M&M & Mars Bar Cookies

Everything's go around here! I found myself an outlet to sell my baked goodness and they go on shelves from Monday!!! For starters they just want cookies and based on the clientèle I decided that M&M and Mars Bar cookies would be the best option because, y'know, who doesn't like a colourful cookie or one packed with gooey loveliness.

Now, I will have to make these in huuuge batches, but to save you guys the headache the recipe here is enough for 18-20. It's a really simple recipe, super quick to whip up and perfect for a kids party or a not so kids party! Actually, it's a great one to make with kids; let them choose mix ins and have great fun with it :D

M&M Cookies

Makes 16-18

• 300g flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 180g butter, melted and cooled
• 270g brown sugar
• 1 egg & 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 cups M&Ms
• 2-3 tbsp milk (if necessary)

Preheat the oven to 160 C, line trays with greaseproof paper

Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until creamy

Add egg, yolk, vanilla and mix

In another bowl combine the flour and baking powder

Add the dry ingredients to the wet, at this stage the mixture will be a bit crumbly 

but it will come together after mixing, don't fret.

If it doesn't come together properly add the milk 1 tbsp at a time until it does.

Add the M&Ms and fold them into the dough

Form heaped tablespoonfuls of the dough into balls then flatten them

Place them on the prepared baking tray

Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the edges are golden but the centers are still soft!

for the Mars Bar version just sub out the M&Ms for 2 cups of chopped Mars Bar.

thanks to How Sweet Eats for the photo :D

Chocolate Truffles and 1 Year of Blogging

I can't believe I've been blogging for a year, sharing my recipes and in turn meeting new people. It's been an interesting year, with long illness/thesis related gaps in posting and a new business venture started, but I've enjoyed it immensely and I can't wait for the second anniversary!


To celebrate this I decided to dust off a chocolate truffle recipe I have to practice for valentines day. I love dark chocolate and I find it is the easiest type of chocolate to work with when making truffles. I've made white chocolate truffles before but they ended up being a little too soft, despite a large amount of icing sugar and ground almonds I added to bind the mixture... I've heard of people adding butter but I think that makes then truffles greasy and far too heavy (really unpleasant)... I'll have to work that little problem out before I have to make them again. Actually, if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them :)


I tend to use 80% cocoa chocolate for this but if you want a slightly less bitter chocolate taste you can reduce the cocoa content, although I wouldn't go below 65%. The icing sugar and cocoa powder amount is really really variable and will also be affected by whatever flavours you are adding but just wing it, testing for sweetness as you go.


Dark Chocolate Truffles
Makes around 40

• 450g dark chocolate (at least 65% cocoa)
• 250 ml full cream
• 4-5 tbsp cocoa powder
• 6-8 tbsp icing sugar

Break the chocolate into small pieces and put into a bowl.

Heat the cream in a saucepan until it is just boiling

Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate, stirring gently

Leave to stand for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate has all melted

Alternate adding the icing sugar and cocoa powder until a thick but smooth

ganache consistency is reached; at this stage you will want to be tasting for sweetness

and adding more or less than the recommended icing sugar and cocoa powder

Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes then roll teaspoonful sized clumps of the 

mix into balls

Coat in cocoa powder and enjoy

Almond Truffles

Use the basic mix above but BEFORE CHILLING, substitute one of the tablespoons of cocoa powder and one of the tablespoons of icing sugar for two tablespoons of ground almonds

Add 3 drops of almond essence and mix well

Chill normally and coat in ground almonds

Hazelnut Truffles

As above but substitute 1 tablespoons of cocoa powder for 2 tbsp of Nutella and 2 tbsp of ground hazelnuts

Chill and roll in ground hazelnuts

Rum Truffles

As above but add 2-3 tablespoons of spiced rum to the mix, adding more icing sugar if the mixture is too runny. 

Roll in cocoa powder after chilling

Nutella Brownies

Yesterday was one of my housemates birthdays and while he's not really into cake he loooves brownies. Also, since his party took the form of a Bring Your Own Food, Booze and Cigars (BYOFBC), they suited perfectly. I also happen to know that Davey has a real love of Nutella so with that I set about tweaking a brownie recipe I got from my mum to make it work. I've made brownies once before and unfortunately they did not end happily. the recipe came from a childrens cookery course I did and they were dire. Needless to say that knocked my brownie confidence a little but I figured now was about time to give this devilishly moreish treat another go.

I scoured the town where I live for the best quality Hazelnut spread I could find and eventually settled on the Choco Nusse spread sold in LIDL. The spread itself is darker in colour and has a richer taste. The cocoa is stronger and the hazelnuts are more flavourful in comparison to the traditional Nutella. The original recipe called for 60-75% cocoa chocolate but I could only get my hands on 50%. As it turns out this was a bit of a blessing because had there been any more cocoa the hazelnut flavour would have been totally overpowered and the brownies too rich.

Roasted Hazelnuts
Preheat oven to 150C
Spread the required amount of hazelnuts onto a baking tray
Roast for 15 mins, turning once.
Allow to cool, then skin them by rubbing them vigorously between your hands

Chocolate Hazelnut Brownies
Makes around 20 medium brownies

• 180g butter
• 270g chooclate (50% cocoa)
• 370g Nutella or chocolate hazelnut spread of your choice + 170g extra
• 180g light brown sugar
• 130g roasted hazelnuts
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 120g flour
• 1.5 tbsps cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 175C

Line a 10x12"/9x13" pan with greaseproof paper

Melt butter and chocolate over a bain marie

Stir in Nutella, remove bowl from the bain marie and cool mix until it reaches room temperature

Mix in brown sugar and vanilla

Add eggs 1 at a time beating well after each addition (the mix should be glossy and smooth)

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder

Combine with the wet ingredients

Stir in roasted hazelnuts and pour out into the prepared pan, spreading the mix evenly

Heat remaining 170g of Nutella over a bain marie and drizzle over the mix in the tin. 

Swirl throughout the top of the mix using a knife or skewer

bake for 25-35 mins, until a toothpick comes out mostly clean and the texture is still slightly fudgy when touched.

I hope you enjoyed them as much as Davey and the other party goers did! I must say brownies aren't as scary as my previous experience would have lead me to believe; I will definitely be making them more in the future :)

Many thanks to Making Life Delicious for the first picture in this post, my camera's been a little out of sorts lately :/

x

White Chocolate Chunk Cookies and the End of an Era

College is over! After three long and exciting years I'm finally finished my Undergraduate degree...*sniff* I'll never forget the time I've spent at NUI Maynooth, they really were the best years of my life (so far) :D. So, I confess, I've been SUPER lazy the past few days about posting and our oven in the apartment is STILL crap so I haven't been able to bake ANYTHING down here... *sad face* But, last Wednesday was my little brothers 17th birthday so I high-tailed it home on Friday morning...very much in the morning (we were up at 6:30) and rushed home to bake him his favourite cookies! I would also like to thank Amy Kelly for the lovely photo at That Winsome Girl and apologise because blogger deleted my link the last time :( I'm very sorry Amy :(


White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Makes around 12 biggish cookies

• 245g plain flour
• 100g butter (melted and cooled)
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 180g packed light brown sugar
• 50g white sugar
• 2 eggs (beaten)
• 1tsp baking powder
• 400g white chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 160 C

Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl

Add the melted butter to the sugars and beat until creamy

Add vanilla essence to the eggs and mix

Add eggs and vanilla mixture into the wet ingredients bowl, beating well.

Add dry ingredients to the wet and combine to form a sticky dough

Throw in chocolate chunks and mix

Roll Tbsp sized blobs of the dough into balls about the size of a ping pong ball

Place them 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with greaseproof paper and press to flatten them by about half.

Bake for 16-20 mins until golden at the edges but still quite pale in the middle

Cool for 10 mins on the sheet and then cool completely on a wire rack

According to my brother these are better than M&S and Subway white chocolate cookies. I think that's a pretty solid testimonial from a foody fusspot :P

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Sorry for the long time between posts, I'm still not 100% and I've been tirelessly preparing for my college finals...(so scared, so very very scared)... I know immediately what you're thinking, yet another chocolate fudge cake to add to the multitude already out there. But before you lose interest this is a really fantastic chocolate cake. It has yet to fail me and always produces a rich, fudgy cake that still somehow feels light when you're eating it (if that's possible). The aroma of the chocolate is rich and thick and the sponge is fudge but still retains a light spring to remind you that you're actually eating a cake, not a giant sandwich brownie!


I typically fill my cake with plain whipped cream, chocolate cream and crushed raspberries or if that's just too much chocolate raspberry cream (I'll stick this one in a post when I can remember/ work out the measurements) :P


This cake is perfect for kids parties because it's simple and relatively quick. Actually it's a good cake for getting the children involved in baking and decorating...if you don't mind the sprinkle and dragée explosion that will be your kitchen afterwards... :P


It's also a good cake for carving as it doesn't crumble under the knife :)


Chocolate Fudge Cake
Makes 1 9" sandwich cake

• 175g self-raising flour
• 125g plain chocolate (see Note)
• 125g butter
• 200g light brown sugar
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 3 eggs
• 2 tbsp greek yoghurt

Preheat the oven to 190 C

Melt chocolate over a bain marie

Cream butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy

Add vanilla and 1 egg at a time, beating after each addition

Stir in chocolate and yoghurt

Sift in flour and fold in

Divide the mixture into 2 9" sandwich tins 

Bake for 25-30 mins

Cool for 10 mins in the tins then turn out onto a wire rack

*Note: I use 39-70% cocoa chocolate depending on who the cake is for. Like for children I use the lower cocoa chocolate.

Chocolate cream

• 250 - 500 mls ready whipped fresh cream (depends on how much filling you want)
• 3-5 heaped tbsp icing sugar
• 2-3 tsps cocoa powder

Mix all of these ingredients and spread generously over your bottom cake layer, then stick the top cake layer on top and you're done :)

I used plain cream for the one in the picture because my brother requested it  :)


Also, I didn't bake this today, I cheated a little and used one I baked a few months ago before I even had this blog

x

Icebox cookies and the 24 hour Juggle-a-thon

Firstly I feel I should apologise for the lack of pictures of the cookies themselves; they were hoovered up in no time, before I had a chance to take any snaps!

So yesterday (and this morning) we held our second annual 24 hour Juggle-a-thon in college to raise money for charity. I should probably explain this a bit better; I'm the current president of the Juggling Society in university and I've been a member of the society for 3 years and will continue to be for as  long as they will let me. Last year I decided we needed to do an event for charity week; and so the 24 hour juggle-a-thon was born!

It kicked off at 12 noon yesterday and we juggled all day and throughout the night, finally finishing at 12 noon today to the strains of the Final Countdown by Europe. We were raising money for M.S. Ireland which is the Multiple Sclerosis charity over here and is a fantastic cause. I'm still not quite done counting the money (there's a lot of small change left) but we've broken the €400 mark!!! It was a great laugh and the people walking by seemed to enjoy the event as much as we did!

Anyway, you're here for a cookie recipe, not to hear me go on and on about juggling (it's a fantastic past time, and I would strongly recommend it to everyone!). I did have a problem in that they were a little cakey because I couldn't find my usual go-to cookie recipe but leaving them in the oven a little longer yielded better results. I will be trying them again with my usual recipe and I'll report back which is better :)

Chocolate and Vanilla Icebox Cookies

(Makes around 30)

• 200g butter (softened)
• 185g sugar
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 1 egg
• 280g flour (divided)
• 1tsp baking powder (divided)
• 3 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
• 40ml milk (divided) (if necessary)

Cream butter and sugar in a bowl until fluffy

Add vanilla and egg and beat well

Divide the mixture into 2 bowls (one for the vanilla dough and one for the chocolate)

Sieve 1/2 of the flour and baking powder into each bowl of the wet ingredients 

Add the cocoa powder to one bowl and mix into a soft dough

Mix the ingredients in the other bowl into a soft dough

Add some or all of the milk if necessary to achieve this consistency (my dough came out a little dry so I had to use all of the milk)

Roll out the dough you want to use on the outside (I picked the chocolate dough) into a rectangle 1cm thick 

Roll the other dough into a sausage shape the same length as the rectangle and place at the edge of the rectangle.

Wrap the chocolate dough around the vanilla dough and seal with your fingers

Slice the resulting log into 2 smaller logs and wrap the logs in cling film, rolling them on a hard surface to remove the uneven seam in the dough

Place in the freezer for 20 mins (hence 'icebox' cookies :P)

While the dough is chilling preheat oven to 180 C and line baking trays with greaseproof paper

Take the dough out of the oven and slice into 1cm thick rounds

Bake for 20-23 mins, until golden, cool and serve.

They're great party cookies because the yield is high and they're the best of both worlds; chocolate and vanilla :D. You can alsomake spirals or Battenberg style checkerboards; give your creativity a whirl and let me know what you come up with :)

                                

Mars Bar Rice Krispie Squares

While looking for a quick fix for a friend's birthday a few years ago I was put onto the idea of a jazzed up version of rice krispie squares by a friend of mine. She recommended adding marshmallows and golden syrup and they worked out really well!!! (I'll include the variations at the end of this recipe)


I came up with this mars bar variation for an event in college last year and they went down an absolute treat so I usually make them for birthday parties where a cake or something more fragile would be impossible to transport or wouldn't keep well in the open :) And let's face it, who doesn't like sticky, chewy, crispy, chocolatey treats?


The recipe is a bit on the approximate side because it really is improvised to the max but I'll make sure to describe what you should be seeing in your bowl :) You'll have to do this in 3 batches if you want to make the full amount of squares.


Mars Bar Rice Krispie Squares


(Makes approx. 30 smallish squares)

• 20 snacksize Mars bars
• 3 tbsp Golden syrup
• 3 tsps butter
• 250-300g Rice Krispies

Melt 1/3 of the Mars Bars over a bain marie until sticky (it will still be quite firm though)

Add 1 tbsp of the Golden Syrup and mix in well

Add 1 tsp of the butter, let it melt and mix well (it should be quite malleable and loose at this stage but still sticky)

Add 1/3 of the Rice Krispies and mix until they are coated in the mars bar mixture (they won't get completely 

coated but that's how it works)

You can add more if you feel there aren't enough Rice Krispies in the mix

Either roll into balls using 1 tbsp of the mix or pour out onto a tray lined with greaseproof paper

Repeat the above with the remaining Mars Bars and add to the same tray.

Refrigerate until hard then remove, cut into squares and enjoy!

If you want you can substitute the Mars bars for 150g of mini Marshmallows, or add both (SINFULLY yummy!)


Thanks to the Greedy Gourmet for the pic :)

x

World Nutella Day and a suitable recipe

After a long thesis related absense I'm back and from the abyss of late night statistics sessions and results analysing I bring a recipe featuring the world famous hazelnut-chocolate spread we all know and love (I hope)! Ok so a few of my friends are having birthdays this week so it's gonna be all go on the baking front for me (not that I'm complaining in the slightest :D :D :D

First off I decided to do muffins for Tara :) The only question is what type? After a good long think and a bit of a food porn session I found out that it was recently World Nutella Day. I decided I just HAD to make something and found several recipes for self frosting nutella cupcakes. Sometimes I think frosting detracts from the cupcake itself and I know many people who hate the stuff and end up scraping it off so these were perfect :D! I'm using a slightly modified version of my own fairy cake (yellow cake) recipe to which I added some of the chocolatey yumminess :)

I hope you enjoy these, Tara sure did :)

Self-Frosting Nutella Muffins

(Makes 12)

• 140g butter (at room temp)
• 110g white caster sugar/130g granulated white sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence (I omitted this for this recipe but feel free to add it)
• 2 eggs
• 50ml milk
• 200g plain flour
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 12 tsps Nutella

Preheat oven to 160 C/325 F

Line/grease a 12 hole muffin tin

Cream butter and sugar until creamy and light

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition

Stir in vanilla essence

Sift in flour and baking powder and mix until combined

Add milk until the mixture is the right consistency (It should stay on a spoon easily but slowly fall off when the spoon is turned over)

Put 1 tbsp of the mix into each hole in the tray, distributing any remaining mix into the 12 holes

Put 1 tsp of Nutella on top of the mixture and swirl in using a toothpick/fork (I found the fork better at first but it's messy no matter what you use)

Bake for 22mins, until well risen and a toothpick comes out clean (maybe with some Nutella on it, depending on where you stick the toothpick)

Cool on a wire rack (or not) and enjoy :)