A quick note from Mel…

Image found here.

Simon and I off are off on adventure around Europe at the end of this week and will be gone for five weeks!  We are both really excited, neither of us have been to Europe before and we’ve been planning and saving for this trip for quite some time.  I would be totally lying if I said I am not looking forward to trying out lots of different food and visiting famous bakeries!  I’m pretty sure I will be totally over-sharing on instagram, so if you want, you can follow our trip along on there.

While we are away, Courtenay will be running the ship here by herself.  We have heaps of great things lined up for you.  We’ve been working on guest posts and a couple of new feature posts which I’m looking forward too – I’ve got them all lined up and ready to go, and I think you will love them!

We also are going to be welcoming two new sponsors to our blog; Kenrick Rhys Photography and Mrs Beatens Baking Pre-Mixes.  Both do awesome work.  Kenrick has been a friend of Simon and I for a few years now and he takes the most beautiful photographs.  We would love to have him as our wedding photographer one day but are torn between that and having him as part of the wedding party and our guest as he really is a great friend (that proposal is happening while we are away, aye Simon?!).  Mrs Beatens Baking Pre-Mixes is a great online store selling pre-mixed ingredients for lots of tasty treats, great when you are in a rush or feeling lazy, but still want to bake!  Look out for their sponsor images which will be popping up on the right shortly, and make sure you click through and check them out.

Lastly, some things will still be staying the same; Courtenay and I will still be sharing some great recipes with you (I’ve tried to squeeze in a bit more baking than usual so I can still share some recipes with you) and our Billington’s monthly prize pack competition will still be running.  Please get your entries for June in before  12pm (mid day) on Sunday 30th June.  We will be announcing June’s winner later that afternoon.  Any entries received after that will be kept for the July draw.  Keep sending in those pics of your baking – we love seeing what you’ve created.  Happy baking!

Ciao xx.

Monte Carlo Biscuits

I made these Monte Carlo biscuits to take to Lydia’s Cookie Swap basically because of their name.  Simon and I are heading off for a trip around Europe (at the end of this week actually – exciting!) and Monte Carlo is one of the places we will be visiting (albeit for only a day).

Internet research tells me that Monte Carlo biscuits have actually been made by Arnotts since 1926.  I don’t know if I’ve ever tried them before; if I have they weren’t that memorable.  However, these home made ones are delish!

Ingredients:
375g butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
2 ½ cups self raising flour
1 ¼  cups plain flour
2 cups desiccated coconut

Filing:
125g butter, softened
1 ½ cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4 teaspoons milk
200g raspberry jam (I heated mine for 20-30 seconds in the microwave and then passed it through a sieve because I didn’t want the pips)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 150°C.  Line a couple of baking trays with baking paper.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs and vanilla essence.
Stir in the flours and coconut until thoroughly combined.
Roll tablespoonful's of the mixture into balls, place on the baking tray and flatten with a fork.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until they are just starting to go golden.  Leave to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the filling, cream the butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy.  Stir in the vanilla, then gradually add the milk, beating well.  Spread half the biscuits with the jam (but not right up to the edges, or it will ooze out too much!) and the other half with the icing.  Sandwich lightly together.

Chocolate Sprinkle Refrigerator Cookies

I made these Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies to take to Lydia’s Cookie Swap and I was really happy with how they turned out.  I think the fluro sprinkles (which I bought from The Pretty Baker) look awesome!  I had the idea for them, but thought executing them would be hard.  I wanted a smooth cookie that I could coat with chocolate and I didn’t know where to start.  I ended up making refrigerator cookies which are super simple; mix, roll and refrigerate, then slice and bake.  You could ditch the cocoa from the recipe if you don’t want chocolate cookies and you could leave off the sprinkles if you want something slick and sophisticated looking.

Ingredients:
For the cookies:
250g butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar
2 ½ cups flour
25g cocoa powder

To decorate:
300g chocolate melts
Sprinkles or your choice

Method:
Beat the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Stir in the flour and cocoa in two batches.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth.  Divide the mixture in half and roll each half into a 25cm log.  Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Line baking a couple of baking trays with baking paper.
Cut the logs into 1cm slices.  Place about 2.5cm apart on the trays and bake for 10 minutes.  Leave to cool on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

To decorate:
Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl on high; stir every 20 –30 seconds until it is smooth.  Pour your sprinkles into a small bowl.
Dip half of the cookie into the chocolate.  Give the cookie a bit of a shake to remove and excess chocolate, and scrape the chocolate off the bottom of the cookie too.
Press the top of the cookie into the sprinkles, then roll the side around in the sprinkles until the chocolate has been coated.  Place on a wire cooling rack to set.

Which colour would you choose?

Cookie Swap

Over the weekend we met up with some very talented bloggers at a cookie swap hosted by the lovely Lydia of Lydia Bakes!  It was fantastic meeting Kirsten of High Tea With Dragons, Danelle of A Couple of Night Owls and who also runs a personal blog; Danelle Bourgeois, and Amanda of Here Comes The Sun.




What is a cookies swap you ask?  Cookie swaps are generally held at Christmas time, the idea is that you invite a group of friends, and have each person make enough of one kind of cookie to share.  The cookie swap is a chance to catch up with friends during the busy holiday season while you sample the treats, then trade and get an assortment of delicious treats to take home.  Everyone leaves with a lovely gift and plenty of new recipes (great for when people pop over at Christmas).  We were lucky enough to have some cute boxes to take home our cookies in courtesy of Little Ink.  Because of the cookie swap’s link to Christmas Lydia set everything up with a mid winter Christmas theme, it was so cute!




Since we all blog we didn't share the recipes at our swap, we will all be posting them on each of our own blogs, but we will link everyone’s recipes into this post as they appear.  Over the next week or so you will see our recipes for Monte Carlo Biscuits, Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies and Sprinkle Sandwiched Cookies.  Lydia made some Browned Butter Snickerdoodles, Kirsten made White Chocolate and Raspberry Crinkle Cookies and Danelle made some decadent Chocolate Truffle Cookies - so there is plenty to look forward to.



Have you hosted a cookie swap before? Maybe you are keen to give it a go... remember, if you do we'd love to see your photos.  Also if you bake something from our blog and send us a pic we will enter you into the monthly Billington’s competition.

Thanks for hosting us Lydia – it was a great afternoon!


Check out these links for event round-ups and recipes from the Cookie Swap (we will add them as they pop up on the internet):

• Recipe post for Mel’s Chocolate Sprinkle Refrigerator cookies
• Recipe post for Mel’s Monte Carlo biscuits
• Recipe post for Courtenay’s Cookie Pops / Sprinkle sandwich cookies
• Danelle’s Chocolate Truffle Cookies and post about the Cookie Swap
• Lydia's Brown Butter Snickerdoodles
• Kirsten’s post about the cookie swap and her White Chocolate Raspberry Crinkle Cookies recipe
• Photos and a quick write up about the Cookie Swap by Amanda on Here Comes the Sun

Pizza Muffins

These are yum.  And pretty healthy for baking too.  I like the pineapple in them.  Simon loved them too and we both enjoyed taking them to work as snacks to have at morning tea.

Ingredients:
2 – 3 rashers of bacon, cooked, rind removed
2 cups self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried rosemary
½ teaspoon dried basil
1 cup grated cheese
1 cup milk
3 teaspoons tomato sauce
1 egg, beaten
100g butter, melted
225g can pineapple pieces in juice, drained

Method:
Preheat the oven to 200°C.  Grease or line a 12 muffin tin.
Cook the bacon, remove the rind, then cut into small pieces.  Set the bacon aside.
In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients, including the cheese.
Roughly chop up the pineapple pieces.  In a medium bowl, mix together the wet ingredients, including the pineapple and bacon.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix lightly until combined. 
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin.  Bake for 15 minutes or until the muffins are lightly golden.  Leave to cool in the pan for five minutes before leaving them to cool completely on a wire rack.

Cinnamon Pecan and Oat Cookies

A couple of weekends ago I took a trip to Martha’s Backyard (aka the American store) as I was told they had Hershey’s cinnamon chips in stock. I was also told that the cinnamon chips are fantastic in oat cookies. I whipped these up and was not disappointed!

Ingredients:
Makes approximately 40 cookies
225 grams butter, softened
⅓ cup sugar
1 cup light muscovado sugar (I used Billingtons)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups rolled oats
1⅔ cups of Hershey’s cinnamon chips
1 cup roughly chopped pecans

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and line 2-3 baking trays with baking paper.
Beat butter and sugars in a bowl until creamy.
Add eggs and vanilla, beat well.
Sift flour and baking soda into the butter mixture, and beat together on a slow-medium speed until combined.
Stir in oats, cinnamon chips and pecans (batter will be stiff).
Drop heaped teaspoons onto your lined baking trays and bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden and starting to set.
Remove from the oven and transfer to wire racks after a couple of minutes to cool completely.

These are delicious as is but to change it up a little I dipped about a third of my cookies in some dark chocolate to make them extra indulgent!