Monthly Archives: March 2014

Caramel and Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Posted on by

biscuits

 
Ingredients
225g salted butter, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tin of caramel
100g milk chocolate

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 160C/fan oven 140C.
2. In a large bowl, mix the flour and sugar together.
3. Using a food processor OR your hands, cut in the butter until the ingredients are well mixed and
the mixture can hold together when you squeeze it in your fist. Using a mixer (or your food
processor if that’s what your butter mixture is in), mix in the egg until a soft dough forms.
4. Roll the dough into roughly 1 1/2 inch balls and place on nonstick baking sheets about 2 inches
apart. Using the bottom of a glass dipped in flour, flatten cookies to about 1/4 inch thick. Bake for
about 20 minutes or until edges are just barely golden. Remove from oven and let cool on sheets
for a couple minutes before removing to rack to cool completely.
5. Spoon caramel onto the center of each cookie and
spread, stopping just short of the edges. Let set a few minutes.
6. Melt chocolate an carefully dip each cookie by placing it in the
chocolate, caramel side up and spooning melted chocolate over the top. Scoop cookie out
with a fork, allowing excess chocolate to drip off. Place coated cookies on parchment paper until chocolate has set.

Notes
Makes about 2 dozen large cookies

Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts

Posted on by

donought

 

Doughnuts

  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups pumpkin purée (canned pumpkin)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, or 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon plus heaping 1/4 teaspoon each ground nutmeg and ground ginger
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons plain flour

Coating

Directions

1) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two standard doughnut pans. If you don’t have doughnut pans, you can bake these in a standard muffin tin; they just won’t be doughnuts.
2) Beat together the oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, spices, salt, and baking powder until smooth.
3) Add the flour, stirring just until smooth.
4) Fill the wells of the doughnut pans about 3/4 full; use a scant 1/4 cup of batter in each well. If you’re making muffins, fill each well about 3/4 full; the recipe makes about 15, so you’ll need to bake in two batches (unless you have two muffin pans).
5) Bake the doughnuts for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. If you’re making muffins, they’ll need to bake for 23 to 25 minutes.
6) Remove the doughnuts from the oven, and after about 5 minutes, loosen their edges, and transfer them to a rack to cool.
7) While the doughnuts are still warm (but no longer fragile), gently shake them in a bag with the cinnamon-sugar. If you’ve made muffins, sprinkle their tops heavily with cinnamon-sugar.
8) Cool completely, and store (not wrapped tight) at room temperature for several days.
Yield: 12 doughnuts or 15 muffins.