Tag: cookies

Cakes & Bakes: Fig & pecan cookies

Home-made fig & pecan cookies

Justin is quite a porridge maestro and makes it often, particularly in the cold winter months. He has a variety of ingredients that he turns to – nuts & dried fruits, in particular. One favoured combination that we’ve had a few times recently is fig and pecan which works really well. It got me thinking about whether this delicious blend would make good cookies… I couldn’t see why not.

Cookie dough in a mixing bowl and roughly chopped figs & pecans on a wooden chopping board

So I rustled up a cookie dough and folded in the aforementioned ingredients. I then dropped spoonfuls on to the prepared baking tray; if you like your cookies to look a little less rustic, you can roll portions between the palms of your hands to form balls. Don’t forget to flatten them with your fingers or the back of a spoon.

Flattened spoonfuls of cookie dough on a lined baking sheet

The cookies are like fig rolls… only better! They’re certainly going to be making a regular appearance in our biscuit tin!

Cooked fig & pecan cookies cooling on a wire rack

Click here or on the image below to save my fig & pecan cookie recipe to Pinterest

Fig & pecan cookies recipe

Home-made fig & pecan cookies

Fig & pecan cookies

Print recipe Pin recipe
Cook Time 12 minutes
Servings 16 cookies

Equipment

  • large mixing bowl
  • wire whisk
  • rubber spatula
  • baking sheet

Ingredients
  

  • 150 g butter softened
  • 85 g demerara sugar
  • 1 medium egg
  • 150 g plain flour
  • 50 g pecans roughly chopped
  • 100 g soft figs roughly chopped

Instructions
 

  • Preheat your oven to 200ºC/400ºF/Gas mark 6
  • Grease & line a large baking sheet with parchment paper
  • In a large mixing bowl and using a wire whisk, cream together the softened butter and demerara sugar
  • Add the egg and whisk until fully incorporated
  • Sift over the flour and fold in using a rubber spatula
  • Stir in the chopped figs and chopped pecans until they are distributed evenly through the cookie dough
  • Using a tablespoon, drop spoonfuls (about 40 grams each) onto the prepared baking sheet. Leave a couple of centimetres between each as the dough spreads a little
  • Flatten each with the back of a spoon. You can wet the spoon prior to avoid the dough sticking to it
  • Sprinkle the top of each with a little granulated sugar to give them a bit of a crunch
  • Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the cookies begin to brown around the edges
  • Allow the cooked cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack
  • Repeat stages 7-11 until all the cookie dough has been used
Fig & pecan cookies ingredients
Keyword biscuits, cookies, figs, pecans

Cakes & Bakes: Double chocolate Vietnamese coffee cookies

Double chocolate Vietnamese coffee cookies

This recipe for double chocolate Vietnamese coffee cookies comes from a brand new cook book by James Beard Award nominee, Jason Licker, entitled Baking With Licker: Home Baking With Asian Accents.

One of the things that drew me to the recipe – on top of the fact it contains 2 types of chocolate and strong coffee – was the way the recipe ingredients are all given in grams. So many American recipes use cups; what’s a cup of butter or a cup of peanut butter? It can be a messy and inaccurate method of measurement.

Dry ingredients Eggs, sugar and butter

Saying that, the grams were also my downfall in the making of the cookies. I decided that 30 grams of egg coresponded to 3 eggs – so that’s how many I used. In fact, it’s one, medium-size egg!

That’s why, after chilling the cookie dough in the fridge for many an hour, there was no way I’d be able to roll 50g chunks (more like ‘blobs’) between my palms! Nevertheless, other than spreading a WHOLE lot on the baking sheet, they were absolutely delicious.

Tray of double chocolate Vietnamese coffee cookie dough portions

Vietnam is currently the largest producer of Robusta coffee and the second largest producer of coffee in the world. The coffee produced in the country is rich roast with chocolaty tones – so perfect for teaming with dark and white chocolate. If you can’t find it, full-bodied espresso beans will be a good swap; just set your coffee grinder to the finest setting.

Click here or on the image below to save this double chocolate Vietnamese coffee cookies recipe to Pinterest

Double chocolate Vietnamese coffee cookies recipe

Double chocolate Vietnamese coffee cookies
Yields 12
Cook Time
15 min
Cook Time
15 min
Ingredients
  1. 65g/2⅓oz butter
  2. 100g/3½oz sugar
  3. 110g/3⅔oz dark brown sugar
  4. 50g/1¾oz egg (1 medium egg)
  5. 3g/½tsp bicarbonate of soda
  6. 2.5g/½tsp salt
  7. 40g cocoa powder
  8. 115g plain flour
  9. 5g Vietnamese coffee, ground into a fine powder (I used finely ground Espresso beans)
  10. 125g white chocolateDouble chocolate Vietnamese coffee cookies
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Instructions
  1. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar and brown sugar for 10 minutes until the mixture is light and creamy. Every few minutes, use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure a uniform mixture
  2. Add the eggs into the butter and sugar mixture in three increments. Once again, scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure a uniform mixture
  3. Add the bicarbonate of soda,salt, cocoa powder, plain flour and Vietnamese coffee slowly, so that you gradually incorporate these dry ingredients until they are just combined into the mixture. Finally, scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure a uniform mixture
  4. Mix in the white chocolate chips and then remove the cookie dough from the stand mixer. Place the dough in a medium-size bowl and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight
  5. Preheat the oven to 185ºC/365ºF/Gas mark 5
  6. When you are ready to bake, weigh out 50g chunks of dough and roll them into balls. Place them on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and make sure you leave some room for the cookies to spread out. Push the balls down with your palm evenly until they are half the original height of the balls
  7. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Half way through, turn the tray from back to front so they are evenly baked. You will know the cookies are done when the edges are set, but the centre is still soft
  8. Remove the cookies from the oven and either transfer to a wire rack or allow them to completely cool on the cookie sheet
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Adapted from Baking With Licker: Home Baking With Asian Accents
Adapted from Baking With Licker: Home Baking With Asian Accents
H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: White chocolate & hazelnut malt cookies

White chocolate & hazelnut malt cookies

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve been venturing back into Aberystwyth to pop to the shops. We visited Ty Coed Treehouse in their brand new home opposite the town’s train station. It’s the kind of shop where you can pick up ingredients that you don’t always find in a supermarket.

malt, sugar and butter in a mixing bowl Adding dry ingredients to cookie mixture

I’ve been looking for malt extract for a while, and they had it in stock. I’ve used it to make Paul Hollywood’s malt loaf in the past, but this time, I’ve made a batch of white chocolate & hazelnut malt cookies.

Chopped white chocolate and hazelnuts with cookie mixture White chocolate & hazelnut malt cookie dough on a baking sheet

In the early 20th century, when sweets weren’t as ubiquitous as they are now, children would eat spoonfuls of malt extract. Malt extract was used as a nutritional supplement given alongside cod liver oil… it probably helped to mask the awfulness!

White chocolate & hazelnut malt cookies

The cookies were lovely, with that particular taste reminiscent of Ovaltine and those childhood malt biscuits with cows stamped on the front. The white chocolate and hazelnuts go really well – as would milk chocolate with pecans or dark chocolate with Brazil nuts.

Click here or on the image below to save the recipe to Pinterest

White chocolate & hazelnut malt cookies recipe

White chocolate & hazelnut malt cookies
Yields 24
Cook Time
18 min
Cook Time
18 min
Ingredients
  1. 125g/4½oz butter, softened
  2. 115g/4oz malt extract
  3. 55g/2oz soft brown sugar
  4. 1 large egg
  5. 300g/10½oz self-raising flour
  6. 100g/3½oz white chocolate, roughly chopped
  7. 140g/5oz hazelnuts, roughly choppedWhite chocolate & hazelnut malt cookies ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/350ºF/Gas mark 4
  2. Line two oven trays with parchment paper
  3. Process the butter, malt extract, sugar and egg in a food processor until well combined
  4. Add the flour and pulse until just combined
  5. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and stir in the chopped chocolate and hazelnuts
  6. Roll tablespoons of the dough into balls and place on prepared trays about 4cm apart
  7. Flatten balls to about 1 cm thick and bake for 15-18 minutes until golden
  8. Cool on trays for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely
Notes
  1. Store in an airtight container for up to a week
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Adapted from Saunder's Malt Extract
Adapted from Saunder's Malt Extract
H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Oat biscuits

Home-made oat biscuits with mug of tea

Ahhh, tea and biscuits – one of life’s little pleasures… and an important one here at H is for Home headquarters!

Mixing oat biscuit dough

And home-made biscuits, fresh from the oven, can take the enjoyment up a further notch or two. Justin requested a few for this week’s Cakes & Bakes offering, so I reached for this little tome from my cookery book collection. Favourite Biscuit Recipes offered up these lovely oat biscuits with soft brown sugar.

Cutting out oat biscuit rounds

As with many home-made biscuits, recipe and method was pretty straightforward – and I knocked up this batch of 24 in less than an hour. The recipe says it makes 36 – however, my biscuit cutter is a tad larger than the 2 inch recommended.

They’re not fancy – just good, honest, rustic biscuits. I might reduce the bicarb of soda a touch when I next make them as I found the taste coming through a bit. However, they’re still delicious and should last us a few days… absolutely perfect with that aforementioned brew!

Cooked oat biscuits cooling on a wire rack

Click here or on the image below to save the oat biscuits recipe to Pinterest

Oat biscuits recipe

Oat biscuits
Yields 36
Cook Time
20 min
Cook Time
20 min
Ingredients
  1. 115g/4oz butter
  2. 115g/4oz brown sugar
  3. 170g/6oz rolled oats
  4. 170g/6oz flour
  5. 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  6. 2 tbsps milkOat biscuits ingredients
Add ingredients to shopping list
If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it
Instructions
  1. Set oven to 150ºC/300ºF/Gas mark 2
  2. Grease/line baking sheets
  3. Cream the butter and the sugar together in a bowl
  4. Mix in ther oats and sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda together into the mixture and mix thoroughly
  5. Add sufficient milk to form the mixture into a stiffish dough
  6. Turn out on to a floured surface, roll out the dough thinly and cut into rounds with a 5cm/2-inch cutter
  7. Put on to the greased baking sheets and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until golden brown
  8. Transfer to a wire rack to cool
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Adapted from Favourite Biscuit Recipes
Adapted from Favourite Biscuit Recipes
H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/