Christmas goodies

OK, so I forgot about this blog ;)

Christmas has seen a few new recipes for me, so here they are. First up, cookies:

White chocolate and cranberry cookies
(UKTV Food)

This is an adaptable recipe - I made two batches of white chocolate and cranberry, and two of dark chocolate and (candied) ginger. I added cocoa powder and ground ginger to the mix for the second variety. Also tried some with Werther's chewy toffees mixed in, but they melted/ran all over the place and stuck badly to the baking tray. (Cookies still edible, but not presentable!) I would try them once more, forming the balls and then poking half a toffee into the top of each one, so it can't stick or go anywhere when it melts.

I made two slight amendments to the recipe, using just 75g golden caster sugar (they were plenty sweet enough) and using one whole medium egg instead of just 1-2 yolks. Thanks to the melted butter, the cookie mixture is quite greasy to handle. I tried adding a little extra flour but then the cookies didn't spread as well (and had to be squished with a fork halfway through baking). The mix as given makes 18-24 cookies depending on size.

They go soft and cakey rather than crunchy or gooey, although they taste good and have some added interest from the oats and ground almonds. I think I will keep searching for the perfect cookie base recipe...

I'm going to paste the recipes into my posts here from now on, to guard against the links expiring in the future.

Ingredients

• 150g butter
• 150g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 50 g ground almonds
• 50 g porridge oats
• 50 g dried cranberries, raisins, sultanas or currants
• 50g brown sugar and 50g caster sugar, or 100g demerara sugar
• 100g white chocolate, cut into chunks
• 1 large egg yolk, or 2 small egg yolks

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4.
2. Melt the butter, and allow to cool.
3. Sift the flour and the bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl.
4. Add the ground almonds, oats, dried fruit, soft brown sugar, caster sugar and the chocolate chunks and mix well.
5. Mix the cooled melted butter with the egg yolk and pour into the dry ingredients, stirring to combine.
6. With your hands, form into walnut-sized balls and arrange slightly apart from each other on 2 baking trays.
7. Gently flatten the biscuits slightly and place in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes or until golden.
8. Allow to cool a little on the trays before transferring them to a wire rack to finish cooling.