Wednesday 20 March 2013

Chocolate Dipped Peanut Butter Cookies...

Rutherford and Son is in Kingston this week and I have to keep up to date with Cake Club as raised £165 from the cast for my baking and it goes to Comic Relief.
I've never baked soft cookies before so loved the idea of the recipe I found in Jo Wheatley's recipe book.. A Passion for Baking. Jo won the second series of The Great British Bakeoff and the book is beautiful.



I love peanut butter and was intrigued by this recipe... so gave it a go and the result was fabulous... chewy and crunchy with the added peanuts and not too sweet. The only thing I changed was to half dip them in melted plain chocolate to make them a bit 'snickers' like....


Make up the cake like mix and spoon onto baking trays leaving plenty of space for spreading...



Out of the oven and cooling before choc dipping ...


And finished and left to cool and set...


Really delicious and easy ...


Went down really well and the smell when you opened the tin ...AMAZING !!!






Monday 11 March 2013

Red Nose Cherry Bakewell Buns for Comic Relief...

Red Nose Day and Comic Relief are here again and I've taken an idea I had for Stollen Buns ( see earlier post ) last year and adapted it into these Cherry Bakewell Buns.
I don't need any encouragement to use Almonds or marzipan ( my favourite ) and I've made them 'Comic Relief friendly' by colouring the marzipan in the middle red.
I thought I'd try and raise a little money too.. so have set up a page my.rednoseday.com/sponsor/wendipeters and will tweet and blog my cake club recipes.

Makes about 15 buns..

250g soft butter
250g caster sugar
4 eggs
180g self raising flour
70g ground almonds
250g marzipan
red food colouring
150g glace cherries ( cut up )
about 15 whole cherries to decorate
300g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180 o C and place cake cases into bun tins.

Put marzipan into a bowl and add some of the red food colouring ( a good few drops as you want a deep red )


Knead well until thoroughly combined and then wrap in clingfilm..




Cream together butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs.
add the ground almonds and flour and fold in, then add the chopped up cherries...


Split the marzipan into 16 or 17 pieces and roll into nose size balls..



Spoon a teaspoonful of the cake mix into the cases and push down then place a nose in the centre of each ...


Then cover with another spoonful of cake mix....


Bake in the oven for 13 to 15 minutes until risen, golden...


When cool, make up the icing to a dropping consistency and ice each one and place a whole cherry on top....



When you cut through there will, hopefully, be a red nose of marzipan in the bun ...



Hopefully they will go down well with the 'Rutherford and Son' Company in Stoke... Hope you have fun making them and a great Red Nose Day.... tweet me some photos @wendipeters !!








Monday 4 March 2013

Cherry Flapjacks .....

I needed something quick and easy last weekend to throw together for Rutherford and Son, Oxford week ... looked in the cupboard and found some left over cherries from Christmas Cake recipe and some porridge oats... what else .. Flapjacks !!!
There is a wonderful cake and pudding recipe book called The Dessert Deli.. created by my friend, Laura Amos @thedessertdeli www.thedessertdeli.co.uk .. and it's her recipe I've used, adding 150g of glace cherries, cut in half.


Here it is .. the wrong way round !!





The caramel bubbling...


Added to the oats and cherries..



Put into a lined tin ....



Baked for 15 minutes and cut up when cold ..



Delicious... Thanks Laura !! x

Oh and Sara Poyzer @sarapoyz made us a beautiful Parkin !!