Winter + White Chocolate

Think about it...
It's a cold winter evening and you're snuggled on the couch with a lovely knitted blanket over your knees.  What could make this a better picture?  Only biting into a warm white chocolate chunk cookie!

Heaven!  You see, white chocolate and I...well, we have a bit of a 'thing'.  But please don't allow this to hold you back from experimenting with this recipe!  Instead of white chocolate, you could use ANY type of chocolate, chocolate bar, nut or dried fruit.  This is the wonderful cookie recipe of my childhood and you really can do anything with it.

White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

250g butter, unsalted

70g caster sugar

70g brown sugar

1/2 can condensed milk

2 tsp vanilla essence

350g S/R flour

80g plain flour

200g good quality white chocolate, chopped roughly

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.  Cream the butter and sugars until well combined and lightened in colour.  Mix in the condensed milk and vanilla before adding your flours. When your mixture has come together, add the chocolate.  Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and place onto baking trays, allowing room for spreading. Bake for 15 minutes or until lovely and golden.

This recipe makes a whole lot of cookies so you could halve the mixture but what would be the fun in that?

F. x

My happy dance.

You've heard of the "happy dance"?  Well, while I'm a fan, I must say that I definitely prefer the "happy bake".  A moment on the lips Facebook page now has over 200 likes and is growing every day.  My mode of celebration?  Why, the "happy bake", of course! And isn't it a beautiful thing? Recipe to come: good things come to those who wait, darlings.

Here's to the "happy bake" catching on!
F. x

Smiles.

After an incredibly hectic first week back at school, I was more than happy to spend today baking up a storm. A day in the kitchen is simply the perfect way to relax. However, relaxation was not, in fact, my main reason for today's 'session'.  Tomorrow afternoon, I will be taking a cupcake decorating workshop with a group of 12-year old girls.  One of my colleagues runs a wonderful program called GirlLife.  In a nutshell, GirlLife gives these girls an opportunity to broaden their world view by seeing that there is so much more for them in life than they may have experienced.  I simply cannot wait to show you some of their creations which we intend to enjoy in a lovely high tea. 

In order to conduct such a workshop, of course, I have to prepare the cupcakes for the girls to decorate.  So I was busy, busy, busy.  Naturally, when I found that I had some extra cupcakes, I couldn't resist having a mess around with some of the yummy toppers that I had prepared for tomorrow! I baked my Mum's Chocolate Cake recipe before topping with Vanilla Buttercream and a sweet chuck of liquorice allsort. Both my chocolate cake and buttercream recipes are tried and true.  How could you not look at these and smile?

F. x