Cola and Cherry Cookies

 

Baking is seriously good for my soul I think.  It had been nearly a month since I last got a chance (or the energy) to bake something and once I managed to get myself into the kitchen and under way with this bake it felt wonderful.  I have not felt so great in quite a while.  There has been a lot of serious de-motivation going on.  Very serious.  Which then leads to brooding and lack of doing anything.  Not good.  So!  Nothing like a baking challenge to get your groove back, even if just some of it.

Well, being the second Thursday of the month, it is time for the Behind the Curtain Dessert Challenge!  The ingredients: Cola and Cherry.

Okay, so this time it wasn't entirely new territory for me.  I have done something with cola before, but not cherry.  However, I remember it being a very popular combination.  A lot of the cola recipes I saw back when I did the Float Cupcakes were cola and cherry.  And of course it is a flavour sold by Coca-Cola.  So I was up for the task of creating something with the flavours.

Since I have made cola cakes previously, I did not feel like doing that again for this challenge.  I wanted to do biscuits!  But how to combine the two flavours?  Why, by making sandwich biscuits.  I decided I wanted to make something similar to my Pink Freens, with a layer of flavoured fondant icing sandwiched between two biscuits.  I knew flavouring icing with jam worked rather well so that would be the cherry bit.  The biscuits would then be cola flavoured.  And since these would be coming out close to Valentine's Day, I figured I could add a little holiday twist by punching a heart shaped hole in the top for the pink fondant to be seen through.

Having made a decision I went looking for ways to make cola cookies.  My initial thought was to find a sugar cookie recipe that I could add the cola flavouring to (either in the form of actual coca-cola, or cola syrup).  Really though, this was overcomplicating things.  I did find a few recipes that involved boiling cola down into a syrup for flavouring but a lot of them recommended using Mexican coke, which has cane sugar in it for its sweetener and I wasn't sure how to go about acquiring that.  Plus there seemed to be mixed reviews on just how cola flavoured the final result was.  Ideally, I wanted something that made use of the cola syrup I already had (though in the end I had to buy a new one anyway since it was out of date) and used a good quantity of it because last time I used it the flavour did not come through very strongly.  And that is exactly what I found over at Sweet Hope Cookies!  Even better was the fact that this dough would not require any chilling time!  I love dough I can use immediately.

It was an amazing dough!  It came together wonderfully after a little trial and error with ingredient amounts (since I was halving the recipe and some ingredient amounts did not halve very easily).  It wasn't too sticky or too dry, it rolled great and it cut great.  It barely spread during baking and the end result was a cookie bursting with cola flavour!  

The fondant bit took a little longer to get right as I wasn't sure how much jam I needed to make a really nice, cherry flavour.  So I kept having the fiancé test it until he was satisfied.  Really I think it depends on the quality of your jam and how strong you want the flavour.  So the instructions in the recipe are to keep going until you are happy with the taste.  Of course, if you have access to cherry extract it will probably make you life much easier.

All in all, I thought these came out really well!  The fiancé calls them indulgent because they are quite thick biscuits but are not too hard or too soft and do not skimp on the fondant.  Plus they taste like cherry cola, which is what I was aiming for.

Recipe - makes about 18


Cookies - adapted from Sweet Hope Cookies

• 400g/14oz plain flour
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 1/3 tsp baking powder
• 115g/4oz butter
• 85g/3oz granulated sugar
• 85g/3oz light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 60ml/2fl.oz cola syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line some baking trays with greaseproof paper (I ended up with about 5 lots of 8 cookies per tray but only own 2 trays of which I can cook one at a time so...tray number is up to you).
2. Sift the plain flour, salt and baking powder together into a bowl and set aside.
3. Beat the butter and sugars together until smooth and creamy.
4. Add the egg and mix in until incorporated.
5. Add the vanilla extract and the cola syrup and beat until well blended.
6. Add the flour mixture a little at a time, beating well after each addition.  Towards the end you may need to use your hands to bring it all together into a nice smooth dough.
7. Sprinkle a clean surface with a little flour and roll out the dough to 0.5cm/0.25inches thick.  Use a 6.5cm/2.5inch circular cookie cutter to cut out an even number of circles.
8. For half the circles, use a small, heart shaped cutter to cut shapes out of the centre.
9. Transfer cookies to the prepared trays and bake for about 12 minutes.  
10. Allow to cool on the trays before transferring to a wire rack.

Fondant Filling:  

• 200g/oz ready-to-roll fondant icing
• Smooth, seedless cherry jam
• Lots of icing sugar

This is a bit of a trial and error bit.  It really depends on your jam and if you are happy with the flavour.

1. Knead the icing on a clean surface dusted with icing sugar until it is nice and soft and easy to mould.
2. Put 2-3 tbsp jam into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring occasionally, until it has thickened.  Allow to cool slightly.
3. Flatten the icing out slightly, place the jam in the centre and add 2 tbsp icing sugar.
4. Fold up and knead to spread the jam throughout the icing.  Add more icing sugar if necessary to make the icing less sticky.  You want to get back to how it was before you added the jam.
5. Taste the icing.  If you think it needs more flavour, repeat steps 2-4 until you are happy with the result.
6. Roll out the fondant to just less than 0.5cm/0.25inches.  Cut out circles using a 6.5cm/2.5inch cutter.
7. Turn the biscuit circles without the holes in upside down. 
8. Place a fondant circle on top of each biscuit and then cover with a holed one.  Squeeze together gently to bind the cookies and icing so they do not fall apart.

 

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.

Chocolate and Orange Sandwich Biscuits

I appear to be in a biscuit mood this week.  I've just had an urge to make them.  First the Peek Freans, and now these.  I also seem to have developed a thing for sandwiches.  

These are for the fiancé and his friends.  Being in a biscuit mood, these were picked from the biscuit book and something that looked interesting but wasn't too experimental since it involved flavours that have proved popular before.  The biscuits themselves were very easy to make.  It was a good dough, which could be shaped easily.  Really, the hardest part with making the biscuits was finely chopping 100g of dark chocolate.  That was surprisingly tiring.  They also took a while to bake as I had to do it in four batches.

The cream was also fairly easy, though somehow mine ended up being quite runny, which meant when I first tried to use it, it just spilt over the sides of the biscuits.  I had to put it in the fridge to firm up before it worked properly.  I also decided to colour mine, because whilst Milky Bar white chocolate is divine tasting, it turned the cream a rather horrible colour, rather than the nice white look it has in the book.  So I thought making it orange would be more appealing.  It went well with the dark biscuits at least.

I did lose a couple of biscuits, which was shame.  The bottoms of the first batch burnt due to leaving them on the tray to cool like the book suggested (hence I didn't do it with the other three batches) and in trying to remove the burnt part, one cookie crumbled to pieces.  I should have let it cool a bit more so it wasn't as soft.  The other escaped during the filling stage and ended up on the floor.  It was quite annoying.

The tasters' verdict was that they were absolutely delicious.  The filling went really well with the biscuits and they were all gobbled up.  

Recipe - adapted from Cookie Jar

Makes about 15

Biscuits:

• 225g/8oz butter
• 140g/5oz caster sugar
• 2 tsp orange extract
• 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 250g/9oz plain flour
• 25g/1oz cocoa powder
• Pinch of salt
• 100g/3.5oz plain chocolate, finely chopped

Filling:

• 125ml/4fl.oz double cream
• 200g/7oz white chocolate
• 1 tsp orange extract
• Orange food colouring (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line 2-4 baking trays with greaseproof paper (it depends on the size of your oven and thus the size of your trays).
2. Mix the butter, sugar and orange extract in a large bowl.
3. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla extract.
4. Sift together the flour and cocoa and salt, and add to the mix, followed by the finely chopped dark chocolate and stir until well combined.  You should get quite a thick paste.
5. Scoop out tablespoons of dough and roll into balls.  Flatten each ball slightly and place on the trays, spacing about 1 inch apart.  They don't spread too much in the oven.  You want about 30 biscuits, or at least an even number. (I only managed 28).
6. Bake for about 10-15 minutes.  They will still be slightly soft when they come out but will firm up as they cool.  Transfer them to a wire rack to do this.
7. Make the filling by bringing the cream to a boil in a small saucepan and then removing from the heat.
8. Add the chocolate, stirring until it has melted and the mixture is smooth.
9. Add the orange extract, and food colouring if using, and stir in.
10. Allow mixture to cool completely before using.  If very runny after this point, put in the fridge for about 20 minutes to firm up.
11. Put a dollop of filling in the middle of the underside of one biscuit.  Don't fill all the way to the edge because it will spill out when you make the sandwich.  Top with another, squeezing them together gently to spread the filling out.  Repeat until all biscuits are filled.