Best. Cookies. Ever.

I know, it's a bold claim but honestly these are the best cookies I've ever made. Tom thought so too, thus it must be true.

If I'm ever in a restaurant and there's something on the desert menu which involves the word "butterscotch", I'm there like a rat up a drainpipe. Probably because I don't really know what it is but have gathered that it's on the caramel, toffee, fudge spectrum and is devilishly sweet. So I made it my task to discover how one would go about making this heaven-sent treat and with minimal research (a customary google search) I found that my dearly beloved Caramac bars - reminiscent of childhood sweetie shop trips - are essentially butterscotch.

And so, in celebration of completing the first draft of my dissertation (woohoo!) and my body's declaration for gooey yummy calorific treats to compensate for the recent brain abuse, I made Butterscotch and Pecan cookies. Or Caramac and Pecan cookies.

So soft. So chewy. So gooey. So divine.

The Leaning Tower of Whoopie (pies)...

So, I have a great excuse to bake delicious goods at least once a fortnight; where I work on Saturdays we take it in turns to bring in "four-o-clocksies". For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of four-o-clocksies it involves eating something yummy (and often highly calorific) with a cup of tea, at 4 o clock in the afternoon to enable you to work those final 2 hours. I must say, it's a very successful motivational tool and I don't know why all businesses don't schedule it on the rota.

This past Saturday was my turn and seeing as one of the women I work with is American I thought I'd attempt a batch of Whoopie Pies. My mum bought me a recipe book on them for christmas so flicking through I picked the one which didn't involve buttermilk in the recipe as this just confused me (I have since learned you can easily make this with a cup of full-fat milk and a tablespoon of lemon juice; leaving it out to curdle...yum. Thanks Kenna!) So, I settled on salted caramel with a fluffy marshmallow filling.

My arm muscles certainly resented making the fluffy marshmallow filling, as this involved whisking egg whites, sugar, golden syrup and salt, in a bowl suspended over a pan of boiling water for 10-15 minutes! I can barely whisk for a minute continuously, so now my right arm pretty much resembles pop-eye's.

It was however, worth it as this fluffy marshmallow filling if piped out into rounds and set in the fridge, makes awesome vegetarian marshmallows! Who knew!

The whoopie pies were a success however, you need to gobble them up asap as they seemed to dry out quicker than other cakes.

Birthday Boy

So, while I've been gone it was my wonderful boyfriend's birthday (only 4 days after mine), naturally I was compelled to make him a kick-ass cake but I also wanted to play with a new icing head I got so one could argue that I went a little overboard on the piping!

Anyway, it was your average birthday sponge sandwiched with mouth-watering fresh blueberry jam (I use the word jam loosely as the berries were almost entirely intact) and blueberry buttercream. The buttercream came out an off-putting 70s shade of salmon/putty so I toned it down to a pretty lilac, yes I know, incredible masculine.

I had the lights off and the lighter at arms reach ready to start igniting the candles when at the signal (the door at the bottom of the stairs clicking shut when my beau got home from work) unfortunately though the surprise was slightly ruined by him running up the stairs 3 at a time - probably with birthday boy excitement - to catch me mid-way through lighting :-( "Go away!" was the wittiest response I could muster and he patiently waited outside while I lit the rest of the candles. In spite of that, the cake was delicious and now armed with even more piping heads I'm looking forward to excelling myself next year.

Back...Again

Right, so I'm definitely back with a vengeance this time, having finished my dissertation :-)

I've decided to tweak the posting a little to make myself more efficient, from now on I'll just be posting the moorish pictures and if anyone wants the recipe then leave a comment and I'll put it up!

Chocaccino and Banana & Cinnamon Cupcakes

Vanilla frosted chocolate and espresso cupcakes (a couple unfrosted) and banana & cinnamon cupcakes with a banana frosting.

Recipe to follow...

Soft Baked Vanilla Fudge Cookies

Nothing beats a house that smells like freshly baked cookies...except perhaps a house that contains a plate of freshly baked cookies, perhaps with the left over wooden spoon caked in all that glorious cookie dough nearby.

It's getting quite hard to be adventurous with cookie flavourings without being avant-garde, given their rise (no pun intended) in popularity in many supermarkets. I'm aware that toffee cookies are a much loved entity but fudge cookies I've yet to come across. Fudge has a higher melting point than the likes of chocolate so you have to be patient with these allowing them to melt down in the oven and giving them ample time to re-set afterwards.

I'd really recommend this recipe for basic cookie dough which you can jazz up with whatever you taste-buds inspire you with, just substitute the 200g of vanilla fudge for whatever else you fancy: I made a batch of white chocolate (150g) and chopped hazelnut (50g) at the same time as these.

Makes 10-12ish large cookies

Ingredients:

125g Butter

40g Caster Sugar

60g Soft Dark Brown Sugar

1 Medium Egg

125g Plain Flour

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Few drops of Vanilla Essence

200g Vanilla Fudge (or whatever else you fancy)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Line several baking sheets with baking paper or lightly butter them.

Using an electric mixer (or a heavy hand and a wooden spoon) beat the butter with both sugars, in a large bowl, until soft and fluffy.

Beat the egg, then gradually beat this, with the vanilla essence, into the mixture.

Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda together and carefully fold into the creamed mixture.

Chop the fudge into small pieces and stir into the cookie dough, be careful not to over mix.

Spoon heaped teaspoons of the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, allowing plenty of room for them to stretch their legs and spread out whilst in the oven.

Bake for 10 minutes or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool for a few minutes before placing them on a wire rack to cool completely, transfer them too soon and they'll be so soft they fall through the rack - I'm speaking from experience here.

Caramel and Pecan filled Chocolate Cupcakes

So, this was my first experiment with filling cupcakes; it was so easy that I can't believe it's taken me this long to try it. The sauce could have done with being a bit thicker but for a first attempt it did the job. With a toffee flavoured cupcake, caramel and pecan filling and chocolate fudge frosting sprinkled with coconut these were perhaps my most calorifically indulgent to date - I tried to compensate over the weekend by going for a five-mile bike ride. Truth be told the majority of it was down hill. And I got-off and pushed on the slightest hint of an incline. And I got a lift back. But I tried, right?

Anyway, I digress. Divine with a 4pm cup of tea, these will definitely give you that friday-afternoon-almost-finished-work blissful satisfaction.

Makes 10

Ingredients:

75g unsalted butter

140g dark muscovado sugar

2 large egg whites

140g plain flour

2 tbsp cocoa

1 tsp cinnamon

225ml full fat milk with 1tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

Blend the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon - the type of sugar means that it won't go as creamy as usual, so before long add the egg whites.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder into a separate bowl. Add half to the sugar mixture.

Add half of the milk concoction (this is a substitute for buttermilk as this recipe is adapted from an american one) to the sugar mixture.

Don't forget the vanilla essence!

Now the other half of the flour mix.

And finally the other half of the milk mixture. Blend well. Spoon into a cupcake case lined muffin tray.

Bake for between 15 and 20 minutes.

For the filling and frosting...

Ingredients:

6 pecans (chopped)

2 tbsp dark brown sugar

4 tbsp milk

1 tbsp golden syrup

1 tbsp butter

75g icing sugar

100g plain chocolate (broken into pieces)

50g butter

Directions:

On a low heat, suspend a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (making sure that the water doesn't come into contact with the base of the suspended bowl).

Gently heat 1tbsp butter, 1tbsp golden syrup, 2 tbsp milk and 2 tbsp dark brown sugar.

Once all the ingredients have melted, remove from the heat and stir in the chopped pecans.

With a sharp knife cut a cone shaped section out of the middle of each of your, now baked and cooled, cupcakes. Using a teaspoon fill each hole and replace just the top of the cone which you have cut out. And repeat.

As before, suspend a heatproof bowl over a saucepan with a small amount of simmering water. Gently heat 1tbsp butter, the chocolate and 2tbsp of milk. Occasionally stir the mixture with a wooden spoon. Be sure to set the saucepan to a low heat - try to avoid the water boiling as chocolate burns easily.

Once melted stir in the icing sugar and spread over the cupcakes whilst the frosting is still warm. And enjoy!