Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Have spent some quality time with my Mum in Inverness over the past week (not actually as cold up there as here in The Cotswolds) and we made these cookies together.  Freshly baked they were delicious - crispy around the edges and softer in the middle with lots of chunks of 70% chocolate oozing out of them and we took a basket over to Kirkhill to share with Susan, Colin, Amy, Julie and Keith.  Next day the cookies were a bit soft but still tasted good.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Amy

I met little Amy (my great-neice, six months old) for the very first time and she is gorgeous.  She wanted to try the biscuits but had to settle for a Farley's Rusk instead!

Mary's Coffee & Walnut Battenburg

This was another technical challenge and I enjoyed making it, despite tons of washing up!  I was interested to read that the original pink and white Battenburg cake was made to honour the marriage of Queen Victoria's grand-daughter to Prince Louis of Battenburg in 1884.  They say you learn something new every day.....

Coffee and Walnut Battenburg

You just have to keep your eye on the maths (equal quantities of both sorts of cake mixture, the length and width of the marzipan).  I found I didn't have quite enough coffee butter cream but I was probably a little too generous in my first and second applications.  Also my cake wasn't perfectly square as you can see, but that's because it rose more in the centre than at the outsides.

It's an extremely sweet cake and ideal for serving at an afternoon tea party when you want to put out something a little different.

PS There are plenty of off-cuts to nibble while you are assembling the cake!

Mincemeat Lattice Tart

Last weekend I made Mincemeat Lattice Tart out of the "Celebration Cakes" section, as I am tackling a recipe out of each chapter rather than starting on Page One and working through the book.  It would be a gorgeous dessert to serve at a Christmas Dinner Party because the filling is a combination of mincemeat and cranberries.  The pastry is unusual as it has full fat cream cheese in it as well as butter, but I don't really know why, for me it didn't add anything extra to it (dread to think how many calories in each slice!)    I found that the cream cheese pastry was a bit hard when cold - lovely when warm though.  In fact I think sweet dessert pastry would have been better.  David had his tart hot with custard and he said it was definitely the right option......

Mincemeat Lattice Tart

It took me several days to find any frozen cranberries and eventually I got them at good old Clopton Farm Shop.

Pavlova

Mango and Passionfruit Pavlova was this weekend's dessert and very nice it was too.  I made the meringue base a day or so earlier, set the oven timer for one and a quarter hours, went outside in the lovely sunshine to start work in the garden, and promptly forgot about the meringue so it had an extra 40 minutes or so!  That meant I didn't get the marshmallowy centre but by the time I had loaded it with cream and fruit it didn't really matter - the end result was yummy.

Mango and Passionfruit Pavlova

Mango and passionfruit are a wonderful combination - a really good winter alternative to the usual strawberry or raspberry versions we have in summer. 

Raspberry Millefeuilles

Yesterday I had a go at Millefeuilles with Raspberries.  Must admit I was tempted to use Ready Made Puff Pastry that I had in the freezer but I thought no, the idea is to be a better baker so I did it from scratch and it actually turned out pretty good!  The creamy custard filling with zest of orange and orange liqueur in it was gorgeous - it could easily be used in other recipes such as orange and chocolate trifle.

Millefeuilles with Raspberries

It seemed to take all day to make because there is a lot of cooling and chilling to be done.  I used frozen raspberries picked from my allotment last Autumn and they tasted great but were a bit soggy and runny, fresh ones would have been better.  David liked this so much he had 2 helpings!