Pop Biscuits

I was an avid reader as a child, particularly enjoying fantasy stories like CS Lewis' Narnia series, and Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series.  Those of you familiar with Blyton will likely remember as fondly as I do that every story involved food.  Whether it was fresh bread, warm milk, cakes or lashings of ginger beer, the characters always indulged themselves in something that really tempted the senses.  One tidbit that always stayed with me were the 'Pop Biscuits' that Silky the fairy made in the Faraway Tree books.  Biscuits that popped when you bit them, and oozed a liquid honey centre.  They sounded fantastic.

So when it came to planning the Imbolc baking this year, I knew that the milk and honey oriented temptation I would offer to guests had to be pop biscuits.  Had to be!  My first port of call was of course, google.  Someone had to have done this before, right?  Right.  I came across a blogger who had used Brooke McLay's recipe over on Tongue-N-Cheeky to make some little shortbread biscuits with a hollow centre that went pop when you bit into them.  So 50% there.  Had the pop but not the delicious honey centre.  I tried a batch but didn't get the hollows; what I did get however was a particularly hard but tasty little shortbread button.  Which got me thinking.

What about making shortbread, rolling it, and using it to line a little tart tin?  Mince pies, but with shortbread in place of the pastry and honey in place of the mincemeat?  If you baked the shortbread low enough and for a short enough time then that might work, I thought.  So I tried it.

Pop Biscuits Recipe
175g of plain flour (I used Dove's Farm gluten free)
100g of butter
50g of sugar
Set honey

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 3.  Cream the butter and sugar until soft, slowly add the flour until you have a stiff dough.  Knead until its sticking together well, then roll out as thin as you can without it tearing and use to line a yorkshire pudding tray.  Add about 3/4 of a teaspoon of set honey to each, then top with a shortbread lid.  Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, leave to cool before removing from the tin!

I had one still warm from the oven and ooooooh my goodness.  Heaven.  That warm honey centre is such a treat.  When they were cooled they were almost as good though, a crisp shortbread biscuit with a gooey honey centre.  A real treat.  They went down very well with the guests who stopped by soon after!

I think with a little experimentation the biscuit could be improved though, perhaps adapting the Tongue-N-Cheeky recipe a little to get a real 'pop' when the biscuit was opened.  Watching the cooking time and perhaps chilling the honey first could all help contain it (it had leaked in places from this batch).  But honestly? That's just being pernickety.  These were gooooooooood.

Marzipan and Hazlenut Cookies

Remember back in December I was looking for my Marzipan and Hazlenut Cookie recipe and I found a Cherry and Marzipan one instead?  Well, a little post festive sort out had me reunited with my recipe folder, which I sorted into a new expanding file and amongst the mess was the original Waitrose recipe card.  Hurrah!

The perfect excuse to make them was to go visiting a friend who is expecting a baby very soon.  I made a batch and found them as excellent as I remembered - but unfortunately forgot to get any photographs before they were delivered and eaten!  Here is the recipe though:

Marzipan and Hazlenut Cookies
175g of butter at room temperature
175g of caster sugar
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
75g of hazlenuts, chopped and lightly toasted
100g of plain flour
100g of self-raising flour
75g of Marzipan, roughly chopped
75g of dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to gas mark 5.  Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla until fluffy.  Add the flour to the bowl, then add the other ingredients before you mix it all in together.  Shape the dough into 16 balls, place on a greased baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes.

These are an incredibly indulgent cookie, beautifully chewy with crunchy hazlenuts acting as a counterpoint to little pockets of marzipanny delight and the warm, chocolately goodness.  I will bake some more, soon, and will do my best to take some pictures before they're all gone this time!

Cherry and Marzipan Cookies

About 5 or 6 years ago I picked up a recipe card from my local Waitrose for Hazlenut and Marzipan cookies, which were divine.  They've been a favourite ever since, so when I was looking for something baked to put in our Christmas Hampers this year (along with lots of jams and chutneys including the bramble and apple jam I wrote about a few months ago) they were the natural choice.   Except...my recipe file has gone missing!  Somewhere in the move from downstairs to up our filing cabinet has lost that one, oft used drop file full of my favourite recipes.  Oh no!  I tried searching on Waitrose's website but the recipe isn't up any more.  So the search was on for another cookie, which had to have Marzipan in it and after a few searches I came across Gastronomy Domine's Cherry and Marzipan Christmas Cookies.  Perfect!  Not only was it marzipan but I'd bought a pack of sour cherries having seen them in a few interesting recipes lately and could use those too.

One of the best things about cookie baking, for me, is that they can usually be made with gluten free flour without too many problems, so I altered the recipe only so far as to use Dove's Farm Gluten Free Plain Flour Blend in the place of regular flour.  I didn't have any trouble getting the dough to come together as the recipe suggests, in fact it was rather buttery, but I put this down to the difference in flours and put it in the fridge to cool. It had a good texture when it came out of the fridge, so I rolled it into balls and popped them on baking sheets.  Having read the comments on the original recipe post I kept a close eye in case they cooked quicker in my oven, and the first batch definitely did!  In about 10 minutes they were slightly overdone and very spread out.  Hmmmm.  The next batch went in on a lower shelf - better.  I turned the oven down and that improved things too.  Unfortunately I was a little distracted during the baking, so some batches got a bit overdone and were very difficult to get off the baking sheet.  The last batch however came out perfectly!

Snowmen cookies!

Another bake for the Tree Festival, this one for the kids.  Snowmen cookies!  Basic sugar cookies (I use this recipe, its a good one and makes a good quantity, cut out with a combination of my usual cutters and my fabulous Ikea Drommar set.  One larger circle, one smaller and a square put together to bake.  They're frosted with a royal icing type frosting and some basic black fondant for the hats, with chocolate chips for eyes.