Snickerdoodle cookie recipe

Merry Christmas! Yes, yes, I know I'm a little late writing this post, but just because Christmas was nearly a month ago doesn't mean you can't still enjoy these sugary, cinnamon cookies. These are generally thought of as an American festive cookie, and that the name is just a whimsical made-up concoction; but there is some thought that they originated from the German Schneckennudel, a type of pastry. Either way, they are delicious!

Ingredients:
60g butter or marg
160g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
1 egg
240g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

For the coating:
1 tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tbsp cinnamon

Cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla paste until light and fluffy. Gradually add the egg and mix well.
Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon into the mixing bowl, and fold in. Mix well until a dough forms.
Place the bowl into a bowl, cover with cling film, and place in the fridge for half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 170C.
Mix together the sugar and cinnamon for the coating.
Make walnut-sized balls of dough, and then roll around in the cinnamon sugar to totally coat. Place on to prepared baking trays, and bake for about 12 minutes.

Mini doughnut-looking Snickerdoodles

Before baking, these cookies look like minature doughnuts - good enough to eat even more they're baked. Once baked they are quite doughy and best eaten with a cup of tea to sip.

Baked Snickerdoodle cookies

Stamford Clandestine Cake Club does Christmas

Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin baked a cake... I recently wrote a guest post on the Clandestine Cake Club website about why we love Christmas cake - read it here! 

Christmas came early to the Stamford Clandestine Cake Club on December 9, as we gathered in the Tallington room at the Tobie Norris for our festive meeting. The theme was 'C is for Christmas, cake, and...' and we had 13 wonderful cakes to try. 

The venue was brilliant – really festive, with beams hung with holly, mistletoe, and evergreens, and there were lots of baubles, and some super mulled wine. The staff we really helpful when I panicked over the missing cake labels, and their eyes lit up when I presented them with a huge platter of cake to taste. 

The Tobie Norris is renowned amongst Stamfordians as being the best purveyor of home-made pizzas in the town. Although we didn't have room for any pizzas after all that cake, they certainly smelled excellent. We made the ladies in the room next door, eating their florentines, very jealous with all the cake. For more information, visit the Tobie Norris website. 

This month's meeting was relaxed and cheerful, and time flew past. We each introduced our cakes briefly, in an attempt to help us remember everyone's name, and also explaining a bit about our bakes. Newbie Celia made an apple crumble loaf, using a new type of apple, the Opal, which is grown locally in Wisbech. Vic's clementine loaf was so healthy and 'without' so many ingredients (flour, butter...) that we wondered what was left in – but there was plenty, as it was delicious. Becky's cake was a Yule log with a difference, featuring crunchy peanut butter. Rhoda's Carribean banana cake was fabulous, if a little difficult to slice up at the end (my apologies again, Rhoda, for slicing it up so that it looked like I'd kicked it!). The race for the cake trough at the end of the night was like bees round a honey pot. The icing Christmas tree atop my cake was made using skills I learned at the CCC 3rd birthday bash up in Liverpool, of which I was quite proud. 

It's been a fantastic year for the Stamford CCC, with some amazing cakes baked, and some real friendships formed. Here's to an equally brilliant 2014 for our club.

The cakes were:
Cranberry and pear loaf - SophieClementine cake - VicApple crumble loaf - CeliaCaribbean banana cake - RhodaCoca Cola cake - KerryChocolate yule log with peanut butter - BeckyCranberry and orange drizzle - VickyChocolate brownie cake - SarahChocolate caramel cake - AliceCranberry and orange stollen - KarenCranberry and marzipan cake - AliChristmas gingerspice cake - SamCourgette and chocolate cake - Katrina

Cranberry and pear muffins

We went to a friend's 30th birthday party last month, where said friend got a little bit merry. At midnight, she decided we should pick some pears from the tree in their garden. In the pitch darkness, I managed to pick about 10 pears, but goodness know how. They weren't even ripe, and only became edible last week. They turned quite suddenly, so I needed to find a fun recipe to use some up. Cranberry and pear muffins sounded perfect. I'm entering these into the Calendar Cakes December blog challenge, hosted by the fabulous Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes.

These are quite festive and Christmassy, you could even decorate them with fresh cranberries and some foliage to look like holly.

300g self-raising flour
1/2tsp bicarb
150g caster sugar
2/3tsp mixed spice
2 eggs, beaten
100ml yoghurt
75ml milk
100g marg, melted and cooled a bit
3 pears, peeled, cored, and diced
60g dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan). Line a 12-hole muffin tin (I used some fancy muffin cases from last year's Good Food Show).
Mix the flour, bicar, sugar, and spice and sift into a big bowl
Combine eggs, yoghurt, milk, and butter. Add the pears and cranberries.
Stir the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
Spoon into the muffin cases
Bake for about 20 minutes.
Decorate with a little plain icing and a few dried cranberries.

Squidgy chocolate brownies

One of my favourite, most popular, and most frequent things to bake is chocolate brownies. I love them, Steve loves them, and everyone else who tries them loves them. These chocolate brownies are rich and squidgy, with an excellent crack on the top, plenty of moistness, and real chocolateyness.

I added white chocolate chunks to this batch, to make them a bit special. I made them for our recent day out at Rockingham, to watch the British Touring Car Championship, with Steve, his brother, and my brother. They went down a treat! I love to people watch, and I was amazed by the amount of burgers, pizzas, hot dogs, and other meat-related things were being scoffed at the event - at 9am! Nothing could beat these brownies.

200g dark chocolate - I use a 75% cocoa bar
175g butter
325g caster sugar
130g plain flour
3 eggs, beaten
100g white chocolate (I used good ol' Milkybar)

Preheat the oven to 170C (160C fan oven).
Melt the chocolate and butter over a pan of simmering water until all melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.
Add the chocolate and butter mix to the sugar, and mix, but don't overwork.
Sift in the flour and stir, but again don't overwork.
Add the beaten eggs and mix, but be careful - if you mix for too long, it will start to look a bit weird and may separate a bit. Be gentle.
Chop the white chocolate into chunks - I found half a square to be a good size chunk - any smaller and they melt a little while being cooked, while half a chunk stays chunky. Stir into the mix.
Pour into a prepared baking tray. Bake for about 35 minutes. The top needs to feel hard and crisp, but don't use a skewer, as it will seem undone - but you want it to be squidgy.

Allow to cool in the tin. To serve, slice into squares, and dust with icing sugar.

For Christmas, I'm planning to try orange-flavoured chocolate with dried cranberries :) 

Christmas biscotti biscuits

I love a good biscotti biscuit. These are great as an after-dinner treat with a cup of good coffee, and also make great gifts for friends and family at Christmas.

Now, I know these aren't cakes, but they are Christmassy, so I'd like to enter these into the Calendar Cakes 'Go Crackers for Christmas!' blog challenge! Calendar Cakes is the brainchild of Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes and has a fab theme every month.

Christmassy biscotti

350g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
2tsp mixed spice
250g golden caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
Zest 1 orange
85g raisins
85g dried cranberries
50g flaked almonds
50g pistachios

Mix together the flour, sugar, spice, and baking powder. Add the eggs and zest, and stir, then knead.
Add fruit and nuts and work in.
Roll into 4 sausages.
Bake at 180C for 25-30 minutes.
Take out and cool for 5 minutes. Slice with a bread knife into 1cm thick slices.
Bake again at 140C for about 15 minutes, turn over, and bake for another 15 minutes.

These are lovely with coffee after a Christmas meal, but I do love to give them as little presents too. There are loads of flavour varieties you could try with them, they're very adaptable.

Lamenting the loss...

I am lamenting the loss of Christmas.

Christmas was a time of relaxing, of remembering the people you love and why they're important to you.

It was a time of merry, jolly, fun, frolics, and calm.

Now, it's back to real life, back to the lack of sleep due to the worry of finding somewhere to call home. Of spending all day searching for a house to view, only to find out nothing's right once you get there, knowing that the next day is just to be filled with more worry.

And it's having no time to do any quilting! Not having the patience or mental space to dedicate a moment to the thing that you love. I even went to a new fabric shop yesterday with the hope that I'd be inspired, but nothing. I'm sad.

A bit nutty

Almond and apricot cookies - yummy!!

Quite squidgy on the inside, with a crunch on the outside - delicious. Really good with a hot cup of coffee from the espresso machine - perfect to warm you up on a winter's day.

Ideal for chomping on while panicking about what to get your loved ones for Christmas. I'm amazingly unprepared and lacking any creativity or imagination when it comes to gifts this year - I'm so worried about the house that Christmas has sadly taken a back seat. I will be making some yummy treats for everyone's parcels closer to the big day, but for main presents I normally have some fresh and different ideas. This year, socks all round....

To cheer us up for Christmas, the estate agents want an exorbitant amount of money just for doing a credit check. They want to charge the two of us about 150 times the cost of doing the check - even the bad men at the bank do it for free, but no, we have to wipe out our Christmas budget just for a bit of paper. Merry Bloomin' Christmas, Mr Estate Agent!

Oh, and because they don't know that Christmas is going on in the background, they didn't mind asking us yesterday if we could move into our potetial new home before the 25th December. Let me think.... That would be a no.

All I want for Christmas... is a KitchenAid mixer!

...and somewhere to live please!

Sorry I've been quiet for a while. Our landlord is having a baby, and subsequently he wants to sell our house - so we have to find somewhere new to live. We've got until March 1, 2012 - which was generous of him, as he could have just given us a month's notice. But with Christmas and all, timing isn't great.... To say I'm panicked is somewhat of an understatement.

We were getting really settled here so it's such a shame - we only just put some shelves and photos up, and it was really feeling like home. We knew it wasn't forever but it suited us for now.

Now I feel rushed and scared. I'm checking for new properties every day, but there's never much property movement during December - obviously, no one wants to be moving house at Christmas (ditto!). We viewed a lovely barn conversion last week, but it wasn't practical - the landlord wanted to keep all her furniture and belongings in there, so basically it would suit someone who's just left home, without any personal stuff to clutter up the space. We couldn't be further from that! Especially with all my quilting garb!

On top of asking Father Christmas for a new home, I'd also like a wooden chopping board, some socks, and a food mixer.

It's available here, Father Christmas, in case your elves can't quite manage it!!

What a ladder, sugar!

With the weather turning sunny, even if it's still freezing cold, it's always good to know that you can hang your towels on a bamboo ladder, don't you agree? Luckily, I have one! Another of my Christmas presents that has made me disproportionately happy.

Not only that, but check out the best sugar pot in the world. I feel very protective over this sugar pot, and worry every time I take it off the shelf to add sugar to the Boyf's tea (I'm sweet enough already, haha).

I also got an almost-matching mug/cup (I'm not sure what it is) for my birthday.

Shame I don't have any red thread, so I can't do some quilting, rather than just making cups of tea in my new mug/cup. But it is a lovely new light Earl Grey by Fortnum & Mason, excellent.

Happy New Year!

I've been absent for a while, enjoying the Christmas and New Year festivities. So to update, here are some of my brilliant Christmas presents.

Firstly, a new sewing machine!!!! It's an Elna 6600, the "Quilter's Dream" - it's amazing! It does about a million pre-programmed stitches, including a penguin. It took several days to read the instructions before I built up the courage to turn it on... But it really is a dream.

A gorgeous teapot, a 1920s Royal Albert design teacup and saucer, and a chicken teapot were also received with glee:

So now I'm off to make tea and so some quilting!

Christmas baker

I spent the whole day in the kitchen yesteday making Christmas treats. I was so tired afterwards I couldn't post anything about it! I didn't stop from 630am to 630pm (although that included 50 minutes stuck in the car in the snow).


The list of goodies is:
Marshmallows
Coconut ice
Gingerbread - a house and other shapes
A French yule log
Chocolate truffles with three toppings
Chocolate fruit & nut bark
Chocolate Christmas shapes

Phew!!!! I hope everyone appreciates them!

Final stockings

I finished our stockings! One has a cream heart, quilt wadding, and a green heart on top, the other has a quilted cream heart and a plain green one. The cream heart went a bit wonky, so that one's mine. I'm so pleased with them, and it's a wonderful thing to make such a special thing for each other that we can keep for years (hopefully!). 

Stocks of stockings

The stockings have been made! Christmas is officially on the way. 

I made them with red fleece material, with a cream thick sock edging around the top. They're massive - but that means all the more presents to be stuffed inside!! 

Am planning to stitch on a couple of hearts in green fabric. We discussed adding one element every year - awww!

Mini Christmas cakes

I have a terrible cold so no sewing or being creative today, just curling up with a blanket...and dreaming about cupcakes. So poorly I don't think I can even bake anything myself - it must be bad.

But I did get two elves on my advent calendar, so it's not all bad. Merry elves!

What's the time Mr Teapot?

How gorgeous is this necklace!!! It's a necklace, a teapot, and a clock, all in one go. 

I love it!!

It might be too late to add it to my Christmas list, but maybe Father Christmas reads my blog....

Lonely apostrophe

Buying Christmas presents for the Boyfriend today, I stumbled across this mug. Completely perfect for him as he does slurp his tea, and I'm always mentioning it...

However. This mug upsets me. I was in a quandry over whether to buy it.

"Do ahhh' after every slurp."

What the heck is that apostrophe doing?!?!????!!!

It's obviously supposed to be 'ahhh' and they dropped the first one by accident. It can't have been on purpose. It traumatises me. I bought it as I know Boyfriend will love it, and he won't be upset at all by the missing apostrophe - but I might look at it every time he has a cuppa and want to break it!!!

What a Christmas quandry...

Stockings in suspense

The Boyf and I are going to make our own Christmas stockings, as we're so underwhelmed by the selection in the shops. Seems if you don't want a garish cheap felt stocking then you're not allowed to indulge in one of the best Christmas traditions!

I've got a design in mind. It requires cream wool fabric, with red thread. I now need to find some nice cream wool, that doesn't cost £30 per metre...