These pretty little cookies are chunky, chewy and full of cheer! Packed full of cranberries, macadamia nuts and white chocolate, each mouthful promises little jewels and treasures and deliciousness. They are perfect for serving up to friends, wrapping in cellophane and pretty red ribbon as a gift, or dunking in steaming tea as you curl up on the couch this Christmas. With that blissful combination of crunchy edges and a pillowy-soft centre, whatever their destiny they won’t last long!
Fancy a batch of these pillowy-soft centred, crispy edged, slightly salted, honey-laced cookies? Packed with generous chunks of dark chocolate, crunchy pistachios and the promise of that perfect chewy texture, they’re a little exotic and utterly seductive. Perfect for late night snacking with a cup of tea, I used whole wheat flour for thicker cookies, and dark brown sugar for an almost caramel-like flavour. These devilish darlings don’t disappoint.
By popular demand, I present to you another healthy recipe! These little cookies have big personality; packed with almonds, sunflower seeds, coconut, oats, wholemeal flour, dates and a little honey for sweetness, each bite crumbles in your mouth and is irresistibly moreish. Because they lack any refined sugar, the texture of the cookies is on the slightly cakey side, but they still have a lovely crunch. Perfect for a morning snack, kids’ lunchboxes, or an after dinner treat.
This is a wickedly decadent little cookie, all crunchy and sweet and salty and sinful. The kind that leaves a few moist, chocolatey crumbs on your lips, and has you craving another when you’re only halfway through your first! The recipe uses brown sugar to give the cookies a chewy yet crunchy texture, and each bite hides a crisp piece of homemade peanut brittle. The brittle recipe is a family favourite that my Nan has made legendary, except she has always used almonds. I decided to switch it up, and the result is a little irresistible; deadly for lovers of peanut butter.
It’s SWOTVAC, so with exams next week what’s a girl to do but eat cookies, drink tea, desperately cram knowledge into her brain and dream of the holidays that are less than 2 weeks away? I really worked to perfect this delicious little cookie recipe last week, a dream come true for any lover of the fragrant, sensual, indulgent combination of dark chocolate and orange. Laced with nutmeg and a little salt, these giant cookies have perfectly crispy edges that give rise to a chewy, soft centre. Served warm, generous chunks of melted dark chocolate flow from each mouthful, as warm, salty crumbs cling to your lips. The undeniable magic in the marriage of salt and chocolate completely seals the deal…these cookies are bound to leave you charmed.
Top tip; refrigerating cookie dough overnight before baking helps the cookies to spread evenly in the oven, giving higher, rounder, chewier cookies!
After mastering the creation of a meringue kiss that tasted just like a Ferrero Rocher (see here), my next challenge was to devise a recipe for the Ferrero Rocher’s devilishly dainty little sister, the Raffaello. Fine almond meal is folded through these crisp, light meringues, before they are dipped in silky white chocolate and delicious dessicated coconut. As you bit into the kiss, the chocolate cracks away to reveal the airy, crunchy merinuge nestled inside. The whole blissful bite quickly dissolves on your tongue, leaving the texture of the coconut and almond to be discovered.
I have always envied the cookie monster. If ever he feels a little sad, or stressed, or worried, or excited, or joyful, or basically any emotion, he resorts to stuffing his face with an apparently never-ending source of chocolatey crumbly deliciously cookies…I think we should all live by his cookie-dependent way of life! Cookies are one of my favourite things to bake, I multiplied this lovely Donna Hay recipe by 5 (!!!) because you can never really have too many cookies… But also, I tutor a bunch of very clever and hard working Year 12 students, who are sitting their final exams this week! I wrapped them each a little pack of these ‘Swotvac Cookies’ last week to keep their brains fuelled and thriving during this stressful but exciting time. Hopefully their grades will be bumped up a bit as a result of my baking efforts 😉
These chocolate hazelnut meringues are deceptively light. I fooled myself into thinking I’d be fine after eating about 15 over the course of one fateful hour as I dipped the crisp, nutty kisses into silky, melted chocolate, and later suffered the wrath of the subsequent sugar rush. But hey, they were pretty irresistible! They are relatively easy to whip up, and are a great dessert for feeding the masses on a small list of ingredients. I think they taste very much like Ferrero Rochers, so in my books they are pretty close to perfect. Continue reading
one perfect mess 