Yes, these are some chocolatey cookies. I found a recipe for these ( which I shared on Saturday) last week and was desperate to give them a go they just sounded too damn good not to try. Luckily I had promised to do some baking so they seemed like the perfect treat to share around. 

These cookies seem to me almost a cross between a brownie and a cookie, they have a cakey element but with a crunchy outside and a gooey middle. Basically the perfect cookie to devour straight out of the oven when curled up on the sofa.

Sounds like Autumn to me!

So on with the recipe. 

Ingredients

8oz Butter

8 oz Brown Sugar

2 oz Caster sugar

2oz Cocoa Powder

2 Eggs

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp Baking Powder

12oz Plain Flour

200g Dark Chocolate roughly chopped

3 packets Rolos 

Nutella to fill

Method

1. In a pan melt your butter over a low heat
2. Remove from the heat and add both sugars, stir until combined and then mix in the eggs 
3. Next stir in the cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Mix until fully combined
4. Finally add the flour and stir until you can’t see any more flour
5. Place in a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to chill for a few hours (you don’t have to do this but you will get very sticky hands shaping your cookies if you don’t!)
6. Once your mixture has chilled for a few hours it should be easy to shape into balls. 
7. Preheat your oven to 180C degrees
8. With each cookie ball push a rolo into the centre and add 1/2 tsp of Nutella fold the rest of the dough over and reshape into a ball
9. Place on a baking sheet and repeat with the rest of your cookies
10. Bake in the oven for 10-12mins

And that’s it. Leave them to cool for at least 5 mins but then feel free to devour. Although for the sake of your health – it might be worth sharing a few!

Recently I have been trying to be good and steer clear of eating too much bread. So I haven’t really been doing much baking. But the other day I got a real craving for some lovely garlic bread. You know the sort, plenty of garlic and flavour, and lovely and crispy. That extra bit of goodness that makes your pasta dish really sing. There is nothing like moping up tomatoey juice with lovely crisp garlic bread. But seeing as I am trying to be healthier stuffing a lot of garlic butter into bread didn’t seem quite right. So instead I plumped for Garlic Bread Knots.

Beautiful and crispy knots of dough that when drizzled with garlic oil satisfied my craving completely.

I know what you are thinking – If you are just making Garlic Bread Knots then call the post that – we all got excited.

Well….

I have news…

Whilst I am tying bread knots, I am also ‘tying the knot’ with Monsieur from Scratch!  I know, you didn’t see that coming, well neither did I – he surprised me in Paris with the most wonderful proposal ever and I won’t leave you in suspense, obviously I said yes. So now I get to have all the fun in the world planning a really fun party to celebrate my love with all my family and friends for summer 2014!

So I am letting you know in advance now, this blog may occasionally wander into wedding land – I mean I can’t plan the whole thing and not share some of the fun.

I know you must all be wondering about that all important question– will I be making the cake… well… how brave/ stupid do you think I am? Very!

Anyway enough of those knots and back to the breaded kind, we are all hungry now.

Garlic Knots

Ingredients
Pizza Dough – Recipe here
4 Cloves Garlic
Handful of Parsley ( you can change this to whatever herb you fancy – rosemary would also be lovely)
2 Tbsp Oil

Method
1. Pre heat your oven to 180C degrees
2. Make your dough and leave to rise for an hour
3. Knock back and roll out
4. Cut into strips about 2/3cm thick and 20cm long
5. Simply knot them as you would if they were string making sure you don’t pull on the knot too tightly
6. Once you have knoted all of your dough, place on an oiled baking tray and leave for 15mins
7. Bake in the oven for about 20mins until golden
8. In the meantime crush your garlic, chop your parsley and mix in the oil
9. Once your bread is cooked removed from the oven and pour the garlic mixture over, leave to cool slightly and then eat.

And that’s it. Let’s just hope wedding planning is just as easy.

I hope you all have fantastic weeks!

So it shouldn’t really come as surprise to any of you that I love desserts. I write about them often enough. And Autumn is such a great time for dessert, pies, crumbles, tarts, puddings galore. Now I have already done a few crumbles this year and fancied doing something a bit different. And that’s when I discovered the Scrumble. No it’s not a spelling mistake, I actually mean SCRUMBLE. A scone crumble hybrid that brings a bit more cakey goodness. In short it’s a crumble with a little bit extra. And if you want something filling this should be your dessert of choice.

I choose bramley apples because I just love them and apple crumble is the greatest dessert ever and then spotted some punnets of greengages that were being discounted. Yes discount fruit. Well I have never cooked with greengages, actually strike that, I have never even eaten one. Never fear though, I have now rectified this great wrong by making the perfect Autumn pudding out of them.

Yes, you guessed it my Bramley Apple and Greengage Scrumble! 

Want the even better news, just like pretty much everything else I put on the blog this was very easy and looked impressive. So if you need a dessert for an upcoming dinner party, why not give this a try.

Ingredients

2 Bramley Apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks

500g Greengages stoned and cut into halves and quarters

4 tbsp Apple Juice

250g Plain Flour

120g Butter

100g Caster Sugar

4tbsp Milk

1tsp Vanilla extract

50g Chopped Hazelnuts

Handful of chopped Almonds

100g Light Muscavado Sugar

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180C degrees
2. Place your apples in a small sauce pan on a low heat with the apple juice, place the lid on the pan and leave for 5mins to soften
3. Add your greengages to the pan, replace the lid and leave for a further 10 mins
4. In the meantime in a food processor mix your butter, flour, caster sugar, milk and Vanilla until it forms a cake batter
5. Once your fruit mixture is ready place in an oven proof dish, then spoon the batter on bit by bit, until you have covered the whole top with batter
6. Then sprinkle on the nuts and sugar and bake in an oven for 50mins until the fruit is bubbling and the top is golden

There you have it simple scrumble. Delicious with cold ice cream or hot custard. Or just by itself.

I love jaming. It brings so much joy. It is like capturing a moment, wrapping it up in loveliness and devouring it bit by bit through the cold winter. There is something so comforting about preserving and building stores. There must be some sort of primitive need underlying the pure joy one can receive from a well made Jam.

I think creating Jam is a the culinary equivalent to photography. It captures a beautiful time, it’s so reminiscent and nostalgic – a real piece of evidence of a season past.

This year I had my heart set on making some plum Jam. Plum Jam reminds me so much of my family. Especially the Plum Summers as we used to call them, when the Plum tree in the back garden overflowed and my mum made Plum Jam practically every week. 

With this in mind, I couldn’t resist getting a couple of punnets of Victoria Plums and having a go myself.

Plum Jam is gloriously simple. Plums are one of those fruits with plenty of pectin so there is no need to fear an unset jam. If you haven’t made jam before I really recommend giving it a try. Why not capture your own summer memories and try and preserve the season that little bit longer.

Ingredients

500g Stoned and halved Plums

350g Sugar

120ml Water

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180c degrees
2. Sterilise your jars by washing them in hot water and placing them in the oven
3. Place a clean side plate in the freezer and leave there for testing the set
4. Put the plums and water into a heavy bottom pan and simmer until the fruit is tender
5. In the meantime place the sugar in an oven proof bowl and place in a oven
6. Once the plums have softened add the hot sugar to the pan and gently stir
7. Leave this on a low heat for about 15mins until the sugar has dissolved, you can stir gently to ensure your jam doesn’t stick
8. Once the sugar has dissolved rapidly boil for about 12mins
9. After 12 mins remove the jam from the heat and test the set by dropping some onto the plate from the freezer, if the jam crinkles/moves together as one then your Jam is set, if not place your pan back on the heat and boil for a further 5mins
10. Once you are happy with the set leave the jam for 15 mins to settle then pour into your jars and seal

And that is it, A lovely sweet preserve and the perfect reminder of summer.