told me to, but who knows now?  Suffice it to say, I definitely lined the tray this time.  

Knowing how much he didn't like dark chocolate, I only used milk.  Then for the marble effect, I used some Wilton Candy Melts in white colourburst brights - which have coloured sprinkles throughout them.

I was really pleased with the marbling effect, but felt it needed a little something extra.  So I marbled in a heart, using some red candy melts and matching sparkle.  Now just to hope it dried up exactly like that...

Phew, it did!!! 

I'm very happy to report that he loved it - the way it looked and the fact that I'd made it for him instead of a cake.  And the taste?

Well, it was rich and caramelly and crumbly and chocolatey.  How do you think that would taste?!  It was absolutely delicious!  But for future reference, he felt the chocolate layer was too thick, and I felt the base layer was too crumbly.  So I'll try it again at some stage, but with a different recipe.  Happy Birthday Darling!