Christmas Is Coming Part 1 - Cranberry & White Chocolate Cookies

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat...so it must be time for some Christmas inspired recipes! This time last year I became a bit obsessed with cranberry based cookie recipes. As December is now here I felt it was time to revisit some of these recipes. These cookies are from 'The Hummingbird Bakery' Cake Days book. I've made these once before and liked the flavour combination. We enjoyed these today when we made a Starbucks pit-stop with friends on the way to a christening in Tunbridge Wells. I plan to post a few more cranberry based recipes over the next weeks so keep your eyes peeled!

I had intended to try out this recipe for macadamia and cranberry American cookies from the BBC Good Food website however when I saw the price of macadamia nuts in Tesco yesterday (£4.20 for a 250 gram bag!) I decided to think again. This is an easy recipe that you can make in one bowl - just be careful to not over bake them. I am still getting to know my oven and found they quickly went a little too brown and lost their chewiness. They would make a lovely festive gift for someone wrapped in cellophane or in a box and decorated with some festive ribbon. This recipe will make 10-12 cookies.

Ingredients:

135g unsalted butter
80g caster sugar
80g light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
190g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
100g dried cranberries
60g white chocolate chips (I used chopped white chocolate)

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and line two baking sheets with baking parchment.
2) Using a hand-held whisk or freestanding electric mixer cream together the butter and both types of sugar.

Then break in the egg, mix in the vanilla essence and mix well together.

3) Sift together the flour, salt, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda, then add to the creamed mixture in two batches (I forgot to do this and added it all in - oops!) mixing thoroughly in the mixer or by hand until a dough forms.

Finally stir in the cranberries and chocolate chips.

4) Break off pieces of the dough, roll them into balls and place onto your prepared baking sheets. Allow 5-6 cookies per tray (although this will depend on the size of your baking trays), making sure they have space to spread during cooking.

5) Place in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cookies are a light golden brown on top. Leave on the sheets for about 10 minutes to cool and set before transferring to a wire rack.

6) Enjoy with your favourite festive drink!

Happy baking!

White chocolate and raspberry melting cake

This cake was meant to be an entry for a John Whaite Book Club competition (and also dessert for a gathering with some of my teacher friends) but as you will discover if you read on, it ended up in no fit state to be photographed...

There were many lessons I learnt when making this cake...
1) Always use the correct size cake tins - if it says 20cm it means 20cm! Sadly I don't own any 20cm tins. I own 18.5cm tins and 23cm tins. I opted for the 23cm tins thinking this would be better but sadly not! I ended up with large almost flat sponges.
2) Check your self-raising flour is in date Mine was best before June which I think may have contributed towards my flat sponges.
3) If it says the ganache filling will take a long time to thicken it means it will take a long time to thicken.
4) If your judgement is telling you not to try to assemble the cake don't do it! I thought about taking the sponges and ganache separately and assembling it when needed but stupidly thought it would be ok. It wasn't - the ganache wasn't thick enough and spilled out everywhere. The cake started to slip and slide around in my car and due to some unexpected breaking ended up in pieces. It was essentially a cake jigsaw puzzle that I had to arrange into something resembling a cake when I arrived at my friends house. Luckily I have some lovely friends who said it still looked delicious :-)

I wasn't going to post this but actually it was a big hit and when it was sliced into pieces it didn't actually look too bad (if you looked at it in a creative way!) and a blog post was requested by my friends. Sadly I only had my phone with me so the pictures of the end result aren't great. If you are brave enough to attempt this (and not as silly as me and don't make the same mistakes I did) you can find the recipe here on John Whaite's Facebook page.

Ingredients

For the sponge
200g unsalted butter (At room temperature, cut into cubes)
100g white chocolate (Broken into pieces)
4 eggs
200g caster sugar
200g self-raising flour
175g fresh raspberries
Icing sugar (For dusting)

For the ganache filling 
200g white chocolate (Broken into pieces)
250ml double cream

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Grease and base-line two 20cm (8in) round loose-bottomed cake tins.
2) Put the butter and chocolate in a large heatproof mixing bowl above a pan of barely simemring water and allow them to melt and meld together slowly, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool for a minute or so (the mixture will look a bit strange as the second photo shows but don't worry).

3) When the melted butter and chocolate have cooled, add the eggs and sugar and beat with an electric mixer until you have a smooth and consistent batter (This takes a minute or two. To begin with you will think it is never going to create a smooth batter but have faith - it will come together!) Sift the flour over the bowl and fold that in, along with the fresh raspberries.

4) Gently pour into the prepared cake tins, dividing equally between them.
5) Bake for 20-25 minutes (or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean). Remember to switch the tins halfway through baking if you are not baking them on the same shelf. Allow to cool completely.

6) To make the ganache, put the chocolate into a heatproof bowl with 100ml of the cream. Set over a pan of barely simmering water and stir until the chocolate has melted into the cream and you are left with a smooth, glossy ganache. Leave to cool to room temperature, then beat in the rest of the cream. It takes a long time for the ganache to cool and thicken, so you will need to be patient! (Something like several hours...)

7) When the cakes have cooled, sandwich them together - the lower one base-side down, the upper one inverted, so that you have a smooth top and bottom - with the white chocolate ganache. Dust with icing sugar, just before serving. 

Happy baking (and good luck!)