Sourdough Nuts & Fruits Biscotti

Ingredients;

Starter 50g

Strong flour 50g

Plain flour 50g

Egg 1

Almond powder 20g

Almonds, Walnuts, Cranberries, Raisins (As much as you like...)

Honey 1 tbsp

Salt pinch

I made sourdough biscotti again (here is my previous attempt), this time with more nuts and fruits, and it's truly addictive!!

I love this recipe because it has no rising agents except the natural yeast from the starter, also there is no sugar, no butter, which feels (and I believe is!) pretty healthy;)

The crunchy nuts gives me a good energy boost in the hot kitchen too;D

Do you dip your biscuits?

Happy Halloween - Pumpkin cookies!

Happy Halloween! Tick or Treat!

Following my Jack-o'-lantern black cream puffs, I made Halloween pumpkin cookies!

I say 'Pumpkin' cookies, but they actually have no pumpkins in it...sorry...
They are made of one of my favourite biscuits, the Almond Ball Biscuit (recipe is on Biscuit Assortment). I added a bit of orange food colourings and shaped them like mini pumpkins.

It was a little bit time consuming to shape them but it was worth the effort. I was very pleased with how they came out. ;)

I used a chop stick to make the lines and put a pumpkin seed on the top.

I also made one Dokin-chan for Lana. ;)

(It's a famous cartoon character in Japan.)

Before drawing the faces. They looked so cute. :)

I can see myself making other shapes...

(This could be on my Christmas baking list....)

Gluten-free Bakewell tart

I've made gluten-free cakes and biscuits before but I'd never used what-so called gluten-free flour until now... However, the other week Andy bought me a bag of gluten-free flour (I got Doves Farm plain white flour), and said to me that one of his colleagues was gluten intolerant and hadn't been tasting my cakes that I bake for him to bring in almost every Monday...

So, that's how I came to try gluten-free flour for the first time. I made a sweet pastry with it for my Bakewell tart. I used the gluten-free flour the same way as I do with usual plain flour. When I was preparing the pastry, I felt it was a little wetter than normal, and it was a bit too soft to roll it out so instead I flattened it by pressing on to the prepared tart tin directly, which indeed worked very well. ;D

As the filling of Bakewell tart doesn't have any flour in it, I didn't need to worry about that part.

The result of my first gluten-free tart? It was a great success! The gluten-free pastry was really nice. The more crumbly texture reminded me of shortbread. (Maybe it's because the Doves Farm flour has rice flour in it...) The almond filling was sweet and moist, went really well with the pastry.

I got a good feedback from Andy's colleagues too, and most importantly everyone in the office could have a piece. ;) I can definitely see this gluten-free flour appearing more often in my cakes and pastries. ;D

Funny face biscuit

"Hello, hello, hello"... Those funny face biscuits are the best friends with a nice cup of tea and sure to bring a smile to everyone's face. :)

To dress up the funny face I sandwiched my grape jam in the middle. The almond shortbread biscuit worked very well with the thick grape jam.

Dunk one face in a tea..., and another and another..... such addictive stuff those faces are... :)

To see how to make the almond biscuit, please see my biscuit assortment.

Biscuit assortment

Biscuits are simple. But perfecting an ultimate biscuit recipe is pretty hard. I've been trying to come up with an easy enough biscuit recipe which also have that "moreish-ness" to it.

So... yesterday I made 4 different biscuits that I've been meaning to test out. Normally when I do multiple recipe experiments, some of them fails miserably.... However, this time all of them came out awesome!

So here we are. There are what I made...

Jam biscuit (I used raspberry jam)

Flour 100g

Butter 50g

Sugar 50g

Jam 50g

Baking powder 1/2 tsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Cream butter and sugar together.

2. Add jam and mix well.

3. Fold flour and baking powder into 2.

4. Knead lightly until the mixture come together and smooth.

5. Wrap with cling film and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

6. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 5mm thickness. Cut out the dough and place on a baking sheet.

7. Bake in the preheated (180ºc) oven for 10-12 minutes.

Salted vanilla biscuit
Same as the Lemon meringue's sweet pastry.
After making the dough, shape it into a stick and rest it in the freezer until it's hard. Cut the dough into 8mm thickness and bake. When the biscuits are done, sprinkle salt.

Cocoa biscuit

Flour 100g

Cocoa powder 15g

Butter 50g

Sugar 50g

Egg yolk 2

Baking powder 1/2 tsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Cream butter and sugar together.

2. Add egg yolk and mix well.

3. Fold flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into 2.

4. Knead lightly until the mixture come together and smooth.

5. Wrap with cling film and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

6. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 5mm thickness. Cut out the dough and place on a baking sheet.

7. Bake in the preheated (180ºc) oven for 15 minutes. 

Almond ball biscuit

Butter 100g

Icing sugar 50g

Egg yolk 1

Almond powder 120g

Flour 130g

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Cream butter and icing sugar together.

2. Add egg yolk into 1 and mix well.

3. Fold almond flour and flour into 2.

4. Rest the dough int the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

5. Take out the dough and make small balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet.

6. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

My favourite was the Almond ball biscuit. I can see myself making it again pretty soon! :D

Sugar free almond cake

Another recipe with leftover egg yolks. This time "Sugar free almond cake". :)

Although it doesn't have the rich sweetness from sugar, the almond powder and butter is enough to give this sugar free cake a moreish taste.

In fact..., I baked them before dinner and they were all gone after dinner... Hum, greedy greedy... ;D

Ingredients:

Flour 75g

Almond powder 15g

Sweetner 3tbsp

Baking powder 1 tsp

Egg yolk 2

Egg 1

Butter (melted) 100g

Vanilla extract 1tsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180º.

2. Beat egg yolk and egg until it's light and fluffy.

3. Mix in melted butter and vanilla extract into 2.

4. Fold flour, baking powder and almond powder into 3.

5. Pour the mixture into cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Happy Birthday gift

This post is specially for my mum-in-law, Chris. Happy Birthday!

 We couldn't get a chance to see her and bring a big birthday cake today. So instead, I sent her my love with The World of Sweets cookie selection gift, which she told me arrived in time. (Thanks to Royal Mail!)

There are three different types in the box. Almond cookie, digestive biscuit, and strawberry flavoured baked doughnut. Let's hope those little treats will make the birthday girl happy:D

Happy Birthday again, xxx from The WOS kitchen.