Christmas Is Coming Part 3 - Lemon and Cranberry Cookies

These were a BIG hit at work today. I have made them once before this time last year when they were very popular so I decided it was time to try them again. Although they are called cookies they are a cross between a cookie, a cake, a scone and a rock cake. They taste fresh , melt in your mouth and are perfect for this time of year. This is an American recipe from one of my favourite blogs 'What's Megan Making'. You can find the recipe here. As it's an American recipe you will need some cups (or use a conversion website - I used one from the Delia Online website that you can find here). I made 15 cookies although I could have made them slightly smaller.

Ingredients: 

Cookies:
2 1/4 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 caster sugar
2 tablespoons lemon zest (approx. 1 lemon)
1 cup (225g) unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries (diced)

Lemon Glaze:
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method: 
1) In a medium sized bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.

2) In a large bowl rub the lemon zest into the sugar until moist and fragrant. Add the butter to the lemon sugar and beat until light and fluffy (this will take 3-5 minutes).

3) Add the egg and vanilla and mix until smooth.

4) Add in the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated (the mixture will look and feel slightly sandy at this point).

5) Chop the cranberries and then fold in by hand. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes.

6) Whilst the mixture is chilling preheat your oven to 180C/350F. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
7) Gently form the dough into balls and bake for 13-15 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool slightly before moving them to a rack to cool completely.

8) To make the glaze mix the icing sugar and lemon juice together and drizzle over the cooled cookies.

9) Enjoy!

Pav-tastic - Mary Berry's Lemon Pavlova

We were invited to Sunday lunch today at our friend's house (thanks Simon and Louisa!) and I offered to make dessert. I'm normally a cheesecake kinda girl but decided to opt for something a little bit different. I'd seen a Mary Berry recipe for a lemon pavlova that featured on the Easter Great British Bake Off Masterclass special. Now I will admit that despite my love of baking I have:
a) Never made a Mary Berry recipe (shocking I know)
b) Never made a pavlova or anything remotely meringue based
so I have to say I was a little worried yesterday afternoon that it would all go a little bit pear-shaped but I'm happy to say it was all OK in the end.

You can find the recipe here. It's meant to be an Easter pavlova but I decided to leave out the chocolate mini eggs as we're now past the Easter weekend.

The ingredients are pretty basic:

For the meringue:
6 free-range egg whites
350g caster sugar
2 tsp white wine vinegar (I didn't have any so improvised with 2 tsp of lemon juice)
2 level tsp cornflour

For the lemon curd filling:
6 free-range egg yolks
350g caster sugar
4 lemons (I only used 3 and it still tasted lemony enough)
225g butter
450ml double cream (I only used 300ml and found this to be plenty)

For the candied lemon peel:
100g caster sugar (plus extra for coating)
4 lemons, zest only (in long thin strips - as above I only used 3)

Method: 
1. Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3. Lay a piece of baking paper on a baking tray and draw a 25cm/10in circle on it.
2. Put the egg whites into a bowl and whisk on the fastest speed with an electric hand-whisk or in a free-standing mixer until stiff (it takes a while and you need to be patient. I wouldn't recommend whisking by hand!) Gradually, still whisking on maximum speed, add generous teaspoons of sugar until the mixture is stiff and shiny and stands in peaks.
3. Blend the vinegar and cornflour together (as I mentioned in the ingredients I used 2 tsp of lemon juice instead) in a cup and mix until smooth. Stir this into the meringue mixture. Your mixture should then look a little bit like this:

4. Spread half the meringue mixture onto the paper to fit the 25cm/10in circle. Fill a piping bag, fitted with a rose nozzle, with the rest of the meringue mixture. Carefully pipe about 10 separate little nests positioned equally around the edge of the circle (I only piped 8 and as I wasn't going to use the eggs I went for peaks rather than nests. It should then look a little bit like this...

5. Slide the meringue into the middle of the oven, turn the heat down to 150C/300F/Gas 2 and bake for 1 1/2 - 2 hours (checking after one hour), or until it easily comes off the paper (mine only needed 1 1/4 hours). The pavlova will be a pale creamy colour rather than white (something a little bit like this...)

As you can see I had some major cracking issues - but as this is the first time I've made a pavlova it's something for me to work on!

6. Meanwhile you need to make the lemon curd for the filling. In theory and according to the recipe you are meant to place a heatproof bowl over a pan of hot water that is simmering gently on a stove/hob. You add the egg yolks, sugar and lemon juice to the bowl and whisk. Gradually add the butter, whisking continually until it starts to thicken. It should coat the back of a spoon when it reaches the correct consistency and will firm up further once cooled. This is how it looks before heating...

Now this is where it all went wrong. After half an hour of whisking my lemon curd was still the same consistency as at the start and was not looking like it was going to thicken at any point. After a little Internet research I decided to give microwaving a go. I'd read that 1 minute intervals followed by whisking was recommended. After about 4 minutes in the microwave I eventually had something that resembled lemon curd (in hindsight I think I underestimated just how much it would thicken and could probably only have microwaved it for 3 minutes.)

7. Whisk the double cream in a large bowl, until thickened, then swirl it through the cooled lemon curd. (I failed here too - my lemon curd thickened beyond belief so instead of swirling I had to mix it altogether so lost any swirling effect. I'm sure it still has the same taste!) I also didn't use all the lemon curd as it makes a lot. Instead I will be enjoying it on toast for my breakfast!

8. Spoon the lemon curd and cream mixture into the middle of the pavlova and spread over the base of the meringue nest.

9. To make the candied lemon peel for the top you put 100ml water and the caster sugar in a pan. Bring to the boil, stirring. Add the zest and boil for 2-3 minutes, or until syrupy. Drain on parchment paper, roll in extra caster sugar and leave to dry in a warm place for a couple of hours, or overnight.

My finished pavlova ended up looking like this...(as you can see the cracks ended up getting a lot worse!) I can highly recommend it - despite looking a bit monstrous it was in fact surprisingly light.

I will definitely try making another pavlova in the future.

Happy baking!

Disaster time... Lemon Viennese Whirls

If Craig Revel Horwood (the nasty man from Strictly Come Dancing if you're reading this Dad!) had been in my kitchen this afternoon he would have declared it a 'di-sah-ster dahling'!

I decided that I wanted to make something biscuity this weekend. After trawling through some of my old Olive magazines I found this recipe for marshmallow Viennese fingers. However, Rob wasn't too keen on the idea of marshmallow and suggested something lemony instead. After a little research on the internet I found a recipe here, which is loosely based on a Hairy Bikers recipe on the BBC website which you can find here.

All started well as I had all the ingredients (butter, plain flour, cornflour, icing sugar, vanilla extract and lemon zest and juice).

You need to then prepare two baking sheets. I'd read that it was handy to have pre-drawn circles of about 5cm onto your greaseproof paper to aid the piping so I dutifully drew 28 circles!

You mix together the ingredients in a food processor/blender and then you're ready to pipe - or so I thought. This is where it all started to go wrong. Now I had read that it was helpful if you're butter was soft so I had left mine out since yesterday. This was obviously not enough! When it came to piping my mixture was far too hard and refused to even come out of the piping bag. Rob suggested leaving the mixture in a bowl in a warm bowl of water to help soften it so I left and it did soften. It started to pipe - success I thought - however I was left with a buttery sludge and piping became tricky. I'd also read that the recipe was meant to make 16 Viennese whirls (32 separate biscuits). I managed 16 separate biscuits. At this point I was feeling quite defeated but carried on and placed them in the over. Here are at what they looked like after I eventually managed to get them out of the piping bag!

After 15 minutes in the oven they came out looking acceptable - they are very delicate and crumbly. From just getting them from the baking tray to a cooling rack I managed to break two leaving me with 14 biscuits (7 in total). 

The filling is butter cream and lemon curd which you spread on each half and you then sandwich together. They are a little on the wobbly side but they look good and most importantly taste good. I'll definitely try making them again and will hopefully learn from my mistakes by making them smaller and making sure my butter really is soft!  

Happy baking!

Dil :-)