Advent Calendars & Chocolate Biscuits

“Better late than never, but never late is better..” (Drake)

Yes, it’s that time of year again & even though it’s almost halfway through the month, these biscuits are just too cute to not share with you!

The biscuits are based on a recipe I found on the BBC Good Food website, (click here for the link). I’m always on the look-out for a nice biscuit recipe, personally I’m into crunchy biscuits rather than soft ones. I found that the combination of the dark chocolate and the thick layer of white chocolate made this a really tasty mix.

Chocolate, ginger and white chocolate biscuits

• 300g plain flour

• 50g cocoa

• 1.5 tbsp ground ginger

• 120g butter, cubed

• 120g molasses or brown sugar

• 140g golden syrup

• 200g white chocolate

• Glitter, sprinkles and royal icing to decorate

• Put the flour, cocoa, ginger, butter and sugar in a processor, and mix until you can’t see any lumps of butter. You can also rub in the butter using your fingers. Slowly pour in the syrup and pulse until you get a smooth dough.

• Take about a quarter of the dough at a time and roll out between 2 sheets of baking parchment to the thickness of a £1 coin. Leave to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

• While the biscuits are in the fridge, heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

• Peel away the top layer of baking paper and use cookie cutters to make shapes. Circles, triangles, stars and Christmas shapes, whatever takes your fancy. Leave a small space between each biscuit as they spread slightly while they cook.

• Continue rolling and shaping all the remaining dough and trimmings while you bake a tray at a time, until all the dough is used up and you have at least 24 biscuits.

• Bake for 8-10 mins until firm. The time needed in the oven will vary according to the size of your cookies and your oven. It might be an idea to test with one or two first. My first batch burnt because I left them in for too long! Leave the biscuits to cool completely before decorating.

• While the biscuits are cooling, melt the white chocolate. White chocolate has a lower boiling point than milk chocolate so can be a bit tricky. Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to do it http://www.wikihow.com/Melt-White-Chocolate.

• Pipe a border around the edges of the biscuits and then cover completely using the melted white chocolate. If you don’t want perfect edges you can cover the biscuits using a spoon.

• Whilst the chocolate is drying, add sprinkles, glitter and anything else you want to use to decorate. I piped on numbers using coloured royal icing, but seeing as we are almost halfway through the month, it’s arguable if that’s totally necessary!

Let me know how you get on!

Peace & Love

Xx

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Day 7 - Cream Cheese and Cranberry Jam Nibbles

Have you ever thought of someone and realised you were smiling the whole time?

Well that is how I am feeling about this creation right here. Apart from the fact that it looks so cute and tastes delightful; I am smiling because I made the cranberry jam myself, from scratch, with my own recipe!!! I am totally going to share this with you in full technicolor but I don't want the post to go on forever and ever, so consider this part 1 of 2. 

The thing I love about baking is the joy of seeing the end result. You've got to love putting your hand to a task and actually getting something out of it, and seeing that that something is good. Really, I'm bursting almost as much as I was with the Russian Cake Dolls. I can't be sure which one was more exciting. How much can one girl take?

The best feeling in the world is when you realise that you are perfectly happy without the things that you thought you needed the most. Bailey Ana

Peace & Love

xx

ps The ensemble above is made up of water biscuits topped with cream cheese (Philadelphia) & cranberry jam. The jam and biscuits also taste pretty cool - perhaps more so - with proper cheese. 

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Day 2 - Sherry Trifle

Good Morning, today is a Sherry Trifle; layers of sponge cake soaked in Sherry, fresh berries, jelly, custard and cream. This is a massive dessert and probably best eaten with your significant other!

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.

Michaelangelo

Peace & Love

xx

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Day 1 - Snowmen Cake Pops

A Snowman falls from heaven unassembled - Unknown

Welcome to Day 1 of my Advent Blogendar - Snowmen Cake Pops. Inside the candy exterior is a chocolate orange sponge with chocolate orange icing. The decorations are candy sprinkles and sugarpaste icing all tasty & delicious with a bit of fruit to cancel out the calories :)

The awesome thing about Cake Pops is that they make use of any leftover cake that you have and they are so much fun to look at and eat; what's not to love?

Peace & Love

xx

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Christmas Is Coming!!!

It's official, Christmas is well & truly on it's way! I love Christmas for two things, family & food. As this is my first Christmas as an International Blogger and Ting, I thought it would be nice to do my very own Advent Blogendar (did you see what I did there? Blog + Calendar = Blogendar, yeah? OK cool :)).

So as a gift from me, everyday in the lead up to Christmas I will be posting various Christmassy sweet treats, cakes, desserts, cake pops etc and maybe even a drink or two! It will be a challenge but I hope that you will enjoy it as much I plan to.

Today I have some Fruit Cake Cupcakes topped with marzipan and icing. The best thing about fruit cake is that it lasts for ages so I can take my time eating them. I hope you are having a great week whatever you're up to!

Peace & Love

xx

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