I'm quite fond of marshmallow fondant icing

Ever thought that fondant tastes like pants - yeah me too! This is fondant icing that is easy to make and tastes good.  The recipe below specifies mini marshmallow but marshmallows chopped up to the same size works fine.  Cups refer to have a standard mug size.  You will need extra icing sugar for dusting and I would get a travel spray bottle with a little water in it to get rid of the dustiness (vodka works better but not always practical, especially with kids cakes)

White Marshmallow Fondant
4 Cups of White Mini Marshmallows
4 cups of Icing Sugar
2 Tbsp Water

Coloured Marshmallow Fondant
Gel food colouring (the more gel the stronger the colour
4 Cups of White Mini Marshmallows
4 cups of Icing Sugar
2 Tbsp Water

Brown or Black Marshmallow Fondant Icing
2 tubes of gel colour will give you dark brown with this recipe
4 Cups of Mini Marshmallows
1.5 cups of Cocoa
3.5 cups of icing sugar
2 Tbsp Water

Method

1. Measure out the marshmallows into a bowl.  Sprinkle the water on top and into the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until they are melted.
2. If you're adding colour, now's the time squeeze it on in there.
3. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa if you're using it.  It will seem like there's too much but I promise you'll need it all.
4. Start by working the marshmallow away from the edges of the bowl using plenty of the icing sugar to prevent your fingers from sticking.
5. Tip the contents of the bowl onto a surface and then knead for all your worth to encorporate all the icing sugar.  The final result should be smooth and elastic.  As it cools it becomes less malliable (great word) but a few seconds in the microwave will sort that out.

Hungarian Chocolate Cookies

 Truthfully I don't know how authentic these are but I adore how they taste.  They are really straightforward to make and the results are delish.

Ingredients:

Biscuit
100g Butter
50g Caster Sugar
100g Self-Raising Flour
25g Cocoa
A few drops of vanilla extract
Filling
50g Butter
100g Icing Sugar
25g Dark Chocolate
2Tbsp Hot Milk

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C
2. Cream butter and sugar until it pales in colour and becomes light and fluffy.  Beat in the vanilla extract.
3. Sieve togeth SR Flour and Cocoa.  Fold into the creamed butter and sugar.
4. Roll the dough into equal marble-sized balls and flatten a little with a fork.
5. Bake for 10mins and leave to cool on a cooling rack
6. Filling: Beat together butter and icing sugar.  Grate chocolate and melt in the hot milk.  Add melted chocolate to butter icing.
7. When biscuits are cool sandwich together

Viennese Fingers

You'll need a piping bag with a large star nozzle for these.  Not to worry if you dont have the equipment I've used the same recipe to make Jammie Dodgers. They taste wonderful and are one of my all time favourites

200g Butter
75g Icing Sugar
1tsp Vanilla Extract
200g Self Raising Flour
Pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 190c
2.  Soften the butter in the microwave and then beat together with the icing sugar until it is very soft.  Add the vanilla extract and mix through.  Stir in the flour.
3. On a a greased baking sheet.  Pipe the mix into cigars go for a little forwards and backwards wiggle if you're feeling exotic. 
4. Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins
5. Sandwich together with a little butter icing and jam and dip either end in melted chocolate.

Milk and Cookies Cocktail Party

Milk and Cookies was the theme for my birthday this year.  But it was a little less innocent than the name suggests.  Normally I would use 1 part alcohol to 4 or 5 parts base but due to the amount of ice I upped the alcohol content to taste.

Drinks
Obviously there was milk but I popped some ice-cubes in the blender and started mixing

• Galliano - Vanilla Liqueur
• Kahlua - Coffe Liqueur (alt. Tia Maria)
• Baileys - Irish Cream Liqueur (alt. Any Irish Cream Liquer)
• Mickey Finns Butterscotch Liqueur
• Homemade Chocolate Vodka

This is what I knew going in:
Kahlua + Milk = Brown Cow
Gad's homemade speciality - Brown Goo = Vodka + Kahlua + Vanilla Ice Cream + Coke
Kahlua + Baileys 'head' = Baby Guinness

This is what I learned:
Galliano + Milk = Tastes like a vanilla milkshake only lighter
Kahlua + Galliano = Vanilla Frappuchino
Kahlua + Chocolate Vodka = Mocha Frappuchino
Oreo Cocktail

The rest can be mixed with Milk or Cream or each other, ad. nauseum 

Cookies
Homemade and Shop Bought just cause I have this weird fondness for oreos.
(I also like Bourbon Creams but I didnt have them)

Dark Chocolate & Orange Biscuits

I genuinely wonder how these would fair with coffee - I don't drink it myself.  These would be amazing at the end of a meal with a glass of port.  This I know as there was a little excessive quality control testing on my part with these.  As always when dealing with chocolate get the best quality chocolate and cocoa you can.  Drinking Chococolate is not a suitable substitute in this recipe

Ingredients:
50g Plain Flour
25g Cocoa (I used Green & Blacks)
1 orange
50g Butter
25g Sugar
25g Dark Chocolate

Method:

1. Using a sharp paring knife peel a piece of orange rind from the top of the orange to the base being careful to take as little of the pith (the white part under the skin) with you. On a cutting board shred that into fine slivers.  Grate the remainder of the rind on the finest part of the grater again being careful to avoid the pith.
2. Cream butter and sugar and add orange zest and slivers.
3. Sieve Cocoa and Flour together to blend and remove lumps.  Add two thirds to the butter sugar mix in batches and mix well.
4. Chop Dark Chocolate quite fine (these biscuits will be rolled out quite thinly) add to the remaining flour before adding whole lot into the biscuit dough and mixing well
5. Form a large ball with the dough, wrap it in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 mins
6. Preheat the oven to 190C
7. Roll out thinly and cut with a glass or cookie cutters.  Bake on a baking sheet in the oven for 10mins.
8. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 mins before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Orange and Lavender Cookies

This is the place where I would have entered a recipe about Lavender and Orange biscuits but the following happened - I tasted them!  I had seen the combination in a recipe book in cake form and thought to myself wow that really is something pretty wonderful and applied the same logic in an appropriate ratio.  Nasty Nasty Nasty

Shortbread Jam Rings (Jammie Dodgers)

200g Butter
75g Icing Sugar
1tsp Vanilla Extract
200g Self Raising Flour
Pinch of salt
Jam

1. Soften the butter in the microwave and then beat together with the icing sugar until it is very soft.  Add the vanilla extract and mix through.
2. Stir in the flour and roll into a ball.  Wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes
3. Preheat oven to 180C.
4. Roll out on a floured surface to 3mm thick.  Cut matching 'tops' and 'bottoms'.  On the tops cut a hole in the centre with a small cutter (I have a little heart).
5. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 mins.  Leave them to cool slightly on the baking tray before transferring them to the cooling rack.
6. Melt about four tablespoons of jam in the microwave for about 30seconds. Stir well it should be soft enough to sandwich two layers together.
7. To decorate sprinkle with icing sugar.

Camomile shortbread

These have a really subtle but pleasant flavour.  Highly recommended if in need of chilling out.  I used vanilla sugar instead of sugar and vanilla extract.

1tbsp Dried Camomile Flowers finely chopped
225g butter
140g Sugar
1egg yolk
280g Flour

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

2. Stir in the flowers then beat in the egg yolk.

3. Add the flour and mix until a dough forms. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge

4. Roll out on a floured surface. Cut out using a cookie cutter.

5. Bake for 10mins at 190c

Alternatives:
Try using a tablespoonful of limeflowers or elderflowers

Fleur de Sel Salted Caramel Cookie

If you like the taste of caramel you will love these!  They really set your taste buds exploding.  Essentially you make caramel and then mix the rest of the ingredients in to form a cookie.  I made an extra batch of the caramel at the end and drizzled the cookies with it and then drizzled them with chocolate before finally sprinkling with a little fleur de sel at the end.  Fleur de Sel can be replaced by Sea Salt.  I would suggest that you bake these so that they retain their chewyness otherwise they can be a bit on the hard side.

Caramel:
200g Sugar
3 tbsp Water (or just barely enough to help dissolve the sugar)
4 Tbsp Double Cream


Cookie:
275g Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Fleur de Sel
225g Butter
100g Sugar
1 Egg
2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Method

1. In a stand mixer cream butter and sugar together. 
2. Caramel:  Over a medium-low heat, in a heavy bottomed saucepan mix stir sugar and water together until the sugar dissolves then remove your wooden spoon from the pot and leave on the heat to caramelise.  As soon as it does remove from the heat and add a spoonful of the butter and sugar mix and the double cream.
3. Beat the egg and vanilla well into the butter and sugar mix.
4. Pour the Caramel into the butter-sugar-egg mix slowly mixing thoroughly as you pour.
5. In another bowl sift Flour Baking Soda and Fleur de Sel.  Add a spoonful mix well and then add the balance to the wet ingredients.
6. Allow to cool and roll to salami width.  Wrap in cling film and chill for 1 hour in the fridge.
7. Preheat oven to 170C
8. Cut into half cm slices bake for 8-10mins.  Allow to cool (beware of sugar burns)
9. Decorate by drizzling with chocolate caramel and a sprinkling of fleur de sel.

Biscuits / Cookies - Whats the difference?

Nowadays the words Biscuits and Cookies are fairly interchangeable and you will tend to use one or the other depending on what side of the Atlantic you're from.

From my understanding Biscuits were originally a means of using up leftover bread dough (therefore they would often be yeast based) sugar and fruit was then added where available and thus the biscuit was born.  Biscuits as we know them today are usually crisp baked goods of a variety of shapes and sizes.  You can even find savoury biscuits ideal for serving with cheese or soup.  Biscuits found in the Southern States of American are much closer to a plain scone.

Cookies came by way of the Dutch (from the word Kuchen) and were originally soft baked (a very popular choice to this day).

Nutella Pinwheel Cookies

 'Nuff said

175g Butter
100g Caster Sugar
1tsp Vanilla Extract
225g Flour
2tbsp Nutella
1tbsp Cocoa

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar and mix in vanilla extract thoroughly
2. Mix in the flour to form a soft dough. 
3. Divide the dough in two, one weighing 225g and one weighing 275g
4. Add the cocoa and nutella to the 225g of dough and mix thoroughly.
5. Roll each piece of dough out to a square approx 15 x 20cm.  Brush the top of the vanilla dough with a little water then place the chocolate dough on top of the vanilla dough and roll up like a swiss roll.  Wrap in cling film and chill for 30mins.
6. Preheat oven to170c
7. Trim the ends of the 'swiss roll' of cookie dough and proceed to slice 5mm slices with a sharp knife so as to preserve the shape of the pinwheel.  It should fill two cookie sheets.
8. Bake in the oven for 10-12 mins until golden brown.  Allow to cool slightly then transfer to cooling rack.  When fully cooled store in an airtight container

What is a cookie Sheet?

A cookie sheet is a solid sheet on which cookies are baked.  I had always used baking trays until I discovered the ones I use of which I have about four because that way I can have cookies chilling in the fridge or freezer, cookies on cookie trays ready to go into the oven, cookies cooling on the trays before being lifted onto the cooling rack. They are the width of my oven which means I can fit as many in as possible, they are uncomplicated, they are cheap and easy to clean.

Freezing Cooking Dough

Even though cookies themselves cant be frozen, most cookie dough can be frozen but there are a few things that you need to bear in mind.

1. Use cling film or a freezer bag to wrap it up properly so that no parts are exposed
2. Label it and date it.You don't need to do anything fancy in fact a permanent marker will do the job.
3. Though it may vary according to ingredients a good rule of thumb is to use all within a month of freezing.
4. Basic Cookie dough can be sliced frozen and put straight but as a general rule I would say defrost thoroughly and continue as if the dough had just been chilled.

Cookie cutters

A cookie cutter is a shape that when applied to either pastry or certain cookie doughs cuts a shape in that form.   But lets face it, a glass will do! but the cookie cutters are so cute but can be addictive. I have a selection of them and I have had to organise them into labled ziplock bags but I have seen much worse.  I have certain associations some of which I understand their origins such as what would a gingerbread man be if not that shape (actually the answer is a gingerbread woman - I thought he was getting a little lonely and so his bachelor days are over) but then again I think Shortbread I think Hearts, I think spiced cookies I think stars.

Best cookie cutters to use: I would say that the best cookie cutters to use are the metal ones because they cut out the lines of the cookie cleanly and with ease.  But plastic will do just fine.

Tips:

• Always flour before use and during cutting cookies this helps with speed and consistency of shape
• Wash in warm soapy water, dry thoroughly and if using metal pop the cookie cutters back into the oven as it cools down after making the cookies to dry them out completely and prevent rust and discolouration.
• Store them so you can find them easily.  If you know you'll spend needless time finding the right one you won't go looking for it.  I've heard multiple suggestions for this but I use labelled Ziploc bags e.g. Christmas, Circles, etc.

Maple Glazed Spiced Cookies

 This cookie or to be more accurate biscuit, has a shortbread base but provides an alternative to using sugar.  This recipe called for honey in the mix, but I think I may be the only person in Ireland who doesn't like the taste of honey, so I substituted maple syrup and then added a maple glaze. The spices lend themselves to Christmas time. 

150g Plain flour
1 tsp  of Cinnamon
1/4 tsp of Mixed Spice
1/4 tsp of Ginger
85g Butter
3 tbsp maple syrup + more for glazing

1. Preheat the oven to 170C
2. In either a food processor or stand mixer place the flour spices and butter and mix until combined - it should give you a dry breadcrumb consistency.
3. Turn the machine back on a low speed and slowly add all of the maple syrup, then turn the speed back up until a dough is formed.
4. Wrap dough in cling film and then pop in the fridge for 30 mins (or store in the freezer in a freezer bag until you're ready to bake them).
5. Roll out to the thickness of a coin and cut out shapes.  Place on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 10-12 mins (you want them to remain reasonably pale like shortbread cookies).  As soon as they are out of the oven brush them with maple syrup and leave to cool.

Raising Agent / Leavening Agent

Basic rule of baking if you want something to rise you will either need to use eggs and/or a raising agent of some description. You need bubbles to make cakes, breads and even some cookies rise.  The bubbles get warm in the oven they expand and your baking goods get lighter.  So the obvious question would be why are there so many types of raising agents and whats the difference between them.  Can you swap them?

Yeast - Typically used in breads, pizzas and bread based buns (Chelsea buns & Cinnamon buns).  It's not suitable for cakes as a general rule because yeast has a fairly strong flavour, especially in the case of sour dough.  Using yeast means taking time to leaven and knead the bread.  Yeast is a living organism that needs feeding (sugar of some description) and warmth to be kicked into action.

• Fresh Yeast - The best way that I can describe it that it looks like putty and smells like beer.
• Dried Fast Action Yeast - Powdered version of fresh yeast that is much more predictable 
• Sour Dough Starters - This is nothing shy of magic in my books. In the new year I will tackle the whole Sour Dough Bread thing.

Bread Soda / Baking Soda -Typically used for scones, cookies and Irish soda bread among many others. If you've ever made a Baking Soda Volcano you will know that if you add an acid to Bread Soda (who for those want it's proper chemical term it's NaCl -Sodium Chloride) it will fizz up and release a gas called carbon dioxide (CO2 this is the stuff we exhale).  This is a fairly instantaneous release of gas so only add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients when you're ready to pop it into the oven.  Cakes that have a high acid content in them such as a lemon based cake or a cake with either buttermilk, sour cream, or yogurt in them will use baking soda as either the main raising agent or an additional agent to balance the chemical process and improve flavour.  This seems to be much more common in American baking recipes than Irish or UK equivalents.  I wonder of the origins I'm all ears if someone can enlighten (see the way I 'lightened' the sentence with a baking pun) me.

Baking Powder - Typically used for cakes.  Baking powder is composed of everything that you need   (Baking Soda and an Alkaline, a stabiliser (quite often Cream of Tartar) and some cornflour (so its not as at risk to moisture) in the correct ratios, to make a cake rise.  Typically a recipe calls for 1 teaspoon baking powder per 200g Plain Flour.  The actual baking powder recipe changes from company to company including one discovered by the man who created Birds Custard.

Self Raising Flour - I'm including this because even though it's not a raising agent it contains the correct ratio of flour to raising agent to make a cake rise, this makes life much easier.

Just a note on Scones and  Soda Bread if you have buttermilk use baking soda if you have fresh milk use baking powder

Macaroons

I've been searching for a recipe that I could use up the leftover egg white whenever I make cinema floor cookies and this is it. There is no flour in it and for those with issue with gluten their nice sweet treats. I've used lemon zest to flavour these but you could use almond essence instead.  Regarding Ground Nuts this is not limited to almonds; you can toast and skin all sorts of nuts before pulsing them in a blender for this recipe or buy them in the shop

1 egg white
100g Ground Nuts (or dessicated coconut)
100g Caster Sugar
Flavouring (see note above)

(Makes 8)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170c
2. Lightly beat an egg white
3. Mix in the remainder of the ingredients in a bowl.
4. Form little ping pong ball sized balls in your hands the mixture should be firm but sticky and place them on a baking tray and flatten a little with a fork
5. Bake for 10 mins until pale golden, then cool on a wire rack

Alternate method

1. Preheat oven to 170c.
2. Prepare a baking sheet with oiled baking parchment
3. Using a stand mixer whisk the egg white to soft peaks add a little sugar and mix briefly but thoroughly.  Add the remainder of the sugar. Mix properly but do not over whisk!
4. Fold in ground nuts
5. Half fill piping bag (I use one without the nozzle) and make 4-5cm diameter circles on the baking sheet
6. Bake for 10mins until pale golden, then cool on a wire rack

The difference between a cake and a biscuit

The answer to this is also the answer to why a Jaffa Cake is a cake and not a biscuit. If left out overnight a cake gets hard and a biscuit gets soft. Jaffa Cakes had to prove themselved as Cakes in 1991 to retain their VAT free status in the UK because if they changed to biscuits they would have change VAT brackets.

Rocky Road

So you can mix all manner of sweets, nuts and dried fruits or glace fruits you like. You can use mini marshmallows or quarter them using a knife powdered with icing sugar

300g Chocolate
300g Butter
2 Tbsp Golden Syrup
Marshmallows
Pecan Nuts
Sultanas
1 large pkt loosely broken Digestives
Maltesers gently crushed
White chocolate buttons
Additional white and chocolate

1. Melt Butter Golden Syrup, and Chocolate over a pot of simmering water
2. Mix in digesitives pecans, sultanas and maltesers.
3. Allow to cool and sprinkle white chocolate buttons, marshmallows
4. Melt and drizzle milk chocolate and then white chocolate
5. Chill and indulge

Microwave Smores

This was so decadent, trashy and sweet that although it's not technically baking, I felt obliged to share this 5 minute wonder. You could use butter biscuits or choc chip cookies instead of digestive biscuits.

2 Digestive Biscuits
Nutella
Mini Marshmallows

1. Spread Nutella on inside of two digestive biscuits. Sprinkle marshmallows on one biscuit and sandwich the two together.

2. Microwave for 30 seconds.

3. Enjoy!