Condensed milk cookies

Stem ginger cookies with lemon icing

Having spent all morning lazing in bed and reading, I decided that I should do something a bit more productive with my Sunday afternoon. Unusually, I didn’t feel like faffing around with fancy decorative icing, so I decided to make some simple biscuits for EHH to take into his work. I had a flick through my recipe files and cook books, but wasn’t feeling particularly inspired so I decided to go with one of my tried-and-tested recipes.

I call these “condensed milk cookies” – they came from Sainsbury’s magazine ages ago, which called them “soft, American-style cookies”. They are amazing – a bit like “Millie’s Cookies” – with a crisp outside and soft, chewy centre. The magazine gave 6 variations – I made three types this weekend: lemon and ginger, oats and honey, and cherry and almond, with slight variations on the magazine’s recipes. I always feel the need to make more than one batch of these – once you’ve opened the tin of condensed milk, it seems a waste not to! However, I have got about half a tin left, so I may need to make some more later in the week!

Cherry and almond cookies

Makes 12
Ingredients

1. 125g soft unsalted butter
2. 125g caster sugar
3. 2 tblsp condensed milk
4. 175g self-raising flour
   Pinch of salt
5. 75g glace cherries, chopped finely
6. 2 tblsp flaked almonds
7. 1 tsp almond essence
8. 75g icing sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150C.
2. Using an electric/stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Beat in the condensed milk and the almond essence.
4. Add the flour and a pinch of salt and mix.
5. Stir in the cherries.
6. Roll into 12 walnut sized balls and space at least 5cm apart on 2 baking trays.
7. Flatten them slightly with the back of a spoon.
8. Scatter each cookie with flaked almonds.
9. Bake for about 25 minutes or until firm at the edges but still soft in the middle.
10. Leave to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
11. Once cool, drizzle with icing made up from the icing sugar and 1 tblsp water (optional).

Alternatives:
Ginger and Lemon

• For Step 3: Omit almond essence.
• For Step 5: Omit cherries. Instead, add 2 tsp ground ginger, zest of one lemon and 75g of finely chopped crystallised or stem ginger.
• Omit Step 8.
• For Step 11, drizzle with icing made from 75g icing sugar with 1 tblsp lemon juice. 

 


Oats and honey

• For Step 3: Use 1 tblsp of honey and 1 tblsp condensed milk. Omit almond essence.
• For Step 5: Omit cherries. Instead, add 75g oats.
• For Step 8: Drizzle each cookie with honey and scatter with oats.
• Omit Step 11.

GBBO Biscotti

So having decided that Sunday was a baking day, my dismal attempt at apple scones didn’t put me off and I decided to delve into my new GBBO Showstopper book and have a go at something a bit different. I’ve been making lots of cakes recently so decided to have a go at the Sour Cherry Biscotti. I’m a big fan of biscotti and tend to make it at Christmas as presents, as it lasts really well.

 

So, it all started well and my KitchenAid had beaten the butter, sugar and eggs into a lovely light mousse-like froth. I merrily sieved in the flour, salt and baking powder and turned to check the recipe, only to realise that I had chucked in s-r flour rather plain flour – aaaaargh! Having no idea what the impact of this would be - not wanting to use up my white chocolate, almonds and sour cherries but also not wanting to waste all of the ingredients already in the mix - I decided to substitute the key ingredients and see what happened. A delve into the depths of the larder delivered some dark chocolate, raisins and pistachios. I threw these in, divided the dough in two, stuck it on two baking trays and popped it in the oven: hoping that it didn’t decide to grow out of control and splurge out the sides of the oven!

Timer on the oven set, Batch Number Two – this time with plain flour – was started, with the delicious additions (as per recipe) of white chocolate, almonds and sour cherries. After lots of anxious glances through the oven window, Batch One came out of the oven – and looked surprisingly normal! After cooling, slicing and baking again, Batch One were complete and looking surprisingly good!

Dark chocolate, raisin and pistachio biscotti

45 minutes later, Batch Two (white chocolate, almond and sour cherry) were complete and looked very similar to the not-so-disastrous Batch One!

White chocolate, sour cherry and almond biscotti

Overall verdict? Both batches were delicious and went down a storm with my colleagues and with EHH’s colleagues. They were lovely and crisp when they came out of the oven but weren’t quite as crisp this morning – perhaps I didn’t bake them for long enough? Not sure they would have held up to much of a dunking!    

Dark chocolate, raisin and pistachio biscotti

Ingredients:

1. 115g butter, softened
2. 125g golden caster sugar
3. 1 tsp vanilla extract
4. 2 large eggs, at room temp, beaten
5. 275g flour
6. Pinch of salt
7. ½ tsp baking powder
8. 100g raisins
9. 100g good quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
10. 100g pistachios

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / gas 4.
2. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until light in colour and fluffy.
3. Gradually beat in eggs, beating well after each addition.
4. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into the bowl and mix in with a wooden spoon to make a soft dough.
5. Add the raisins, chocolate and pistachios and work in until evenly combined.
6. Add a little more flour to the dough if it is still very sticky.
7. Dust hands with flour and then turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.
8. Divide dough into two pieces and roughly shape each into a long, wide sausage in your hands.
9. Lift each piece onto a lined baking sheet (one piece per baking sheet) and pat each piece into a neat rectangle about 8cm x 25 cm.
10. Bake for about 25 minutes until just firm to the touch and golden (turn after about 18 minutes if your oven bakes unevenly). Remove from the oven (leave the oven on) and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
11. Slice each piece of baked dough (still on baking sheets) on the diagonal. Gently tip the fragile slices over so that they are cut-side down on the baking sheet.
12. Bake for a further 10 minutes until starting to colour.
13. Remove from the oven and set the baking sheets on a wire rack to cool and firm up before removing.
14. Store in an air-tight tin and eat within two weeks. 

Try alternative flavours:

• sour cherry, white chocolate and almond (as per the recipe in the GBBO Show stoppers book)
• orange zest, dark chocolate, dried cranberries and hazelnuts – with mixed spice and cinnamon instead of the vanilla extract
• lemon zest, dried blueberries, white chocolate and almonds