Coffee Kisses

This is a fab, quick recipe, using store cupboard ingredients, that makes delicious biscuits! Perfect as a snack with your morning coffee, or at any time of day! 

A couple of weeks ago, my in-laws were popping down for the day and I realised the night before that I should probably whizz up something to offer them. I didn’t have the time or energy to go to the shop and so I needed to make something with the stuff that I had in the cupboards. I also wanted to make something that tasted fab, looked like I had made an effort but was actually quick and simple to make! Having made these biscuits a few times before, they came straight to mind and the decision was made.

The recipe comes from the original GBBO book “The Great British Book of Baking”. However, I’ve made a couple of adaptations – added a bit of extra flour and divided the mixture into far smaller balls: they recommend 16 but I’ve followed this recipe and the biscuits are crazily huge! I also rest the dough in the fridge for 20 minutes before baking, which helps the biscuits to keep their domed shape, rather than flattening out.

Give them a go – they’re delicious!

Coffee Kisses

Ingredients

1. 200g self-raising flour
2. 100g caster sugar
3. 100g butter, chilled and diced
4. 2 tsp instant coffee granules or powder
5. 1 medium egg

For the buttercream

1. 75g very soft butter
2. 150g icing sugar
3. 4 tsp cocoa powder

Method

1. Line two baking trays with baking parchment.
2. Combine the flour and the sugar in a mixing bowl.
3. Add the butter and rub into the flour mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs.
4. Dissolve the coffee in 2 tsp of boiling water.
5. Beat the egg until frothy and mix in the coffee.
6. Add to the bowl and stir with a wooden spoon to make a firm dough.
7. Flour your hands well and then divide the dough into 30 pieces.
8. Shape each piece into a neat ball.
9. Arrange the balls on the baking trays, allowing space for them to spread.
10. Place the trays in the fridge for 20 minutes.
11. Pre-heat the oven to 170C.
12. Take the baking trays out of the fridge and place in the oven.
13. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until light golden and firm to the touch.
14. Leave to cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
15. Beat the butter with the icing sugar and cocoa powder until very light and smooth.
16. Use the buttercream to sandwich the biscuits in pairs.  

Easy Berry Sauce

I found this quick and easy recipe for a berry sauce whilst flicking through my many and varied cookery books for dinner party dessert inspiration. The sauce was an accompaniment to a blackberry buttermilk sponge and I did consider making this for my dessert (with raspberries rather than blackberries, given the season). However, I then came across Mary Berry's lemon tart and decided to make that instead. However, I love berries with lemon tart and so decided to adapt the recipe to make this sauce to complement my tart. 

The original sauce was made with 150g each of blackberries and raspberries but I had blueberries and strawberries in the fridge and some frozen raspberries, so I decided to use these instead. 

This sauce is incredibly simple to make and tastes fantastic! It went brilliantly with the lemon tart, but would also be fantastic with ice cream, meringues, pancakes and lots of other desserts! I used the leftover sauce on my yoghurt and granola for breakfast!

Easy berry sauce
Ingredients

1. 300g berries (I used 100g each of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries)
2. 2 tsp cornflour
3. 2 tblsp caster sugar

Method

1. Put all of the ingredients in a medium-sized pan and mix gently with a wooden spoon so that all of the berries are coated with sugar and cornflour.
2. Set the pan on a low heat and stir frequently until the juices start to run.
3. Increase the heat slightly and simmer gently, stirring regularly, until the fruit has softened and the juices have thickened to make a sauce.
4. Taste the sauce and add more sugar if required.
5. Add a splash of water if the sauce is too thick. 
6. Serve hot, warm or cold. 

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and caramelised walnuts

Bake number two for EHH’s birthday – carrot cake. Looking back through the blog, I haven’t made a carrot cake in absolutely ages, so this seemed like a great reason to make one. Digging out my recipe – beautifully handwritten by a work colleague while I was temping about 10 years ago – it was definitely time to make and therefore write up this recipe as the paper was rather worn and the handwriting fading!

I’m a big fan of carrot cake – I love the moist multi-textured cake and rich complex flavours, topped with a not-too-sweet cream cheese frosting. This is not a standard or traditional carrot cake due to the addition of banana, but I think that it is delicious! Unusually for carrot cake, there is no spice in this recipe - you could choose to add some but (although I love spice) I don't think that this cake needs it. The frosting is delicious and the addition of the caramelised walnuts makes it extra special.

This is a beautifully easy cake to make – no beating, no melting, no big pile of washing up! Just throw everything in one bowl, mix it up and then stick it in the oven! If you are a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of magi-cake strips (keep an eye out as the price for these seems to vary quite a lot – I’ve seen them for as little as £15, but they are definitely worth the money regardless!) – they work brilliantly for cakes like this that take a while to cook and may otherwise bake rather unevenly.  

The frosting is also very simple to make – there isn’t loads of it, so you do need to spread it fairly thinly over the top and around the sides: a tilted turntable and a good palette knife makes this much easier. Sprinkling the nuts around the edges of the cake is completely optional, but it does help to disguise any bits of the frosting that aren’t beautifully smooth! Again, the tilting turntable does make this much easier to do, but, be warned, no matter how hard you try, the nuts will go everywhere when you do this!

As there is cream and cream cheese in the frosting, you will either need to eat this cake immediately or store in the fridge. If you do store in the fridge, remove one hour before serving to allow it to return to room temperature.

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and caramelised walnuts

Pre-decoration - the cake strips help to ensure a beautifully even bake

Ingredients

1. 225g self-raising flour
2. 1 tsp baking powder
3. 140g soft brown sugar
4. 50g mixed chopped toasted nuts
5. 50g raisins
6. 120g carrots (grated)
7. 2 ripe medium-sized bananas (mashed)
8. 2 eggs (beaten)
9. ¼ pint oil

For the frosting

1. 100ml double cream
2. 80g icing sugar
3. 85g full fat cream cheese (like Philadelphia)
4. ½ tsp vanilla extract

For the caramelised walnuts and mixed nut sprinkles

1. 30g butter
2. 30g light brown sugar
3. 60g walnuts
4. 100g mixed chopped toasted nuts

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Line a 20cm deep cake tin with baking parchment.
3. Stir together flour, baking powder and sugar in a large mixing bowl.
4. Add nuts, raisins, grated carrot and the mashed bananas and stir to mix.
5. Add beaten eggs and oil and stir until well mixed.
6. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 45 – 60 minutes, or until firm to the touch.  
7. Remove from tin and cool on a wire rack.
8. While the cake is cooling, melt the butter in a small frying pan.
9. Add in the sugar and the walnuts and stir for about 4 minutes until caramelised.
10. Tip out onto baking parchment and set aside to cool.   
11. Whip cream until softly stiff.
12. Cream icing sugar, vanilla and cream cheese together.
13. Fold in cream.
14. When the cake is completely cool, spread frosting over the top and around the sides of the cake.
15. Sprinkle the chopped mixed nuts around the edge of the cake and top with the caramelised walnuts.