Kiwi treats

Kiwi Family moved house a few weeks ago and when I went to visit I took a couple of treats with me to remind them of their many recent travels. The first was a reprise of a New Zealand biscuit I made for the first time when they were away - Afghans. This time I used a recipe a Kiwi friend recommended, from the charmingly-named website Ladies, a plate. They are darkly chocolatey biscuits which contain cornflakes - which the recipe description says was a way of using up last bits and pieces in the pantry. Well, I don't need to tell any readers who are still left after being so disgracefully neglected for the past few weeks, that this appealed to my 'eke eke' philosophy immediately. The biscuits had a rich chocolate topping as well which I found I had to thin a bit more to spread - but which was very popular with the Munchkin as well as his parents.


The second treat was particularly for Kiwi Bro, who had just started his new job the day I went to visit. I'd remembered that he said he liked millionaires shortbread, so I made a Kiwi favourite tray bake - Tan Slice. Tray bakes seem to be particularly popular in both Australia and New Zealand, often using coconut and condensed milk. I got this recipe from Kiwi blogger Tammy who has posted several enticing variants and favourites. She also has a chocolate version I'm keen to try - and her philosophy of a greater caramel to base ratio has surely got to win all tasters over. It turned out as I made the slice that it wasn't quite what I had assumed when thinking of something like our millionaire's shortbread. Instead it was slightly more like a cake mixture which formed the base and also the top layer. The base didn't need baking before adding the caramel either which surprised me, but makes it all even easier. I was expecting a good response just from the sheer level of sugary goodness in the slice, but it did even better. Kiwi Sis texted me after I'd left to say they were swooning over it, and they had to fend off their dinner guests with pointy sticks (actually I made up the pointy sticks but there was definitely some fending going on).


So thank you to Alexa and Tammy - definitely a pair of Kiwi keepers!


Afghan recipe here

Tan slice recipe here

Trev's requests - cherry choc chip cookies and a new carrot cake

The Scientist went gaming again this weekend, so it was time for me to get baking. I had a special set of requests this time though, as one of the other gamers, Trev, was celebrating getting through a very long period of pretty nasty health-related stuff. The Scientist asked what his top picks would be and he came straight back with carrot cake, and cherry choc chip cookies. Time to go recipe-hunting.


I've made a few carrot cakes for the gamers in the past, variously featuring banana, pineapple and (inadvertently) semi-raw dough. This time I looked up whether Nigel Slater had a take on carrot cake as I've just been reading his Eating for England which I'd really enjoyed. He does indeed, right here, and it's a pretty traditional one - no extras except walnuts, which I left out because of the usual nut allergy. Everything went fine with the baking, and as you can see, it was sandwiched together with some gloriously unctuous cream cheese icing. The Scientist took some more with him and iced the top when he arrived. The cake was enjoyed by all, but it was the icing which was the real hit. Definitely a keeper basic carrot cake recipe though - Nigel won true again.


For the cookies I decided to go extra decadent and make this red wine and cherry choc chip cookie I'd seen on Cookie Madness. It made an absolute pile of cookies, and while the batter was on the sticky side, it baked exactly as directed. I even made some with no cherries in them to accommodate the no-dried-fruit gamer. I was so pleased with myself - until I found out that Trev really really hates red wine! He did try them and thought they were quite nice, but I know he appreciated the thought. And the others absolutely loved them - the whole pile got scarfed in no time and they've been promoted to the top of the double choc chip cookie list.


Nigel Slater's carrot cake recipe here

Cookie Madness' post on the red wine cherry choc chip cookies (with link to the original recipe) here

Waste-not-want-not leftover butter icing cookies

I think that the name of these biscuits may not catch on - not as snapping as 'choc chip' or 'ginger-nut', eh? They were an experiment to avoid having to throw away the leftover butter icing from the cricket tea limey cupcakes (yes, this was a while ago now!). It occurred to me that it's just basically butter and sugar, which are two of the main constituents of baked goods anyway - plus they were already flavoured with lime juice and a bit of vanilla. So I added a bit more of both to give them an oomph, and then added flour to the icing until it looked like cookie dough. I had no real idea if it was going to work, especially without adding egg (which I was avoiding as it conveniently comes in one or none) - but it did! You can see from the pictures that the cookies spread a lot, which I think has something to do with the proportion of butter, and they were quite buttery - in an acceptable cookie way. I was pleased because they still tasted of lime. I took them to my sewing group, and gave the rest to our administrator at work, who has booked a lot of meeting rooms for me this semester! Plus, if you've used non dairy marge, they're even vegan :)


Waste-not-want-not leftover butter icing cookies:
Get leftover butter icing, add flour until it's thick and looks like cookie dough. Rest in fridge, roll into balls, and bake 12-15 minus in a moderate oven (or longer if it needs it - I'm sure this will depend on the individual batch).

Warning: high sugar post ahead

'What do you mean, "warning"?', I imagine you asking. 'This blog has been full of nothing but sugar for months now'. Well this time I don't mean only that type of sugar. I made these double choc chip cookies this week to say thank you to some students for doing some research with me. But I deliberately made extras because I wanted a few to take to Eco Sis's yesterday. You see, after 5 years of Very Hard Work, Eco Sis has become a doctor. A genuine stethoscope-wearing, blood-drawing, diagnosing doctor (as opposed to my type, who swans around libraries and insists it's 'not my period' whenever I'm asked a question). She will hereafter be Dr Eco.

Scholarly cookies getting a bit of research in before goingg to meet their eater

And that's where the sugaryness comes in. Dr Eco: I am the proudest sister in the world. Not only have you worked incredibly hard for the last five years, but you've also been sunny and supportive at the same time; you've devoted huge amount of extra time to the things you think are important; and you've always made time for us to play board games, swap sewing tips, cook dinners, and go on outings. Plus you managed to travel around Europe, visit America several times, part-qualify as an American doctor as well - oh, and get married to the nicest Yank I know. Plus you are an excellent diagnostician who manages to cure at the same time. I have never been bothered by that collapsed lung or that rare psychosomatic disorder since you diagnosed me :) I've said it a million times over the last few years, but you and Kiwi Sis are my best friends and I'm going to miss you while you're away for the next few months.


I didn't say all that when I saw her yesterday, but I'd like to think that the cookies said a bit of it in chocolate form. They certainly said something good: both she and The Scientist have put them at the top of the double choc chip cookie tree immediately. And, as a little bonus (whisper it): they're dairy free. Not quite vegan as they still have eggs in them, but I subbed vegan marge for the butter and they were still delicious. Sorry I didn't make that entirely clear when I offered you one (three?), Scientist, but I thought you were probably pretending you hadn't seen the Pure spread box out on the worktop anyway :)

Medically-endorsed double chocolate chip cookies (adapted from my cookie calendar 2009)

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
120g butter/marge/vegan marge
1/2 caster sugar
1/2 light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
170g choc chips of your choice (or a mix of types)

Preheat the oven to 160C. Sift together the flour, cocoa, bicarb, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Beat the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy, and beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until almost blended. Add the choc chips and mix.

Scoop the dough onto a baking sheet [the instructions said 5cm apart but I didn't find they spread too much]. Bake 12-14 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Made about 2 dozen

Taste and create double choc cookies

I signed up for Taste and Create again this month, and got partnered with Tania from Love Big, Bake Often. Tania is an ice-cream and baking-loving mum with two little 'monkeys' to cook for. At first I was worried about recreating her tasty treats as I don't have an ice cream maker, but then I started discovering the wealth of amazing cookies Tania has made. I had already started compiling a shortlist when she posted a new one - she called them Chocolate Toffee Rounds - basically double choc chip cookies, with added toffee bits. I don't think I need to sell them any further if I quote what Tania said about them: 'rich, chocolately cookie that is reminiscent of a brownie….with all the crispy, chewy edges a true brownie lover looks for!' Enough said. They jumped to the top of the list.


I was surprised at the small amount of butter and flour in the recipe, but it's made up for by lots and lots of dark chocolate. I wasn't quite sure about the toffee chips - I didn't know if they were actual toffee or toffee-flavoured choc chips. I couldn't find either anyway so I left them out, making my cookies a bit more of a traditional double choc chip. They were a cinch to make, and turned out exactly as Tania said - really chocolatey but brownily chewy at the same time. I made a half a batch, and am sending them home with Munchkin Granny, who has some rather special visitors arriving this evening...

Double choc chip cookies (previously known as chocolate toffee rounds) recipe here

And if you want to take part in Taste and Create, go here and sign up!

Thin mints - or mint podgies

So much for returning to regular blogging! I've been in Israel for a week with Munchkin Granny, visiting my Grandma and going to a family Bar Mitzvah. I meant to get a post up before I went but ended up in a mad dash and didn't make it. And now I've gone and left my camera in Israel and have yet to negotiate with one of my lovely uncles what the exchange rate between camera postage and Cadbury's creme eggs is, so I'm going to be going through my backlog of photos for a little while!

Anyway, the trip to Israel was great. Here's a roundup:
Cousin count: 12 (ten mine, two MG's)
Scary encounters with Israeli drivers: don't know, still have my eyes shut
Beds slept in: 5 in 6 nights, if you include the aeroplane seat where I failed to sleep
Mysterious and invisible dense items making MG's suitcase inexplicably heavy: one (large)
Rites of passage observed: one (bravo, Chanan!)
Number of sausages consumed by cousins: disappeared too quickly to count
Vegan brownies made: One Big Pile
National holidays participated in: two - Remembrance Day and Independence Day
Emails from anxious students staring down the barrel of a deadline: many


So all in all, an eventful trip and lovely to see Grandma and all the other lovely relations over there. While there I neither made nor ate thin mints, but I did try out this recipe for them before I left. I haven't been posting about it, but I have continued to bake for my colleagues at work this semester - albeit a bit more sporadically because of other commitments. I can't remember what led me to this recipe on Baking Bites, but I thought they would be elegant and chocolatey and fitting for the closing of the semester. Thin Mints are one of the cookies sold to raise funds by American Girl Scouts, but I was surprised to find that they are boxed brands, not home-made. My only encounter with Girl Scout Cookies was in a Peanuts cartoon but I gather from Nicole's posts that they are a bit of a cultural institution, and she's been trying out some home-made versions.

I read her instructions carefully but I still managed to make them a bit thick. I liked it that the dough was rolled into a log and sliced - less messy than rolling into balls and flattening (although dipping them in chocolate afterwards was satisfyingly messy). But I should have sliced my slices thinner - the resulting biscuits were less dainty elegance and rather more jaw-cracker. In fact, one of my colleague said that she had broken a tooth on one - I hope she was joking! Another time I would cut them thinner and add a bit more mint, but to be honest, I would make a mint-flavoured version of these cookies in preference. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and it was an interesting foray into an American tradition.

Thin mints: recipe here

The Great Cookie Research Project: The Mint Choc Chip One

We're nearing the end of the Great Choc Chip Cookie project now - only two more weeks and then the great unveiling of the winner. I had planned a different cookie for this week but by the time I got home after a VERY long day last Tuesday I couldn't face firing up the laptop to get the recipe. So I had a last-minute swerve inspired by a box of mint Matchmakers I had bought and stashed to bring out at Christmas time. Mint and chocolate are a happy marriage, I thought - let's put them together in a cookie.

For the actual cookie base I turned to a book I bought on Johanna's recommendation - The Search for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie. It features recipes entered for a competition sponsored by a Massachusetts inn of all places, and while many are variations on the same theme others are really quite intriguing (ice cream as a cookie ingredient anyone? I really want to give that one a go). I turned to the double chocolate section and was saved from the usual indecision and procrastinating by one marked 'Grand Prize'. Excellent. The choice was made.


I followed the recipe exactly except that I left out the nuts and chocolate chips and instead stirred in a whole box of broken up mint matchmakers (I don't know if these are peculiarly British - they are crispy minty chocolate sticks and they always make me think of our friend Vet Mum, who loves them. If you're reading, Vet Dad, tell her I will reprise the cookies for her!). For once I managed not to forget some vital ingredient, and was rewarded with the most amazingly moist, chewy, chocolatey cookies. The mint was a superb addition to the taste, and even I, who usually shuns the baked cookies for the batter-y mixing spoon, was smitten. In fact I went through every trick in the baker's book - that one needs trimming, oh dear, a bit fell off that one, etc etc. I would rank them at the top of the tree with the ginger parkin ones from a few weeks back. The Scientist wasn't in that night to do his oven-fresh tasting, but he was very taken with them when he got back the next day. The recipe made a lot of cookies and so I'd left him four or five and they were all dispatched pretty promptly. He gave them a 9 out of 10 (and bear in mind that he feels that 10 represents so nirvana-like a perfection that it can scarcely be contemplated. He is the Craig Revel-Horwood to my new taster in the English department's Bruno Tonioli).


The tasters at work were not quite as rapturous as I was but they did like the cookie and it polled an average of 8.1. One got hung up on the definitional issue again - she said that she liked it very much but that if she wanted an After Eight she'd have an After Eight. The Senior Tutor compared them more favourably with a mint Aero, while someone else said they tasted like toothpaste (which I don't think is a good thing in a cookie). My favourite response was from the aforesaid English lecturer, however: 'yum yum in my scrum'. A hit there, I think.

The Mint Choc Chip One (adapted from The Search for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie)
1 3/4 cups flour (I used plain)
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup butter or marge, softened (I used marge)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup granulated sugar (usually I bake cookies with caster sugar but I happened to have granulated and so used that. The cookie did have a nice graininess to them but it's hard to say if it was from the sugar or the matchmakers)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed.
1 egg
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 tbsp milk
1 box mint matchmakers broken into small bits (the original recipe had 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts and 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips)

Combine flour and bicarb, and set aside
Use an electric mixer to cream butter. Add vanilla and sugars, and beat until fluffy. Beat in egg. At a low speed beat in cocoa, then milk. With a wooden spoon mix in dry ingredients until just blended. Stir in broken matchmakers.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto nonstick or foil-lined baking sheets. Bake at 350F for 12-13 mins. Remove from oven and cool slightly before removing from baking sheets
Yield: 3 dozen

The Great Cookie Research Project: The Kiwi One

Hmm, mid-week is not really happening for this blog at the moment - I blame teaching and commuting commitments. However, the Great Choc Chip Cookie Research Project is continuing, and this week I went Down Under for some inspiration. Since Kiwi Sis and family went off on their antipodean adventure I've started following a few New Zealand blogs to try to get a little insight into the sort of foodie world they're living in. A while back the talented cookie-decorator (oh, and full-time lawyer too) Tammy posted the recipe for her family's favourite choc chip cookies, and I was interested to see that they contain condensed milk. This isn't an ingredient I use much, apart from the odd foray into fudge or caramel making, but it struck a chord as Johanna uses it in baking quite often, and has written a very interesting post about its place in Australian cuisine. Non-perishables in tins formed a vital staple in people's diets in an era before domestic refrigeration and especially since Australian cities were so dependent on rail links for their provisions. Unfortunately it was also used to feed babies on sometimes which is clearly Not a Good Thing. Johanna has posted about several tasty treats which use it as a base ingredient, and so I was particularly struck that it turned up in this New Zealand recipe as well.

I had half a tin of condensed milk left over from making Eco Sis's Millionaire's Shortbread, and so I made up a batch of Tammy's cookie dough the same weekend and put it in the freezer. I *almost* forgot to add the choc chips AGAIN when I defrosted it, but remembered just in time to whip the shaped cookies back out of the oven. But I did totally forget to photograph them - see above excuses which are currently being deployed to explain all incidents of ditsiness and general rubbishness. Luckily Tammy has posted a picture of them on her blog, although I have to admit that mine did not look as good as hers. Mine were flatter, for one thing - because the dough was still quite chilled from the freezer I was able to roll it into balls and flatten them rather than drop them on the tray as I usually would. I hadn't particularly intended to do this - it just seemed like the thing to do at the time. It meant that my cookies were crunchy which was actually very nice, but they also looked a little burnt around the edges. Initially I was cross about that but then we realised that the darker-ringed ones actually had a nicer crunch to them and I even put the more golden ones back in again to crisp them up some more. I think that the flatness of the cookie had a lot to do with this, but also our oven has a tendency to get quite hot, and these cookies are supposed to be baked at a slightly lower temperature than many of the other recipes I've tried.

The slightly burnt look (I prefer to call it 'sun-kissed') made the cookie less popular at work. They didn't rate terribly well although I really think that this is because of the way I baked them. Tammy's looked much thicker and chewier (and frankly quite a bit more appetising!) than mine. A number of people only gave them a 3 though they also racked up an 8 and a 9, but I was really touched by the comments. One person put 'personal preference is for softer cookies - but delicious and very welcome anyway!!', and another wrote 'interesting, but not top of the list. Thanks ever so though!'. It was a nice sign that people are getting quite into the whole thing :) In fact one of my colleagues in the English department has requested that I bring in cookies every day and he doesn't care how crispy they are! Another comment said that they were good because they weren't too sweet but still flavoursome. The Scientist gave his oven-fresh sample a 7.5 - slightly under his average, but he did particularly like the crispiness and asked if I could spare another one. Overall the average was 5.2 but I don't think this reflects the condensed milk cookie's true potential in the hands of a more attentive baker!

I still had a bit of condensed milk left after all the baking and was very tempted to make Johanna's recipe for grubs (which I had never heard of before but which she talks so highly of that I really want to try them). But they need biscuits and in the end I had to throw the rest of the condensed milk away before I let myself eat it a teeny spoonful at a time whenever I opened the fridge before I could get to the supermarket! I'd like to try Tammy's cookies again with all the proper directions though, so I will earmark the grubs for the same occasion. Oooh, I can see an Antipodean baking night coming on.

The Kiwi One: recipe here

The Great Cookie Research Project: The Boozy Blonde and Fruity One

This week's cookie was a special request from the Senior Tutor. He is one of my stalwart cookie tasters and when I asked him what he'd like to see in a future week he said that his favourite from the supermarket is white choc and raspberry. I didn't have a white choc chip cookie on my list of possibles so I liked that idea, and it also played into a vague yen I've had for a while to bake raspberries in brownies. In fact, I decided to go for dried fruit since the season has passed on from the fresh ones, and when I found a recipe on allrecipes for a booze-soaked dried cranberry cookie I just couldn't resist the chance to call this week's offering Boozy Blonde and Fruity :)


There was nothing too startling about the recipe so the real difference from other weeks was the white chocolate as opposed to milk or dark, and the dried fruit, which had been sitting in alcohol for a good 24 hours or so by the time I came to mix it all up. The recipe called for brandy but when I looked through our very random collection of alcohol I discovered that we were out. Not a good start. Must stock up before making the seasonal Solstice cake (we're all very non-denominational in this house). In fact the only remotely suitable alcohol was an elderly bottle of Tenerifian rum which The Scientist brought back from a research trip years ago. It's not exactly a top quality tipple and I passed on drinking the discarded soaking alcohol as the recipe cheekily suggests but I don't think it harmed the cookie at all.

Once again the mixture was very tasty (always my own personal test taste) - quite sweet which was probably the result of both sugar and the white chocolate. They didn't spread too much on baking and were delicious when warm. I thought that the dried fruit lent them a very nice juicy little tang although I couldn't particularly taste the alcohol. They were also quite creamy and soft. The Scientist gave his an 8 which is the joint top score he's given to any cookie in this project so far. They were pretty popular at work, too - not many comments but some good scores. The average was 8.4 and all the scores were 8s or 9s, so a good strong contender despite the softer texture and lack of dark chocolate. But the critical response was, of course, from the Senior Tutor himself - and he said he went back for a sneaky second one which I take to be a good stamp of approval.

The Boozy Blonde and Fruity one: recipe here

The Great Cookie Research Project: The Cream Cheese One

This cookie was, I'm sorry to say, not the highlight of the whole Choc Chip Cookie experiment. It was actually the very first one I made (it's been our reading week this week so I saved this one to write up) and I was quite embarrassed to have started with such a blooper. I can't remember quite how I stumbled on the recipe but I had some cream cheese I needed to use up and liked the idea of a cream-cheese-esq cookie. This was not one of my better decisions when starting out as the self-styled baker of the department. It was posted by Minnie on Foodproof, and she says that the original recipe may have come from a well-known brand of cream cheese. It also contains angostura bitters which caused me some headaches to find, and I think were responsible for the orange flavour identified by one taster.


I should really have thought through the implications of introducing such an unknown quantity as cream cheese in a cookie into a taster audience of university academics. They got quite bogged down in the definition of what a cookie was, and thus what their reaction should be. Was I calling it a cookie or something else, they wanted to know? As a cookie it was not popular (my Russianist colleague said it was the first cookie he had ever left unfinished, much to my shame). As another sort of treat (here there was some debate, with my erudite French historian colleague coming up only with 'thing') it did better. See what I mean? Historians can't start to tackle a question until they've defined all their terms. I'm surprised my feedback sheet didn't come back with footnotes and references.


The sticking point, I think, was the texture of the 'thing'. The cream cheese was very noticeable, making it both soft and creamy. This, of course, is no bad thing - it's just not what people were expecting from their cookie experience. I think if I'd baked it in a cake pan and called it a choc chip cheesecake bar it would probably have gone down much better. They also didn't look too attractive as they were sort of flat and pale. Their average score was 6.5, with most people voting 7. The Russianist damned it with a 1, but a colonial history colleague gave it a 10 (I think he was startled at being offered a cookie in the corridor!). Comments varied from 'I'd buy them!' to 'a little chewy', 'not very cookie-like', 'subtle orange flavour' 'perhaps a little waxy on the texture' (I'd agree with that one), and - from the despairing Russianist - 'try frying it like a blini'. Clearly, this was a confused cookie!

The Cream Cheese one: recipe here

The Great Cookie Research Project: The Mini One

Week 4 of the GCRP and I stayed with the popular crunchy theme from last week. I had previously made some nicely crunchy cookies for one of The Scientist's gaming jaunts from verybestbaking.com which also pandered to my quiet satisfaction in rolling and cutting biscuit dough. I was quite busy during the week and so made the dough on Sunday and left it in the fridge until Tuesday evening. This, as anyone who followed the New York Times's investigation into the best way to make a classic choc chip cookie a while back will know, is apparently de rigeur for good flavour and shape. I don't know if it made any difference in this case but it's nice to think that my colleagues were getting the best in cookie research and method :)


After the difficulties in rolling out choc chip studded dough last week I added chips to some of the dough before rolling, and stuck others in after they were rolled and cut. The former had chips more nicely embedded in them while the latter had more noticeable little pools of meltiness especially straight out of the oven. I was quite struck by the difference - I think I preferred the chips more thoroughly integrated, but it's just a matter of personal taste and the taste of the biscuit itself was more noticeable in the topped ones.


These cookies were also popular at work - almost as popular as last week's Double Choc. People commented that they were nice and shortbread-like, and not too sweet. The cutest comment was left by someone who wrote 'had 3 just to make sure' - but the three was written over a '2' where they had evidently gone back just for one more! The Scientist rated them an 8 while warm. The average was also a clear 8 which actually puts them in the front running so far, but the range was greater than last week's - a top of 10 (from a colleague who had dropped a blooper earlier in the day and so I think was feeling guilty) but a low of 6.

So, small and crunchy is still the definite preference among my colleagues. I have a few more big spready ones to try though, so we may be moving out of the comfort zone a while yet!

The Mini One: recipe here

The Great Cookie Research Project: The Double Choc One

Week 3 of the Great Choc Chip Cookie Research Project, and the game has been upped! A couple of people commented last week that they preferred crunchy to chewy, plus there seemed to be a leaning towards dark chocolate. I decided that this meant deviating from most of the standard choc chip recipes, which produce big, chewy, American style cookies. Instead, I hit on the idea of adding dark chocolate chips to a favourite chocolate cut-out cookie I've made several times, and which is both sturdy and crunchy as well as darkly chocolatey. I found the recipe by googling 'chocolate cut out cookie' when looking for birthday biscuits that Junior Bro could take to school with him one year, and it's the top pick - from all recipes and highly rated.


I actually prefer making cut-out cookies to drop ones. I like the rolling and the cutting, plus it gives me an opportunity to use some of my cookie cutter collection. Just dropping the mixture onto a baking sheet isn't quite the same, so I was pretty happy to go down this route. In fact, I made a batch of these cookies sans chocolate chips for The Scientist to take gaming last weekend (they got pigs and feet - an entirely logical combination, I felt). The recipe makes a pretty big batch so I'd frozen half, and mid-week I took the rest out, thawed it, and added some cut-up chocolate. Of course this made it quite hard to roll out, and in retrospect I should perhaps have rolled and cut first, and studded with chocolate afterwards - but no matter. I also sprinkled the leftover shards of chocolate from cutting up a big bar over the top for some extra chocolate crunch. I left them in the oven a tiny bit longer than I would have ideally liked and so was a little nervous about the reaction, but I needn't have worried. These were by FAR the most popular cookies so far. Comments included 'Hurrah - they're crunchy!', 'Crunchy - like a cookie should be!' and 'Yum - like crunchy'. I think I've found my colleagues' preferred consistency :) They scored a whopping average of 8.75, with two people giving them 10s. The Scientist was also a fan, and rated his 9 fresh from the oven.

The cookies in situ in the staff kitchen

So where to go now? With the crunch and dark chocolate a clear winner, should I abandon my plan to try a lot of different flavours and focus on mining the similar vein? I still have a few alternatives I'd like to try, but I think that I'll stick with the crunch for next week at least. I have a feeling that these double chocs may yet be the winners though...

Cookies in their feet and pig incarnation

The Double Choc One
Rating: 8.75/10
Recipe here

The Great Cookie Research Project: The Honey One

The Great Chocolate Chip Cookie Research Project has entered its second week and my colleagues are definitely entering into the spirit of the thing. I have been very tickled by the expressions of astonishment when people stumble on the plate of cookies in the kitchen, and they seem game for anything (luckily, since I don't feel I've hit any heights of cookie-baking yet).


This week I opted for a honey cookie, in honour of the Jewish New Year. I had read on Baking bites blog how honey is a good ingredient for keeping cookies fresh for longer, incidentally making it especially good for baked goods which are going to be shipped elsewhere. I tried out the recipe Nicole featured on her blog a few months ago using maple-flavoured syrup, which gave the cookies a lovely underlying taste. This time I used regular honey and got the same texture if not the same flavour. If I make them again I'll use the mapley syrup again, but I imagine that any strong-flavoured honey would be good too.


The cookies are quite cake-like - they stay quite thick as they bake, but don't have the spreading issue of some others I've tried. My Russianist colleague said that he wasn't so keen on the cakeiness, although he liked the flavour, and someone else said they weren't as good as last week's Classic. Another commentator (I let people comment unattended this time :) ) said that they held together nicely, and our hero administrator thought they were better than the ones from the canteen. On the whole they were popular but didn't rate as highly as last week - an average of 6.3. The Scientist again gave them an 8 straight from the oven. I asked him what would make them rate higher, and he said making them oatmeal and raisin instead :) I made some vegan ones of those last weekend when we had a lovely visit from Dogophile Vegan Nurse, so I don't feel bad for keeping on with the choc chip theme for now. I did like these cookies but they're definitely not in the crisp cookie camp. I think I might try going down that route next week - see if that hits the heights with the hard to please Russianist!

The Honey One - recipe here

An exciting prize, and the Great Choc Chip Cookie Research Project

I had such a nice surprise this morning: our fridge won Wendy's competition! It was picked out by her adorable dog Marco as the winner - I must send that spaniel a bonio :) Thanks Wendy - you made my day!

I'm also pretty excited to announce the launch of a new tack in my research career: the Great Chocolate Chip Cookie Research Project. I felt that the new academic year deserved a new venture, and so I have determined to find the best choc chip cookie I can, as voted for by my colleagues. So far, after one week, they have risen to the challenge admirably, and in the best possible spirit of peer feedback have commented extensively and thoughtfully on my efforts. I've asked them to rate each week's cookie out of ten, and add any other comments they would like. I am trying not to be actually present watching over their ruminations, though some people did fall foul of me leaping out of my office brandishing baked goods in their faces. In future I will leave them quietly in the kitchen and hope that it catches on (and maybe just lurk behind the door to gauge their faces...).


Anyway, I started with The Classic One. I turned to the King Arthur Flour company for a recipe - not a brand we get here, but since choc chip cookies are quintessentially American an American trademark name seemed like the best way to go. It was very highly rated by readers and I stuck with the recipe exactly as it was written. Actually I was probably a bit light on the choc chips as I used up all the chocolate I had, and I omitted the optional almond flavouring for fear of moving too far from the classic, but it went down well anyway.


Cookie number 1 was quite a hit at work. It rated an average of 7.7, drawn down by one critic who only gave it a 5. The modal value (apologies - I am a quantitative historian!) was 8, which was pretty good. Of course only time will tell whether my colleagues are just extremely easy to please. We don't have a culture of bringing in home-baked goods, so I think that any cookie may elicit cries of pleasure, especially when stumbled upon unexpectedly on the way to the post room. I had a few simple and appreciative comments ('good stuff' and 'Yum!', and one cryptic one from a twentieth-century colleague 'Bit of slight vegetable taste?'. He has recently moved in with his vegetarian girlfriend I can only conclude that he is suspiciously seeing veggies everywhere! A colleague in the English department said they were nice and soft, someone else voted for dark choc chips another time. One person (the 5 rater, perhaps?) said that the flavour was not particularly pronounced. I have to admit that I actually agreed with them on that. I thought that they were nice, but that I would have been a bit disappointed if I'd ordered one in a cafe. Perhaps the almond essence would have been a good addition after all. The Scientist rated them an 8, with the benefit of getting them warm out of the oven :)

It's taken me a while to post about the first round, but it's going to be a regular Wednesday thing (I hope). Tomorrow's batch is already cooling in the kitchen and I'm keen to see what my rigorously-appraising colleagues say!

The Classic One: average rating 7.7
King Arthur Flour recipe here

Henley Festival...of rain (and a cookie)

I am a square old so and so, and I have never been to a festival before this summer. Thanks to Eco Sis that is now being addressed, and last night we donned our finery and swanned off to Henley for their summer music festival. This is Henley, so it's not a gypsy dress, wellies and mud festival - or at least it wasn't supposed to be. It's a black tie affair with a floating stage, posh restaurant marquees, and art exhibition. Unfortunately yesterday it rained literally all day. Undeterred, we dressed up (there was no way I was compromising on wearing my beautiful new long black Coast dress, though I did put my long winter coat on top and picked up a hat on the way out. This turned out to be a good idea, even if the dress stayed completely hidden all night). We drove to Oxford in the rain, picked up the Ecos and splashed off.

We'd brought a picnic but it wasn't quite the weather to get the rug out, so we ate it in the car in the best British tradition, parked behind some people in a van with an awning, a brazier, some champagne and proper crockery. They were still wet though. I think that balancing a plastic plate on your knee while passing salad and strawberries back and forth, and trying to fit your wine glass into any dip in the car's interior design is a great way to enjoy a meal, actually :)

Ah, the English summer

We did eventually extract ourselves from our picnic and waded over to the venues. It's such shame it was raining as it was a lovely set-up. There were marquees and awnings arranged along the riverside, with several music venues, a whole range of artwork - some under awnings, and some sculptures on the lawn, and several food outlets from a toastie van, to a posher than posh restaurant. There was also a very effective social classification system which was denoted by the shape of your entry badge. We were Pleb Third Class, with a square tag, but we spied hexagons and shields, and The Scientist was pretty sure he saw some spikey passes which we think were probably for nudging the servants with. At any rate, our Pleb Class passes allowed us to promenade at the main floating stage, but so many people declined to take up their deckchairs in the rain that we did actually get to sit down.

The rain did undoubtedly dampen the atmosphere a little, but this is Britain, and we all rallied well. We particularly enjoyed a jazz trio. They were singing a jazz rendition of Old Macdonald as we came in, which we thought the Munchkin would have approved of. The next concert was a classical one on the floating stage, which we listened to from our socially aspirational deckchairs until we got just too damp and moved to a coffee bar. The last band was listened to was our favourite - a folk duo called Show of Hands, with a guest singer. They were just amazing, playing six or seven different instruments and with beautiful voices. We were sad to leave a little bit early to make sure we could still float the car off the car park field. However, I have since discovered that they are playing on the Sunday of Womad, which is the other festival we're going to this summer. Hooray! In any case, we had a great evening despite the damp, and would definitely go again another year. On a nice evening it would have been nigh on perfect, but even the rain couldn't stop the good cheer and good music.


So, if anyone's still reading in the hope they might find a cookie recipe, here it is. They're chocolate chip and raisin cookies and I got the recipe from this month's Sainsbury's magazine. I actually made them to take round to our new neighbours but then The Scientist got back late from playing cricket and before I knew it they'd come with us on the picnic. They're not quite on the family choc chip cuckoo level, but they held their shape nicely, were good and crunchy, and Eco Sis said she particularly liked the raisins. They were supposed to have nuts in them, but I left them out because they are evil.

PS, here is a baby-enticing charm sent to New Zealand: come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, it's time to arrive.

Chocolate chip fruit and nut cookies (from Sainsbury's magazine, August 2008)

Makes 40

125g very soft butter
185g light muscovado sugar
1 medium egg, lightly beaten
185g plain flour, plus little extra for dusting
1 tsp baking powder
50g shelled monkey nuts [I left these out]
50g raisins
50g dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180C, fan 170C/Gas 4. Using an electric hand whisk or a food mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until pale, 3-4 mins. Gradually add the egg, whisking. Then sift in the flour, baking powder and a generous pinch of salt. Mix in the nuts, raisins and chocolate. Bring the mixture together with your hands and form it into a ball.

Halve the ball and cut one half into 20 pieces, then, with lightly floured hands, roll each piece into a small ball. Transfer to lightly oiled nongreased baking sheets and press each one to flatten [they don't spread too much so you can put them relatively close together]. Repeat with the other half of dough. They will need three baking sheets. Bake two sheets of cookies for 12-15 mins on the centre shelf and the shelf below, swapping them halfway through the cooking time. Bake the third sheet of cookies on the centre shelf for the same time.

Leave the cookies to cool for about a minute on the baking tray (no longer or they will stick, then, using a fish slice, carefully transfer them to a cooling rack.

Quarter-versary cookies

I was wandering about in the supermarket yesterday in that dangerously unfocused state of mind which always has bad effects on the wallet when I noticed some reduced mini creme eggs. I wouldn’t usually buy them (the goopy bit makes me feel sick) but I thought they might come in handy for a baking project, so I popped them in the basket. I had some inspiration on how to use them the very next day, as I wanted to make something a little bit special and a little bit personal. For today it is three months since Kiwi Family arrived in New Zealand.

It’s been a tough three months on both sides I imagine, but with no land line and no computer at their end, it’s been hard not knowing how they’re getting on. We’ve exchanged letters and texts, and we have spoken on the phone a few times, but we’re all looking forward to being in touch more regularly. I have text message sized snippets of what the Munchkin is up to (in the paddling pool with a soggy biscuit, or this morning, with his breakfast all over him). He’s 18 months old now, and TALKING for heaven’s sake. Roll on skype.

I wanted to bake something to mark their first quarter-year, preferably something which would mean something to Kiwi Sis. I settled on another family favourite – a simple chocolate chip cookie, but known for some reason as chocolate chip cuckoos among us. But instead of normal chocolate chips, I would use the mini eggs. Creme eggs do make me think of Kiwi Sis, not because I’ve ever seen her eat one I don’t think, but because she was sweet enough to send some out to one of our Israeli uncles one year. I imagine you can probably get creme eggs in New Zealand, so I’m sending her these pictures of eggs in a cuckoo instead. I will take the real things to Oxford tomorrow when we visit Eco Sis and Eco Bro, so we will toast Kiwi Family in goop.

I had imagined nice thick cookies with glistening pearls of sliced creme egg peeping through the shell – but of course they didn’t turn out quite that way. I divided the mixture in two and added chopped up eggs to one half, but just in case that didn’t work I left the other half plain and added eggs bits to the top only. The latter batch kept their shape much better and so are much more photogenic, but insofar as the creme egg bits didn’t explode, goop all over the baking tray or turn the cookies yellow, they worked in the batter as well. I don’t know why these ones kept their shape better as I did them both at the same time and got equally exasperated with how sticky they (and I) got in each case. I think that I will favour the messy ones though as I took them out slightly earlier and I like a gooey cookie. Sorry, cuckoo. I would LOVE it if Kiwi Sis made a batch too and then sent over a picture of The Munchkin covered in goop. Go on, if I can’t spoil him in person…

Chocolate chip cuckoos (makes about 12 medium sized cookies)
125g butter/marge
125g sugar
125g brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
275g self raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
125g choc chips (any sort - or chopped up mini eggs)

Cream together first four ingredients, add lightly beaten egg, mixing well. Mix in sifted flour and salt. Add choc chips and mix well. I generally refrigerate it for a bit at this stage but I don't know if it really needs it. Bake at 190-200 degrees C for 10-12 mins