Raspberry and White Chocolate Ghost Biscuits

Despite the fact that I have very little time for baking at the moment, I really wanted to try and make at least one thing that was Hallowe'en themed.  I mean, I do like getting extra creative for the season, but this had an added bonus of meaning I would have something to offer any Guisers (trick-or-treakers) who came a knocking at our door (which they did).

October has become a bit of a month for biscuits it seems, since 3 of the 4 bakes I have done this month have been exactly that.  I love making biscuits.  They are usually quite easy and reasonably quick and often very yummy.  They are one of my favourite things to bake.  So it was nice to round out the month with something I like baking.

The idea for these was sparked by something I saw on the vast sea of the Internet that said a tulip cutter could be used to make ghost shaped biscuits.  Well, once I read that I knew I was going to have to try that out for Hallowe'en, especially since I had a tulip cutter sitting in my cutter drawer.  I didn't want to do a sugar biscuit or shortbread or anything I had made before though.  Yet I needed a dough that I could roll out and cut shapes from.  It was then I thought of the Fruity Teddies biscuits that were in one of my baking magazines. I have made the recipe before using bananas but this time I figured I would try a different fruit: raspberries.  After all, the fiancé likes raspberries.  White chocolate was then the obvious accompaniment to decorate with as not only does it go well with raspberries, it is also the perfect colour for ghosts!

They ended up being very successful.  The raspberry flavour is subtle for the most part, though apparently "spikes" at points in a really good way.  They are a lovely, thick biscuit and the white chocolate did indeed make for a good companion.  And they are moreish.  So very moreish, and that's always a good thing.

And as an added (non-baking) bonus, I carved my first ever pumpkin this year.  I think I did rather well for my first attempt.

Recipe - adapted from Biscuit via Baking Heaven volume 2

Makes about 25 

• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 100g/3.5oz golden caster sugar
• 100g/3.5oz raspberries
• 200g/7oz plain flour
• 200g/7oz white chocolate
• Black writing icing

1. Wash and dry the raspberries.
2. Place a thin mesh sieve over a bowl and press the raspberries through it until only the seeds remain.
3. Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth and creamy.  
4. Add the raspberry purée and mix.  If it starts to curdle, add a spoonful of the flour.
5. Add the remaining flour to the mixture.  Beat together until a soft, sticky dough forms.
6. Form dough into a rough ball and wrap in clingfilm.  Chill in the fridge for about 2 hours.
7. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-4 baking trays (I only own 2 but ended up doing 4 batches) with greaseproof paper.
8. On a clean, floured surface roll the dough out to 5mm/0.25inches thick.  Use a tulip cutter to cut out shapes and place them on the trays.
9. Bake for about 17 minutes or until the edges of the biscuits are golden brown.  
10. Allow to rest on the trays for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling. 
11. Melt the white chocolate in a glass bowl placed over a pan of gently simmering water (make sure the water does not touch the bowl).
12. Dip the top side of the biscuits in the melted chocolate and shake off the excess.
13. Allow the chocolate to set and then draw faces on each one with the black writing icing.

Cookie in Cookie Cookies

Oooooh, I've only been on placement for one day, after a lovely two week holiday, and am already exhausted!  And it's not like I've even started teaching yet!  This is an observation week with some group work thrown in.  The real hard work doesn't start until next week!  I do not know how I will cope.

Anyway, I knew it was going to be a lot of work so I made the most of my holiday and did practically nothing school related.  The fiancé and I did get the registrar booked for my wedding, and talk to hotel about the menu for the wedding breakfast.  We also took some pictures so we can get save the date cards made up and sent out (though that's still in process) and spent an entire week playing lots of Pokémon.  And then last Saturday I took a merry jaunt up to Perth to have lunch and go shopping with my best friend Jess!  Yay!

So, as has become the tradition, I baked her something.  Cookies!  Cookie within cookie cookies!  They are part chocolate chip cookie and part chocolate sugar cookie.  They are of the soft variety of cookie and ever so delicious.

The chocolate chip cookie part is adapted from one of my previous cookie recipes.  I swapped out the icing sugar for golden caster sugar and upped the amount of vanilla used.  The chocolate sugar cookies come from Smitten Kitchen, and are a very popular recipe indeed as they have cropped up on many a food blog.  It's not hard to see why though.  It is a fabulous recipe.  I did substitute in golden caster sugar for the brown sugar and due to only having large UK eggs (which are bigger than large US) meant my dough probably ended up stickier than it should have been, despite me adding a little extra flour.  However, they still turned out really well.  I did make sure to alter the recipe in the write-up to specify a medium egg though.

I was really pleased with the final result.  They looked rather cool and they are very, very yummy!  Jess definitely seems to like them, which is obviously the best thing for me to hear because I made them especially for her. 

Recipe - makes about 30

Chocolate Chip Cookie:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp water
• 75g/2.5oz butter
• 45g/1.5oz golden caster sugar
• 155g/5.5oz plain flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 60g/2oz chocolate chips

1. Mix the egg yolk, vanilla extract and water together in a jug.
2. In a large bowl, blend together the sugar and butter until it is pale and fluffy.
3. Add the egg mixture to the sugar butter a little at a time, mixing in after each addition.
4. Sift in the flour, salt and baking powder, add the chocolate chips and stir together until just incorporated.  You should end up with a somewhat soft and sticky dough.
5. Roll into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least an hour (mine was in there for about 6 hours).

Chocolate Cookie - adapted from Smitten Kitchen:

• 115g/4oz butter
• 155g/5.5oz golden caster sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 30g/1oz cocoa powder
• 185g/6.5oz plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

1. Mix the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and cocoa powder together in a bowl until well combined.
2. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Add the flour to the batter a little at a time and beat in until you end up with a smooth and sticky dough.
4. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least an hour (this one was also chilled for 6 hours when I did it).

Assembly:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2. Lightly flour a clean surface and rolling pin. 
3. Remove one of the doughs from the fridge and roll it out to 1cm/0.25inch thick and cut out circles using a 5.5cm/2inch.  Wrap leftover dough back in the clingfilm and put back in the fridge.
4. Remove the other dough and repeat step 3.
5. Now use a 4cm/1.5inch cutter to cut circles out of the centre of each of the bigger circles.  Now you should have a set of rings and a set of circles in both types of dough.
6. Press the centres of one dough inside the rings of the other dough, and vice versa.
7. Place on prepared baking trays, spaced about 2.5cm/1inch apart as they do puff out.
8. Repeat steps 3 to 7 until all the dough is used.
9. Bake for 10-11 minutes, until the edges are firm but the centres are still soft.
10. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Pumpkin Sandwich Cakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Filling

It's the second Thursday of the month so it's time for the Lady Behind the Curtain Dessert Challenge.  This month's ingredients were pumpkin and cream cheese.

Well, I was seriously considering not taking part this month.  I had no experience with either of the ingredients and had no idea what I would make and who would be willing to eat it.  Pumpkin seems to be a very American thing to bake with and is not very common over here in the UK (from what I've experienced anyway).  You can't get it in canned form in the supermarket, only in fruit form, and I really didn't feel like trying to scrape out the filling from one of those.  However, leave it to Pinterest to start giving me inspiration.  Just opening up the Food and Drink section started yielding several different pumpkin recipes as early as the start of September.  Clearly the stuff is even more popular over in the states than I initially thought.  But with so many options just staring me in the face I decided I would have to give something a go.  As to who would eat it, I figured if I could get them made before the autumn half term started, I could give whatever I made to the lovely ladies at Markinch Primary School via the fiancé's mum.

I originally planned to make pumpkin fudge because it sounded really interesting to do.   Plus I want to try making more confectionery. However, I attempted it three times and all three times I failed.  The first batch burnt; the second seemed to be working until I added the final ingredient and it turned into this crumbly powder; and the final batch, whilst better than the other two, just didn't have the texture of fudge.  It was rather disappointing and I ended up with saucepans with burnt, failed fudge adhered to their bases.  It took several days to clean them all completely, which made dinner tricky since we only own 3 large-ish pots.  Really I've been needing a proper, heavy based pot for confectionery making.  Good thing I got to go to Ikea at the weekend and acquire a lovely cast iron casserole pan for half the cost one that size would usually cost then.  I cannot wait to test it out.

Sorry, I got a little sidetracked there.  So I scrapped the fudge idea and went looking for something else I could do.  I liked the idea of biscuits but I like to make crunchy biscuits and adding wet pumpkin to it would likely not yield such a thing.  Then it hit me: whoopie pies!  They seem to get classed as biscuits (or a 'cakey cookie') but I'm leaning more on the side that they are cakes.  Cookies are not cakey.  Cake is cakey!  Hence why I've called these sandwich cakes, despite the recipe I was using referring to them as cookies.

After the fudge disasters, this recipe ended up being really simple.  I ended up getting canned pumpkin from a seller on Amazon (who provide excellent service by the way).  The batter turned out nicely though it was a bit of a pain to get onto the trays.  I went to the trouble of smoothing them all over to make sure they came out nice and even on top, since reviews in the original recipe had complained of lumpiness.  I also made a decision to try and make them look pumpkin-like.  It was a complete experiment and I did not know if it would work.  I tested one by drawing the lines into the uncooked mixture first, putting in a clove stalk and then baking.  That worked okay but making the lines was quite fiddly.  So then I tried drawing them in after by running the sharp end of a skewer through the top just after they came out the oven.  It also worked but looked quite messy.  Finally I realised that since they were still quite soft when they came out the oven, I could just press the skewer into the top to make the pattern.  It worked really well and with the little clove stalks they made quite adorable pumpkins.

As for the filling, cream cheese was very easy to work with and pipes really nicely.  I ended up with double the amount I needed though.  Maybe the baker of the original recipe is just really generous with their filling?  Ah well, I saved the leftovers and used it in another batch later in the week since I needed to use up the remaining pumpkin too.

These went down really well with everyone who tried them.  I admit I was surprised since it is a bit of an out-there flavour combination but I guess the fact that it is so unbelievably popular in America should have tipped me off. 

Recipe - adapted from Land O' Lakes

Makes about 18

Cakes:

• 280g/10oz plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• Whole cloves
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 200g/7oz light brown sugar
• 170g/6oz canned pumpkin
• 60ml/2fl.oz milk
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Orange food gel (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2. Remove the buds from the whole cloves, setting the stalks aside, and then crush the buds.  You want make about 1/8 teaspoon of crushed cloves.
3. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, crushed cloves, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
4. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.
5. Add in the pumpkin, milk, egg and vanilla extract and beat together until well mixed.
6. Add the flour mixture, and food gel if using, and beat until smooth.
7. Drop level tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto the trays, spaced well apart.  Try and have an even number on each tray.  Use a spoon to make sure the dough is shaped into a neat circular mound.  Use a wet finger to smooth over the tops of each mound.
8. Bake for 9-10 minutes until set (a skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean).  I would recommend baking them one tray at a time since you have to do the 'decoration' straight from the oven and if they cool too much it won't work.
9. Immediately after removing a tray from the oven, use the side of a bamboo skewer to press eight lines that point towards the centre into the top of each of the cakes.  Place a clove stalk into the centre top of half of them.
10. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Filling: 

• 200g/7oz cream cheese (I used Philadelphia)
• 30g/1oz butter
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tbsp milk
• 600g/21oz icing sugar, plus extra for dusting

1. Combine the cream cheese, butter, cinnamon, vanilla extract and milk in a bowl and beat until the mixture is well combined and smooth.
2. Add a the icing sugar in four parts, beating well after each addition until it is nice and creamy.
3. Spoon the filling into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe generous swirl on the underside of the cakes that do not have stalks in.
4. Top each one with a stalked top piece.
5. Dust with icing sugar.

Lemon Sandwich Cookies

So baking has been quite lax of late due to being completely swamped with work from university.  There's barely time for anything other than work and if I'm not working, I'm crashed on the sofa from exhaustion.  Goodness knows what I'll be like when I'm on my first school placement in a couple of weeks.  Okay, there were some baking exploits over the last couple of weekends, but those are for the Dessert Challenge so you'll have to wait until Thursday for details on that.

Anyway, I came home on Friday, relieved that I now have a two week holiday (although there will still be lots of work to get done) and decided I needed to bake something quick and yummy.  Obviously it was going to be biscuits, because I love biscuits, and they would be lemon sandwich biscuits.  The original recipe is for vanilla and raspberry filled biscuits (which are quite fantastic) but I wanted to make them lemon because, as some of you may know by now, the fiancé and I love lemony things.

Well, they are certainly yummy but they took a little longer than planned to make.  My dough was not quite as soft as it should have been.  I didn't let my butter soften first and I burst three disposable bags in the process of piping them out onto trays.  Silly me.  Other than that though, they were very simple to do, and ended up being quite pretty.  Plus yummy.  Very yummy, even if they are a little delicate.  The biscuit and filling go really well together and they melt in your mouth.

Recipe - Makes about 15

Biscuits - adapted from The Great British Bake Off: How to Bake:

• 250g/8oz softened butter (very important for getting a soft dough)
• 60g/2oz icing sugar
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 200g/7oz plain flour
• 60g/2oz cornflour

1. Line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2. Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl and beat in the butter until smooth and creamy.
3. Add the lemon extract and mix.
4. Sift the plain flour and cornflour together into the bowl and beat the mixture until it is smooth and of a pipe-able consistency.
5. Fit a strong piping bag with a large, closed star nozzle and spoon in the dough.
6. Pipe spirals onto the prepared trays, starting in the middle of the spiral and working outwards until it is 5cm/2inches in diameter.
7. Chill in the fridge for 15-20 minutes to firm up and in the mean time, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
8. Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes or until the edges just start to brown. 
9. Let the sit on the tray for about 3 minutes before carefully transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Filling: 

• 115g/4oz butter
• 250g/8oz icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tsp milk

1. Put all the ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
2. Transfer into a piping bag fitted with a large, open star nozzle.
3. Pipe swirls of buttercream onto the underside of half the biscuits.
4. Top each frosted biscuit with another, unfrosted biscuit to create a sandwich.
5. Dust with icing sugar.