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!

Mary's Tarte au Citron

This is another "technical challenge" recipe and the challenge for me was working with sweet pastry which I always find difficult.  It's so fragile and this time was no exception!  Two or three years ago my husband treated me to a cookery day at Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir and I remembered that the pastry chef said if we had a problem with the pastry breaking, to shape it in the tin just using fingers and thumbs - don't try to roll it out too much - so this is what I did.  Also my flan tin has quite high sides so I wasn't able to trim around the edges half way through cooking.

Tarte au Citron

The recipe takes six eggs - a lovely way to use those produced by my girls.  The end result was wonderful - good texture and nice and lemony.   I had cooked a lamb and apricot tagine this morning so we ended up having a gourmet meal on a Thursday evening!

Making Bread

This week I attempted bread-making.  Yeast cookery has never been one of my strong points and today was no exception!  Although the loaf rose perfectly and looked beautiful I did not like the texture - it wasn't light and fluffy, more dense and almost waxy.  I used fresh yeast so am going to have another go and see if I get better results with easy blend.  However, it makes fantastic toast and I am sure the chickens will enjoy the leftovers!

White Loaf

PS If you use cling film to cover the bowl whilst proving be sure to oil it (doesn't say this in the recipe but I have seen it recommended elsewhere) as my dough stuck to the film and I lost some of it.