Christmassy Goodness

In the spirit of Christmas I made some delicious and moreish dark chocolate chip cookies for my family and office colleagues which went down a treat.  I made the chocolate chips myself - tips on how to do this are in my handy hints at the end of the recipe.


Prep: 10 minutes | Bake: 15-20 minutes

You will need

250g Plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda
200g butter, melted
200g soft dark brown sugar
50g caster sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
200g of good quality dark chocolate

Let's get baking

1. Preheat oven to 170 C / Gas mark 3.

2. Grease Baking trays or line with parchment.

3. Sift together flour and bicarbonate of soda and set aside

4. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and caster sugar until well blended.  Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. 

5. Drop cookie dough onto the pre - prepared baking trays with each cookie around 4 tablespoons of dough (for smaller cookies just one rounded tablespoon and adjust baking time as necessary)  Do not flatten the dough and the cookies should be around 8 cm apart.

6. Bake for about 15-17 minutes or until the edges are lightly toasted.  Cool on baking trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely. (The recipe was adapted from allrecipes.co.uk)

The batch makes about 18 cookies - I made two batches to make sure there was enough for everyone!

Handy Hint - I'm not a fan of pre prepared chocolate chips as I think they are too small.  What I tend to do is get a full bar of chocolate tie it in a food bag then attack it with a rolling pin. As well as releasing tension or stress it's a good way to get some decent sized cookie chips. ;-)

Handy Hint - You may not want to use brown sugar and I am sure caster sugar would work just as well.  You may also want to adjust the amount of sugar depending on how sweet you want your cookies to be.

She Wore Blue Velvet

My office held a charity bake off for Fairbridge – a charity which supports young people aged 13 - 25.  Fairbridge gives them the motivation, confidence and skills they need to overcome issues such as drug and alcohol misuse.  The aim of the bake off was to bake a cake which somehow represented the work that we do.  I, working closely on all things Europe related, decided to bake an EU flag blue velvet cake.  My cake came third but was beaten by an incredible gingerbread house and an energy efficiency ratings themed orange and lemon gluten free cake.  We raised £300 in half an hour-amazing!!

Here are the photos of some of the cakes on display and the recipe for my blue masterpiece. ;-)

 Blue Velvet Cake  - Serves: 12

       You will need

·       250g butter (salted), softened

·       400g caster sugar

·       6 medium eggs

·       2 tablespoons blue food colouring (add more if necessary)

·       3 tablespoons best quality cocoa powder

·       375g plain flour

·       250ml buttermilk

·       1 teaspoon vanilla extract

·       1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

·       1 tablespoon vinegar

      Icing
 

·       Pre-prepared baby blue sugar paste from cakeaway

·       Gold stars from cakewa


     Filling

·       250g butter, softened

·       200g icing sugar

  

Preparation method

 

Prep: 45 mins | Bake: 25 mins or until a skewer comes out clean

1.      Preheat oven to 170 C / Gas mark 3. Grease and flour three 20cm tins. 
 

2.      In a large bowl, cream 250g butter with sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

3.      Mix Cocoa and Bicarbonate of soda with flour

4.      Add flour alternately with buttermilk.

5.      Add vanilla.

6.      Add vinegar to mixture and gently stir into mixture. Be careful not to over mix.

7.      Divide cake mixture into three prepared tins. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. Allow to cool.

To make the butter cream, cream the butter and icing sugar together to make a smooth paste then use to fill and ice the cake.
Roll out the sugar paste so that it is large enough to cover the cake.  Once the cake is covered and you cut away the excess decorate with the gold stars

*Handy Tip: lightly dust the rolling pin and surface with flour to prevent sticking.

*Handy Tip2: use water to stick the stars onto the cake.