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

Midnight cookes

I had a hankering for cookies at the weekend, so I rummaged through my recipe books and found an easy-looking chocolate cookie recipe, called Midnight cookies.

I can only assume they are so-called because they ought to be eaten at that time of night so that you can't see how rubbish they are, and are so sleepy that it doesn't matter that they're not like cookies at all, but more like flat cakes.

I thought the recipe sounded a bit odd as I was mixing anything together, and then when it came to rolling walnut-sized balls in my dampened hands, I was basically manhandling cake mix. Don't get me wrong, they taste lovely, but they really are just flat cakes. Odd. I won't share the recipe, as I wouldn't encourage such a wasted bake! But I will tell you the name of the book - '1001 Cupcakes, Cookies, and other Tempting Bakes', a Christmas present. I'll be sticking to good ol' Aztec cookies in future.

Only good thing about them is the new plate I bought from the antique shop.

Pinwheel cookie fail

Steve and his brother went away mountain biking for the weekend. I thought it would be a nice idea to make them some cookies to take with them, and thought Mary Berry's pinwheel cookies would be fun to do. They were in the Children's section of her 'Baking Bible' cookery book so I thought I couldn't lose. A chocolate dough, rolled with a vanilla dough - easy stuff.

Mary Berry's easy creations

GOOD LORD these were dreadful!

I'm not going to repeat the recipe, as I wouldn't want to inflict them upon you all. It seemed quite basic and straightforward, so off I set. However, I soon realised that the 'dough' that needed rolling out in fact resembled 'batter' and in no world would ever be rolled anywhere. Even after chilling for 15 minutes the texture was far too loose. No rolling here.

Instead, I dolloped the mixture on to the baking tray, making an attempt to mix the two together in a bit of a swirly fashion. They did not look good.

Perfect. 

Once cooked, they tasted disgusting.

It's not often Steve won't eat something. That means they're really bad.

They went in the bin.

Mary Berry, you have failed me!

A definite candidate for CraftFail.

GBBO book review

I love The Great British Bake Off. It's my only 'must-watch' TV programme at the moment - no one dare phone me, text me, or even ask if I'd like a cup of tea while it's on. I applied this year, but wasn't successful - not even through to the auditions - but I still feel a little part of it ;)

I have both of the previous books to accompany series 1 and 2, and so as soon as I saw this season's 'Showstoppers' book it went straight on my bookshelf.

All three books have had different approaches while retaining the joy of the competition, lots of recipes, and new ideas. In this year's book, the challenge theme is announced (such as hidden picture cakes), with the basic recipe given. Then there are three alternative ways to tackle the challenge, ranging in difficulty. I think this is a great way to reach new bakers and the old hands - something for everyone. I was happy to see that I'd already attempted the first variation of the hidden picture cake challenge - a chocolate marbled cake - which means I can go straight on to attempt either the chess board cake, or the marzipan heart. Watch this space to see which I try...

There are lots of hints, tips, and advice, with great intros to each section, and surprise gems of knowledge throughout. I've already learned lots of handy tips to put into practice. I particularly liked the info about icing, and how to approach royal icing and sugar paste, things that I haven't gone near as they've always been a bit daunting.

The book follows the flow of ther TV series, and it's full of photos of the contestants, recipes from the show mingling with new and old favourites, and they hint at successful bakes from the show without ruining the surprise of who wins master baker in that episode. The only negative thing I can say is a personal bugbear about many recipe books, and that is including recipes without photographs. I think especially with a baking book this is vital, and as a novice/beginner baker I am always a little reluctant to try something new without having a clue what it's supposed to look like - how can you judge whether you've done it right?

Aztec cookies

I've already made one recipe from the book - Aztec cookies (page 96). These were absolutely delicious - made with melted dark chocolate (it's meant to be dark chocolate with espresso, but my local shops didn't have any, so I stirred in some ground espresso instead), plus chunks of white chocolate too. Very adult cookies. They're sprayed with gold dust in the book, but as this wasn't a bake to go on show, I missed that out, and they were no less delicious for it.

Chocolate cookies like cake

I just baked some chocolate chip chunk cookies that are more like cake than they are like cookies.

I am confused. I've never really got the hang of making great cookies - I make pretty good raisin and oatmeal ones, and some smashing almond and apricot ones, not to mention really ace ginger biscuits, but choc cookies have always alluded me. I really want that crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, armadillo, kinda feeling. These cookies, while tasty, actually had more of a texture of cake. Thin, squashed cake. Odd. Maybe I didn't bake them for long enough, I don't know, but they certainly weren't right. Frustrating.

Chocolate chip cookies that taste like cake

If you'd like to bake cookies that are more like cake (I'm not sure why you would, but I persevere), follow this...

125g marg
60g caster sugar
40g soft dark brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
150g plain flour
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
100g chocolate chunks

Beat marg until soft, add sugar, and beat together until fluffy. Beat the egg with the vanilla, then add to the mixture.
Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Work in the chocolate.
Place heaped teaspoons of mixture on to prepared baking trays - I made three tray-fulls.
Bake in the oven, preheated to 170 degrees (fan), for about 10 minutes, until golden brown, slightly darker at the edges.

A note at this point: if your trays don't all fit in the oven at once, don't be tempted to rest one on the lip of the other at an angle. This will mean the cookie mixture will slide, and you'll end up with strange-looking cookies...

Strange-looking slidey cookies

As if he was psychic, my boyfriend brought home chocolate chip cookies from the supermarket at the exact time I was taking these out of the oven. He must have had a premonition that mine weren't really going to resemble cookies. But, he ate the all the same.

Get ready for cake club

Tomorrow I will be attending the first meeting of my local Clandestine Cake Club - a new phenomenon gripping the cake-baking nation. Find out more about CCC here.

Sneak peak of my CCC cake...

I don't yet know how many cake makers will be joining me at the secret location to eat, talk about, and show off cakes, but however many people turn up, I'm looking forward to meeting new people and hopefully making some new cake-loving friends.

Requirements of the club include baking a cake that can be cut into 8 - 12 slices, bringing a cake stand or similar recepticle for showing off said cake, and then eating other people's cakes. Now that sounds like my sort of club.

The club has featured on BBC1's 'The One Show' and soon will be featured in 'Women's Own' magazine, and the idea has really captured the imagination of bakers across the country. A fun and informal way to meet like-minded people just to enjoy each others' creations and talk about why we love to bake. For me, baking is a way to relax, learn new techniques, hone skills, and enjoy lovely cakes. I've found baking to be a way to escape from the stresses of everyday life, to help me overcome impending bouts of depression that haunt me some days, and a way to feel fulfilled that as yet a career has yet to do. Seeing the faces of your friends and family as they devour some tasty creation that you made fills the heart with happiness. I can say, "I made that, I did that, I'm good at something". It's also great to test my perfectionist nature, as inevitably things will go wrong in the kitchen, the cookies will only taste good if you dunk them in tea otherwise you risk a trip to the dentist, or the cake sags and is a bit claggy, or perhaps the cheesecake doesn't quite set and slides off the plate. But, who cares? I'm not a professional baker or chef, and everyone still loves the tasty things even if in my eyes they've gone hoo-har.

I will be taking to the meeting a rhubarb & lemon cake, topped with whipped cream and lemon curd. I'm more nervous about this cake than any other I've made, but hopefully it'll taste yummy and I won't get thrown out of the club on its first outing. It smells nice, I know that much. I won't share all the pics or the recipe yet, as it should stay a secret until after the club meeting...

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.

Ginger biscuits

I love ginger biscuits, and I've just found a brilliant recipe for the best ever ginger cookies. They're chewy and brilliant with a cup of tea (what I'm enjoying at the moment). It's just plain ol' Tetley tonight, I was too desperate for a cuppa to choose any other leaves. But hits the spot all the same.