Cinnamon Biscuits

In which I improve a pretty awesome recipe for biscuits...

And by improve I mean - add more cinnamon!

Ingredients

• 6 oz self-raising flour
• 6 oz plain flour
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 5 oz butter
• 4 oz caster sugar
• 1 egg

Recipe

• Preheat oven to 160°C.

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• Sift flour and cinnamon into a large bowl.

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• In a separate bowl, mix butter and sugar until smooth.
• Add egg and mix well.
• Stir in the dry ingredients and mix into firm dough. 
• Lift on to a lightly floured board, knead until smooth.

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• Roll to 5mm thickness & cut into shapes and place on a greased oven tray. 
• Bake in the preheated oven until light golden colour, 10 to 15 minutes.

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• Let cool and harden.
• Enjoy!

Web-link

The original recipe: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/506/cinnamon-biscuits.aspx

Tom Out!

Vanilla & Chocolate Cheesecake

In which a vanilla and chocolate cheesecake is made ahead of tea testing...

Obviously tea testing requires suitable cake (someone else was already making scones for it) so a decadent cheesecake was required :)

Ingredients

• 175g caster sugar
• 450g cream cheese
• vanilla pod
• 75ml lemon juice
• 175ml crème fraiche
• 625ml double cream
• 150g dark chocolate
• 25g butter
• 12 dark chocolate HobNobs

Recipe

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1. Crush your biscuits of choice (HobNobs :D ) with a rolling pin.
2. Melt butter.
3. Mix.
4. Press into the bottom of a 9-inch cake tin.
5. Chill in fridge while preparing filling.
6. Cut the vanilla pod open and scrape out the seeds.
7. Mix the sugar, cream cheese and vanilla seeds together.
8. Whisk lemon juice, 475 ml cream and crème fraiche until they form soft peaks.
9. Fold the mixtures together.
10. Melt dark chocolate into remaining cream.
11. Cool until you can make a trail with it.
12. Put a third of the cheese mix into the base.
13. Swirl chocolate mix on top.
14. Repeat until all the filling has been used.
15. Use a sharp knife/long cocktail stick to swirl the mixtures together.
16. Chill for approx 5 hours (I did overnight).
17. Enjoy!

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Cheesecake

Tom Out!

P.S. http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/11296/gordons-cheesecake

Pudding Party!

Those puddings in full...

Enjoy the glorious pudding party pictures!

See my earlier post for the recipe for Bruce Bogtrotter's Cake :)

Tom Out!

Giant Party Ring

Giant party rings! This week in metric!

Ingredients

• 90g butter

• 200g self raising flour

• 100g caster sugar*

• 1 medium egg

• ½ tsp vanilla essence

• approx. 150g icing sugar

• food colourings of your choice

*I used brown sugar because it was all I had and that worked pretty well :)

How-to

1. Cream butter and sugar together.

2. Add egg and vanilla essence.

3. Mix thoroughly.

4. Sieve flour into mixture.

5. Mix thoroughly.

6. Add flour if dough is too sticky.

7. Wrap dough in foil and leave in fridge for an hour.

8. Preheat oven to ~ 180°C

9. Roll dough out into a large round shape (pizza trays are a good size guide).

10. Cut a hexagonal hole out of the centre (yes, hexagonal!).

11. Use any spare dough to make smaller and smaller party rings.

12. Bake for ~ 30 mins.

13. Leave to cool

Icing:

1. Sieve icing sugar into bowl.

2. Add food colouring.

3. Add a small amount of water (be very careful or you're going to need a whole kilo of icing sugar to make it less runny!)

4. Mix thoroughly.

5. Use the back of a spoon to cover your biscuit.

6. Make up another colour of icing.

7. Use knife to place it in lines across the biscuit.

8. Use you knife to draw out the lines into a party ring pattern.

The Finished Article

Sadly this week I made my icing way too runny but here's a picture I took last time I got this right :)

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Giant Party Ring

Tom Out!

P.S. Based on: http://www.pimpthatsnack.com/project/15/