Tuesday 2 October 2012

Salted Caramel Stuffed Cookies


So.. these have been a work in progress for 3 nights. 

By which I means this is attempt #3 and I had to surrender to follow a recipe - as opposed to trying to alter and combine two different (because I'm awkward).




  What I'd been aiming for was chocolate chip (rather than just chocolate), but huh, I won't show you what happened. You can imagine it. Everyone has a few disasters (or non-workers) every so often and my success rate was going alright so I suppose it was about time something Went Wrong. I mean, the flavours for attempts 1 & 2 have been fine, but the end result looked a lot more like a puddle than a cookie. Or a cow-pat as my dad affectionately called them.

Not what I had in mind.








Mum said she was impressed with my determination, but I think it's more stubbornness and refusal to be beaten by cookies of all things. The trick certainly seems to be a very soft batter and not using too much caramel for the innards or it tends to leak/explode. Incidentally these are not the neatest of things to assemble, so if you like to try and keep clean hands then..well.
I think attempt #4 will be on the cards tonight, or perhaps another, because again with the whole stubbornness issue, I have an idea of how I want these to be and I'm not going to admit defeat just yet.








And yes I did even make my own salted caramel.


Recipe from Pastry Affair



Monday 1 October 2012

Selkirk Bannock (almost)





One day I'll manage to get hold of some old boards, nice plates and cutlery for these photos. It's a bit off-putting when all you have is a few odds and ends you have to somehow arranged in a square foot or so on a counter.
Anyway.

Selkirk Bannock is a traditional Scottish bread made with a lot of raisins, similar to or sometimes compared to fruitcake. I say that this is almost Selkirk Bannock because we didn't have many raisins and the only sultanas I found probably needed to be chucked out sometime last year, so this was made with fruit mix. So really it's more like a yeast fruit cake.
It's a really delicious, comforting bake, beautiful with butter (and perhaps turned into toast. I'm not sure on the traditions of serving it if I'm honest). Again this was something else I made for my mum, who's remarkably fond of her fruit cake, fruit loaf, and all things bread and raisin-y. It went down very well too.

                     
Recipe as follows (again from BBC GoodFood):

7g fast-action yeast
1 tsp caster sugar
500g strong white flour
140g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
450g sultanas/raisins
50g brown sugar

milk for glazing