Peanut butter gluten free cookies - yum!

Man cannot live by bread alone; he must have peanut butter.

James A. Garfield

My lovely fiancé is seeming to get worse with his (what was a slight) gluten intolerance and of course this bothers me...who else do I subject to testing new inventions?!

Now I have to invent new gluten-free versions of recipes! Woohoo a genuine excuse to bake? I'm all over it.

So my first go at this is peanut butter cookies.

I hope you enjoy these as much as he seemed to!

Ingredients:

2 cups of peanut butter (smooth or crunchy - your choice)
1 cup of dark brown sugar
1 cup of caster sugar
1/2 chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to about 150c

2. Beat the peanut butter with a wooden spoon until it softens up some more and gets a bit creamier

3. Add the dark brown sugar and cream it with the peanut butter

4. Now add the caster sugar in bits, creaming as you go.

5. Finally, add your chocolate chips and you're done!

6. Bake on a grease proof paper lined baking tray for about 10 minutes or until golden brown

7. Let the cookies cool a bit on the grease proof paper and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely

8. Store in an air tight container and (if they're not all eaten at once) they should last 5 days

Note: They will spread quite a bit during baking so give a lot of space around them!



Enjoy and let me see your versions of these.

Happy baking!

Dieting starts again tomorrow

Where's the place to put your refrigerator so it causes most problems while still being useful? Right next to the sofa

me

I should probably explain the above 'quote' (if you can call it that).

When we moved, we found a gorgeous 1 bedroom apartment here. Nice flowing layout to it - i.e the kitchen/dining room is sort of attached to the living room.

Originally, our sofa wasn't too near the kitchen but my fiancé wasn't happy with it and kept moving things around (as he always does) until he felt everything was perfect. Now, I love this quality about him, I truly do, but this time there was a slight error in judgement on his part - the fridge is now next to our sofa - where I sit to write this blog a lot of the time!

This would be fine and is fine most of the time if it wasn't for those moments of craving a cigarette, so you reach for the grapes instead and this sometimes works for me totally but sometimes grapes aren't...naughty enough and that's when the fridge is dangerous. You don't have to walk far or even get up to delve into its shelves and splurge out on those last 5 cookies you were saving, that giant green apple or even some of that cookie dough that's yet to be cooked! Agh!!!

I think I should also clarify the other reasons to diet.

I'm not fat and haven't really ever been big, usually weighing in around 56/57kg (and I'm tallish - yep I'm truly lucky, or at least I WAS). however, since moving to such a hot climate AND quitting smoking my metabolism has slowed so badly that I've gain 11kgs in 5 months and I hate it.
I haven't really been over eating all the time we've been here but I admit I have my moments like anyone, and usually it doesn't make a difference, but here, it's like the gravity has been increased and everything contains more calories and fats or something! It's too hot to do any real vigorous exercise so all I get to do is a hour power walk in the early morning and some exercises in front of the air con after that which isn't really enough to get rid of the weight and kick start my metabolism again. So this is why the diet.

I lost 3kgs with the first go at it, have had my recommended break and now I need to go back on it if I want to lose at least a good deal of this weight before going on my holiday back to the U.K.

Now you see the full problem of having our fridge near my comfy blogging seat? Yep, thought so, so this one is coming to you from our balcony instead (Although I'd love to have a ciggie in hand right now as I type).

So once again I'm sorry to say that from tomorrow until Wednesday I won't be creating new recipes. It's too hard not to taste as I go and this diet is too strict for that to be allowed. Instead I'll share other favourite and well practised recipes I already have.

Hope you enjoy it still the same and keep all fingers crossed for me to shift that other 8kgs!

Happy baking!

Hot cookies

The failure or incomplete success of a recipe often depends upon some little detail that has been misunderstood or overlooked in the preparation.

'A Book for a Cook' The Pillsbury Co. (1905)

Do you have problems with your dough spreading before going in the oven or your cookies/biscuits coming out thin, flat and too hard?

Don't worry, so did I when I first got back to baking them over here. Back in the U.K of course I didn't have to worry too often about humidity and although my kitchen did indeed get quite hot when the oven was on (it was a small kitchen), the rest of the house was cooler so it wouldn't ever run as hot as it does here.

Another HUGE  difference here is the oven I'm using. It's quite an old (and well used) one, with a door that doesn't shut totally, wonky shelving and not very specific temperature gauge. However, it was free so I'm not moaning - just stating a fact that it's another learning curve.

I've compiled a list of some tricks I've worked out, always done but had to adjust, or been told to try here for you all to give a go. I hope they help you and your baked goods as much as they've been helping me.

• First of all, something I shouldn't need to say and you probably all do anyway - make sure you always measure your ingredients properly. If you don't add enough flour your little bakes will be flat and hard.


• Chill your biscuit dough if it's a dough to roll out. The exception to this rule is oatmeal cookies - all types should be refrigerated for at least 2 hours before baking but preferably overnight.


• After rolling out and cutting (or if not a rolled dough type of biscuit/cookies - after you've spooned out enough mix) your biscuits/cookies, put any unused mix into the refrigerator.


• Try chilling your oven tray before you even put anything on it.


• With biscuits/cookies like Sugar cookies you should also refrigerate the cut out cookies for about 10 minutes on the baking tray before putting them in your oven - this means they will keep their shape


• Don't spoon out or add cut biscuits/cookies to a warm oven tray, this will make them spread


• Make sure your butter/margarine isn't too soft before adding it to your sugar. If your recipe calls for blending/creaming the fat and sugar together, your fat should be soft enough to bend but not dripping or soggy.


• DO NOT oil or grease in any way your baking sheets/grease proof paper - they're fine the way they are!
  


• If you're not using baking sheets or grease proof paper, only use a tiny bit of oil/butter/margarine to grease your oven tray - too much fat will add to the mix and make your biscuits/cookies dense and flat.


• Try transferring the cooked biscuits/cookies from the warm baking sheet/grease proof paper to a clean, fresh piece.


• DO NOT mix your batter/dough too much. If you incorporate too much air into your mixture your biscuits/cookies will rise well in the oven and flatten dramatically once removed. Also this causes the butter/margarine to change consistency - making it melt which we don't want.


• Make sure that if you're using baking powder or baking soda that it's not out of date.


• Also, relating to the baking soda - using too much will cause flat, dark biscuits/cookies


• If you're using a standing mixer or hand mixer and are adding such things like chocolate chips or nuts etc - always mix these in by hand.

I hope this helps any of you out there with the same problem :)

Happy baking!

Mamgu cookies

My grandmother was one of the greatest inspirations in my life. She taught me how to be a real woman, to have strength and self-respect, and to never give those things away.

Reese Witherspoon

I became inspired today to invent and bake some cookies that I think my mamgu (grandmother in Welsh) would have liked. She's been on my mind a lot recently and it's now reached a peak (she passed away a year ago today) so off to my kitchen I went.

Here's what I came up with -

Ingredients:

300g Whole wheat flour
Chocolate chips (as many as you think is right)
2 eggs
1tsp Vanilla extract
50g cocoa powder
120g caster sugar
Canola Oil ( to add moisture)
100g margarine
Milk (enough to make a firm dough)
Ground ginger (just a dash)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 190c and line a baking tray with grease proof paper.

2. Cream the margarine and sugar together.

3. Add the eggs, one at a time and half the flour between each egg.

4. Add the remaining flour with the cocoa powder and some canola oil to bind it all together.

5. Add the chocolate chips and vanilla extract. Add some milk if it's not quite coming together.

6. Add the ground ginger, just about 1 teaspoon and knead in.

7. Form small balls and flatten them with the palm of your hand to make flat.

8. Bake in the centre of your oven for 10 minutes.

This has become a recipe I know will always have a sentimental value for me.

[caption id="attachment_322" align="aligncenter" width="210"] My lovely Nan[/caption]

Enjoy and as always let me know what you think of this recipe.

Happy baking!

My new creation for today - Granola bars

My granola bars before cutting

So I'm one of these people who absolutely loves oats in pretty much any form you can serve them to me - cookies, bread, porridge, savoury dishes and of course, breakfast bars.

I think this endless love comes from my Grandad, who used to, without fail, eat a bowl of porridge every morning. My favourite memories of him are mostly of me dutifully bringing up his bowl of porridge to him in bed and sitting there talking (more than likely complete rubbish) to him until he was finished.

It was thus inevitable that I'd create my own recipe for all the above (still a work in progress to do the whole list so stay tuned).

Here is my granola bar recipe :)

Ingredients:

160g butter, softened
160g packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons caster sugar dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water
About 400g rolled oats

(Optional but oh so good)
1 mashed banana
Bittersweet/dark chocolate chips
Any other fruit and/or nuts you wish

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c.

2. Lightly grease a square tin (about 8x8 or 9x9,no bigger) as you can see in the photo, I had to use my loaf tin which made them too dense and a bit too soft so they were more like flapjacks.

3. Cream your butter and sugar together, mix in the sugar/water combination.

4. Add in your oats (and banana and chocolate if you want too, plus any other fruit or nuts you want). Mix well.

5. Bake for about 20 minutes.

6. Cut into pieces of desired size while still semi warm and leave in the tin to cool completely.

As always let me know what your experiments with this come out like.

Happy baking!

A shout out

Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.
Ruth Reichl

We all know life's better when we share and recently i had some time to peruse and explore the endless amount of wonderful blogs around the net.

I found so many pretty, interesting and informative blogs that I just had to share some of them with you here. I will be doing this every month to add new ones I find or get directed to, and this way you're not bombarded with too many links :)

*My favourite baking/cooking blogs:

Note: these are in no particular order.

Quête Saveur - A lovely blog, covering many types of cuisine and just like me, they bake to relieve stress.

The Faux Martha - This blog ranges through all types of food, with some random thoughts and tips.

My Dear Bakes - Lovely creations for themed cakes. One very talented individual.

Cookie Talk - This blog is so nice because it gives great help, tips, links, recipes and books for you to check out.

Darla Cooks - This is a lady after my own heart haha. We have much in common (not just baking but both having previously been Yoga instructors). She posts gorgeous recipes with the mouthwatering photos to accompany them.

Lily Vanilli - If you don't know about this woman already you seriously have to check her out. She's become a big celebrity baker back in London and her amazing concoctions are definitely worth a try.

Baking Mum - A gorgeous gallery blog showing this mum-of-two's baking creations, very inspiring!

If you have, or know of, a baking/cooking blog that I've missed and should check out, let me know!

Enjoy checking these out and happy baking!

My favourite GLUTEN FREE brownie recipe

As I promised earlier this week, here is my favourite gluten free brownie recipe. It's also lovely and quick and tastes just as good as any other brownie recipe I think.

Ingredients:
100g Butter
150g Dark Chocolate
100g Gluten Free Plain Flour
200g Sugar
3 Eggs
1 tsp Baking Powder

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c

2. Gently melt together the butter and chocolate

3. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and sugar

4. Beat in the eggs followed by the melted butter and chocolate mixture
(if you want to add something like nuts or extra chocolate, nows the time people)

5. Pour into 150 x 200mm/6"x8" oiled and lined baking dish

6. Bake in a pre heated oven for 35/40 minutes.

Now enjoy and as always let me know how it turns out for you plus any wonderful substitutes you may have used.

Happy baking!

Freedom to bake!!

Yes! I am free again to bake! Yesterday was my last diet day (for now) and I have to say a big thank-you to everyone who has been giving me encouragement and keeping their fingers crossed for me. It worked for sure! 3 big fat kgs are gone! Woohoo! :D

I start the evil (but working!) diet again on Monday, let's hope I lose the same amount again.

Right, back to the much more interesting task at hand.
In my absence from baking we had a slight hiccup - our oven broke...well actually it was that the socket it was plugged into started to smoke, not good.

Thankfully our lovely landlord soon had it fixed but it did get me thinking of different ways to cook my creations.

Now I'm not one for boiled cakes or other baked goods (not that I'm knocking them but really how can a 'baked' anything taste good being boiled? The clue is in the name haha) so how else to cook biscuits/cookies?

Well we have a toaster oven and a microwave so lets find out shall we?

I was going to have fun playing with the notion today until my lovely fiancé said he's taking me to see a movie and to go to a restaurant tonight (after taking our little Nalu to the vets of course) so I'm afraid I'll have to refrain from that type of fun until tomorrow so I can have fun with my man instead...I'm sure you all understand :)

*Random thought time: imagine what baking would have been like before we had temperature controlled ovens? Interesting to say the least* 😉

I'll post a well loved recipe today and my experiment tomorrow.

Happy baking!

Chocolate Chai Snickerdoodles

I found this recipe a while ago on a website (I think it was recipes.com) and thought it sounded so interesting and tasty that I had to recreate it!

(the snickdoodles are the ones at the front on the left)

Ingredients:

Should make about 42.

2 1/4 cups (411g approx) sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 cup (30g approx) cocoa powder
1 cup butter (226g approx),room temperature
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups (293g approx) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c

2. In large mixing bowl, stir together sugar and spices; set 1/2 cup of the mixture aside.

3. Add butter to mixing bowl and cream with sugar until light and fluffy.

4. Beat in cocoa powder, followed by the eggs and vanilla.

5. Stir in flour and baking powder by hand or at low speed.

6. Form dough into 1-inch balls and roll in reserved sugar mixture.

Note: I like leaving these more as little truffle ball looking things but if you like, flatten them at this point.

7. Bake at 180c for 12-15 minutes or until edges are firm.

8. Cool on wire rack and enjoy!

Let me know what you think.

Happy baking!

Icing in the heat

If the theory turns out to be right, that will be tremendously thick and tasty icing on the cake.

Brian Greene

Working with icing of any type can prove problematic, even back in the U.K I would sometimes have problems (a still warm oven and hot hands are not good for working with fondant!), but here it proves even worse to deal with!

A few weeks ago I made a gluten-free chocolate cake for my fiancé's sisters birthday.
I decorated the cake with fondant roses in blue (her favourite flower in her favourite colour - I wasn't being depressing I promise!), and a horse (yep, you guessed it, her favourite animal...this wasn't in blue obviously).

Everything was going well at first but then my creations started to melt and sweat! (I later found out that the humidity that day was 98%!) and no matter what I did I couldn't seem to make them any better.

This prompted me to search for solutions.

A quick solution if you're doing any buttercream icing, add some cornflour to your mix, but be careful of the amount and only use in buttercream frosting, otherwise it'll make other frostings taste gritty.

As for our enemy fondant (or sugar paste/sugar dough depending on what you prefer) - try some CMC (if you can find it, sometimes it's called supergum or CMC gum) powder, working it well into your fondant.

Adding more icing sugar works for some (although I tried this on aforementioned cake and, as you can see, it didn't work).

Now every cake decorator knows not to put fondant in the fridge and in the U.K. I agree, although here its pretty much a must.

What I've done is refrigerate my cakes for about 10 minutes at a time so not to dry out the cake itself.

Yes, you'll see condensation spots form on your icing but if you're careful and don't touch them at all (it's hard to resist I know) they will disappear in an hour or less.

Have you any more tips or tricks for getting round this problem? If so please comment below or send me a message and I'll update this page, giving whoever provides the tips with full credit.

Happy baking!

My favourite brownie recipe

Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.

Audrey Hepburn

Who doesn't love a big, gooey (yep, I use this word a lot - I love it), chocolatey piece of brownie?
I'm certainly not one who can refuse it and one of my favourite things about brownies is if you cook it for slightly too long you still get a wonderful chocolate cake! Perfect.

I've written down here my favourite brownie recipe. Now this is sadly not one I created but unfortunately I don't remember where I found it so can't give credit. Also with this recipe it's easy to tinker with some of the ingredients, you can easily add more chocolate chips, add nuts or even fruit so you can really personalise it.

Ingredients:
185g butter/margarine
185g dark chocolate
85g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
50g white chocolate chips
50g milk chocolate chip
3 large eggs
275g caster sugar

Method:

1. Position your shelf to the middle of your oven. Preheat to 160c (fan assisted or 180c no fan).

2. Cut your butter/margarine into smallish cubes and put into a medium microwave safe bowl. Break your dark chocolate into small pieces and drop into the bowl with the butter.

3. Cover loosely with cling film and put in the microwave for 2 minutes on full power.

4. Leave mix to cool to room temperature.

5. Prepare your brownie tin with lining it with grease proof paper.

6. Break eggs into a large bowl and add the sugar. Whisk (on high-speed if using an electric whisk) until its thick and creamy. It should double in size.

7. Gently fold in the cooled chocolate butter mixture but go slow.

8. Now add the cocoa powder and flour (at the same time) by sieving and folding in.

9. Stir gently in the white and milk chocolate chips.

10. Pour into your prepared tin and cook for approx. 25 minutes or until the top has a shiny crust and the sides are pulling away.

Let me know how this turns out for you and what new yummy additions you make!

I'll be posting a gluten-free version in the next few days so stay tuned.

Happy baking!

The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.

Horace

It's the 3rd day of my intense diet (one more day to go, thankfully!) and to be completely honest with you I'm already fed up and irritated. I don't feel any lighter although I think I have more 'get up and go' than I have been having. These people (and models) who do this on a daily basis must have so much strength, will power and disdain for food because it's not easy!

Today I get to have in total (brace yourselves for excitement) - toast, a hard-boiled egg, a thin slice of cheese, more disgusting cottage cheese, broccoli, carrots and an apple. How exciting and filling does that all sound? But if it works who am I to complain. I'll see when I'm finally brave enough to stand on those naughty bathroom scales again Wednesday morning.

My frustration over this strict diet has made me sometimes think about quitting it but if I want to see the results promised by the creators (or punishers as I like to call them now) then I have to follow this by the letter...any words of encouragement at this stage will be greatly welcomed!

I cannot wait until I'm done with this (at least for a week) so I can get creative again in the kitchen.

The reason I will be doing this diet once a week, that is if on Wednesday morning I see it has tipped the scales in the right direction, is because I'm going on holiday back to the U.K for a month. I'm really excited to see my friends and family and to eat my mams roast dinner (and of course visit my favourite restaurants and get some naughty snacks you can't have here) so I want to be nice a slim again for seeing them and preparing for the lovely food hehe.

Talking of roast dinners, (yes I know my blog doesn't cover savoury non baked goods but just this once will be ok) did you know you can't get any sort of gravy granules here in Israel? And their stock cubs aren't as powerful as, say, Oxo's are. They have Knorr here but not a great choice and as far as I've found that's the only brand for stock cubes.

This makes it very difficult to have a proper roast dinner (as does the heat), along with not being able to get or make Yorkshire puddings! And what is a roast dinner without Yorkshire puddings?! Oh and stuffing doesn't exist - such as Paxo etc.

Has anyone else found this problem in whatever country you've moved to?

Anyway, enough of my ranting...let's type up another recipe for you guys to try!

Happy baking! :)

My well loved oatmeal chocolate chip cookies recipe

;

Number one, I absolutely love making chocolate chip cookies. I mean, it's fun. It's exciting. Beyond the fact that I love making them, I love eating them.

Debbi Fields

These gorgeous little chewy cookies melt in your mouth and are so fun to make too (hence that particular quote) so I thought I wouldn't be greedy and share the recipe with you all.

Note: I strongly advise you NOT to double this recipe, even if you could get a bowl big enough you wouldn't be able to mix it and it doesn't fit in any standing mixers bowl - believe me.

Ingredients:

225g butter or margarine
200g granulated sugar (important not to use caster sugar)
220g brown sugar (preferably light brown packed)
250g plain flour
245g oats
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda (baking powder works just fine)
1 tsp salt

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 190c

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the granulated and brown sugar with the butter/margarine.

3. Best in your eggs, one at a time and stir in the vanilla extract.

4. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt then sift into the creamed mixture. Stir to combine with a wooden spoon.

5. Mix in the oats (yep this'll give your forearm muscles a workout! Now you understand my note right?)

6. Cover and chill the dough for at least an hour.

7. Form walnut size balls on a baking tray, 2 inches or so apart and flatten with a fork lightly.

8. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Once cooked removed from tray immediately otherwise they'll stick. Cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy and Happy baking!