Peanut Butter and Nutella Cookies (gluten free)

I love peanut butter. Seriously love it. I'm pretty sure just about everything tastes better with peanut butter. Well, perhaps I am exaggerating a little... But only a little. Cookies definitely taste better with peanut butter!

Here is my recipe for delicious peanut butter Nutella cookies. The best thing is they have no flour! If you want more of a peanut butter kick, replace the Nutella with peanut butter. Yum!

1/2 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth - you choose)
1/2 cup Nutella
1 cup of caster sugar
1 egg

Preheat you oven to 170 degrees and line a tray with baking paper. Beat everything together until well mixed. Drop spoonfuls onto the tray (the mixture will be quite sticky), make sure you don't place them too close. Bake for 10 minutes for a chewy cookie, 12-15 minutes for a crunchy cookie.

If you're a chocolate fan, chocolate chips added to the batter would be delicious. But, they are pretty good just as they are!

ANZAC biscuit bake-off

New Zealand and Australia commemorated ANZAC Day this past Wednesday. After the Dawn Parade, I decided to bake some ANZAC cookies. I had seen advertising for the Chelsea Golden Syrup ANZAC recipe, so I decided to try it. Then, I decided it would be interesting to do a bit of an ANZAC biscuit bake-off. Pit two recipes against each other to find the best ANZAC biscuit. The obvious choice for the second recipe was the Edmonds Cookbook recipe.

The Chelsea recipe can be found here. I stuck to the classic recipe and didn't add sunflower seeds, although I really like the idea of adding seeds for extra crunch.

These ANZAC cookies were really, really tasty, but they were not how I consider a traditional ANZAC cookie should be. They were the texture of a brandy snap, I think due to the really high sugar content. So they were super crispy and crunchy. They also spread so that they were super flat.

The Edmonds recipe is similar, but does not contain as much sugar.

1/2 c flour
1/3 c sugar
2/3 c coconut
3/4 c rolled oats
50g butter
1 T golden syrup
1/2 t baking soda
2 T boiling water

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Mix together the flour, sugar, coconut and rolled oats. Melt butter and golden syrup. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water and add to butter and golden syrup. Stir butter mixture into the dry ingredients. Place spoonfuls onto cold greased trays and flatten gently. Bake for about 15 mins, or until golden.

These were delicious. The right amount of crunchy, soft and chewy. Not too sweet. There really was no comparison between the two. One flat and crunchy and one soft and chewy.

The moral of the story? You can always count on Edmonds.

Chocolate marshmallow drizzle cookies

I'm addicted to trying anything new. If the packaging proclaims it's "new", I'm drawn like a magnet to it. I just have to try it. This compulsion does have a down side as sometimes these experiments are downright yuck (like the "natural sugar" German energy drink I spotted in the vending machine at work the other day - give me real sugar any day). But, at least I know. More often than not however, I discover something delicious to add to my pantry.

This week I discovered Pascal Swirl Marshmallows. There were two "new" flavours at New World - berry and caramel. I had to try the caramel.

I guess I do have disclose something here: in my opinion no other marshmallow compares to Pascal marshmallows. I only buy Pascal marshmallows, and I generally only eat the white ones. (OK, so I'm an incredibly fussy marshmallow eater). These new caramel marshmallows were pretty good. They have the same delicious Pascal texture, the thing I love the most about them.

I tried to take a photo, but the Wellington wind thwarted any attempts at getting a decent photo. I did manage to get it, even if it's a bit skewed!

I decided caramel would be the perfect addition to chocolate cookies.

I saw these cookies and decided I had to try them. They are adapted from a recipe from Martha Stewart. I followed Martha's recipe, but drizzled chocolate over rather than icing them, because I decided it would be better, as well as easier.

My only criticism of the new swirl marshmallows would be that their shape does not lend them as well to melting as the traditional marshmallow shape. I had to help them out a little by pressing them down gently.

When I served these cookies up that day after baking them, I heated them in the microwave beforehand. What a great idea! Oozy, warm, melting chocolate goodness. Delicious.

Christmas treats

Christmas time always means lots of delicious treats. I had so much fun creating these Christmas treats.

First up I made a boiled Christmas pudding and a Christmas Cake. I'll blog about those later, the cake especially was amazing. The recipe was given to me by a friend, and I think it's totally worth sharing (i'm sure she won't mind).

Anyway, I made mini Christmas cakes, and I had way too many so I decided to make some little Christmas truffles.

I made a couple of batches of these truffles. For both I whizzed up the cake as my base. For the first lot I added coconut, melted chocolate and a good slosh of rum (brandy or sherry would also be tasty) and rolled them into balls. For the second lot I added the coconut and rum, but dipped them in melted chocolate rather than adding it to the mixture. I topped both with some melted white chocolate and red and green decorations. (I used chopped up jet plane lollies).

Next on my list of treats was mini fruit mince pies. I made my own fruit mince by whizzing up mixed fruit, sultanas and currants. (I generally use whatever I have. Prunes and raisins also work well.) To this I added a grated apple, a little brown sugar, orange rind and juice, and lots of spices - ground cloves, cinnamon, mixed spice, and whizzed it up some more. Lastly add lots of brandy. Enough to make it a good moist consistency. If you are going to store it (it keeps for months in the fridge) you can be really generous with the booze as the fruit will soak it all up. If you want alcohol-free fruit mince, just use orange juice and omit the sugar.

A pastry star and a sprinkling of icing sugar on the top of my pies made them all very festive!

Sharing the plate with my fruit mince pies are Nigella's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups. These are seriously so good, and so easy to prepare. Whiz everything up, press them into tiny cases and top with melted chocolate. Yummo! I dusted mine with edible giltter to make them all sparkly.

I also made some festive cookies.

These were really fun to make. I used a cookie recipe from my German Christmas Cookies recipe book. Mix together 300g flour, 250g softened butter, 100g sugar, 100g ground almonds, 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp cocoa, 1 dessert spoon ground cloves. Chill this in the fridge and then roll out and cut into shapes. I wasn't a huge fan of these cookies, but I took them to work and they disappeared within minutes! One of my workmates commented that they resembled Dutch spice cookies.

Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps

I love Martha Stewart. Her website is in my favourites and I constantly check it out for ideas and inspiration.

I also love to watch Everyday Baking with John Barricelli. Does this guy have one of the best jobs in the world? Baking for Martha Stewart, wicked.

Anyway, I was watching Everyday Baking the other day and John Barricelli made Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps, which I thought looked delicious. And they were.

The recipe calls for the mixture to be frozen before baking. I didn't have time for that (I didn't read the recipe properly and only realised this when I got to this step.) So, I just chose to ignore that instruction. And it was fine.

They are a really fudgy, soft cookie. Very moreish and easy to eat! They are also very pretty and make an attractive addition to a morning tea (as was my reason for making them). The feedback from my workmates and our guests was all positive. A definite make-again.

I think they could be easily modified - omit the coffee, dust in cocoa rather than icing sugar (for a less-sweet cookie), flavoured chocolate etc. Although, they taste great just as they are! Enjoy!