Chocolate, Hazelnut and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Things have been pretty crazy lately, I am approaching the end of my first year back at work full time (after two years at home with Max), that in itself has kept me pretty busy but health wise our wee family has not been able to catch a break – Max in daycare and me at school means are surrounded by germs constantly. As I type I am chatting to my spot covered wee boy – I am off work the next few days thanks to the nasty case of chicken pox Max came down with at the end of last week.

It’s easy to lose your baking mojo when it seems like there are a million other things on the ‘to do list’ (well maybe not a million – but say 300 reports, no that is not an exaggeration that is how many kids I teach over the course of each week!). Mel and I were lucky enough to be invited to the Bluebell’s Cakery book launch a couple of weeks ago and the beautiful recipe book I purchased at the end of the evening has me feeling really inspired! I loved the look of the ‘Chunky Chocolate and Macadamia Bisucuits’ Karla has in the ‘Biscuits’ section of the book that is what inspired these cookies. I must say that time in the kitchen baking something yummy was just what I needed. These cookies are delicious, they even managed to put a smile on the face of my spotty dot!

Ingredients:
125g butter, softened
3 tablespoons Nutella
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
1 egg
¾ cup brown sugar
¾ cup caster sugar
1½ cups flour
4 tablespoons cocoa
½ teaspoon baking soda
100g hazelnuts, roughly chopped
100g chocolate chips

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with wax paper.
Cream the butter and Nutella in the bowl of your mixer until well combined and becoming light.
Beat in sugars until your mix is light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as required.
Add egg and vanilla and beat to combine.
Sift in flour, cocoa and baking soda, mix on a low speed until just combined.
Fold through chocolate chips and hazelnut bits (if you want some on top of your cookies just keep a small amount of each aside).
Create ping pong sized balls of dough by rolling it between your hands and place on the lined baking tray, keep balls 8-10cm apart as they will spread. If you are adding nuts and choc chips to your tops place them and use the palm of your hand to flatten each cookie slightly.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until they are firm.
Once you remove them from the oven leave them on the tray for 2-5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely.

These are definitely going to be be my go to cookie for the next wee while! They may even make it into some gift boxes for colleagues since we are approaching that time of year.

Chocolate Chip + Macadamia Cookies

I’m enjoying making biscuits at the moment.  Recipes like the one below, which don’t need any time in the fridge, are quick and easy to make.  Although, sometimes that isn’t such a good thing.  Why?  Well, I forget they don’t take as long to bake as muffins and usually end up slightly burning a tray!  However, this recipe yields enough that a few burnt biscuits won’t be an issue.

Makes approximately 32.

180g unsalted butter, chopped
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
¼ cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour
⅔ cup white chocolate bits
⅔ cup macadamia nuts, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 160°C.  Line 3 oven trays with baking paper.
Put the butter and sugar in a bowl of an electric mixer and beat until creamy.  Add in the egg and beat until combined.  Transfer to a large bowl (if needed).
Sift in the cocoa, baking soda and half of the flour over the mixture and stir until combined.  Add the remaining flour, chocolate bits and macadamia nuts.  Stir until combined.
Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls and put onto trays 5 cm apart.  Bake for 12 –15 minutes or until crinkly on top.
Allow to cool on the trays.  Store in an airtight container for up to one week.

Chocolate Chippy Bundt Cake

I saw this recipe on ‘Bake or Break’ the other day and just had to try it! The original recipe called for a 12 cup bundt pan but I only own a 6 cup so I halved the recipe and converted the recipe to metric measurements.

Ingredients:
Topping:
⅓ cup chopped pecans
60 grams butter, softened and cut into small pieces
1  tablespoon sugar

Cake:
1⅓ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
120 grams butter, softened
½ cup packed dark brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ tablespoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
½  cup buttermilk
125 grams dark chocolate chips

Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 6 cup bundt pan.
Stir pecans, butter, and sugar together with a fork. Sprinkle mixture in bottom of prepared pan.
Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating just until blended after each addition.
Add flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk. Begin and end with flour mixture. Reduce mixer speed to low and beat just until blended. Mix in chocolate chips. Transfer batter to prepared pan.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a cake tester/skewer can be inserted into the center and comes out clean.
Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and leave to cool.

If you have a 12 cup pan you can double the recipe and the bake for 50-55 minutes, the 12 cup makes a much taller cake, making for prettier slices of cake. It is delicious and so easy as there is no more decorating to do once it is removed from the oven and cooled.

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip & Peanut Butter Cookies

I found this recipe at Sabato when Simon and I went shopping there on Saturday.  It’s a gourmet food shop in Mt. Eden, Auckland and it is stocked full of delicious tasting things.  They have a whole stand of recipe cards you can take which use the products they sell and this is one of the recipes that jumped out at me.  These cookies taste really indulgent even though I used Whittaker’s 50% Dark Chocolate as we had some in the pantry at home, rather than the ‘Valrhona’ brand of dark chocolate that the recipe recommended (I think I might have to go back and get some of this chocolate to try though, the official website makes it seem so luxurious).  I baked my cookies so that they are soft and chewy in the middle, yum!  The recipe makes approximately 12 cookies and is super easy :)

1 cup peanut butter (I used a mixture of smooth and crunchy)
1 egg
¾ cup brown or white sugar (I used half of each)
½ teaspoon baking powder (gluten free)
85g dark chocolate, chopped into pea sized pieces

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Mix the peanut butter, sugar, egg and baking powder together in  bowl.  Mix in the chocolate bits.
Take dessertspoon sized amounts of the dough and roll into balls.  Place them on a baking paper lined tray.  Bake in the oven for 12 minutes for a soft-centred chewy cookie, or 15 minutes or slightly longer for a crunchier cookie (just be careful not to burn them!).  Remove from the oven and cool the cookies on a wire rack.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

 
I made these by adapting the ‘Banana Cake’ recipe that I posted last year. They were delicious!

Ingredients:
150g butter (softened)
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
2 large ripe bananas (diced into small pieces)
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons hot milk
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup of chocolate chips

Icing:
50g butter
2 ½ – 3 cups icing sugar (sifted)
200g cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
Add bananas one at a time, again beating well after each addition. 
Stir baking soda into hot milk and add to mixture. 
Sift flour and baking powder into mixture and fold. 
Pour in chocolate chips and gently stir through.
Place mixture into a cupcake papers (filling to just over half way) and bake at 180˚C for 15 minutes or until the cupcake springs back when lightly touched (or until you can insert and then remove a skewer cleanly). 
Cool and ice with a cream cheese icing and decorate with extra chocolate chips.

Mere’s Chocolate Chip Blondies

These are delicious! I had attempted Blondies once before (a couple of years ago) but they were nowhere near as scrummy as these and I had gone back to the dark side (brownies) – however, these have converted me!  I got the recipe from Meredith – one of the many lovely Mum’s I have met through an online forum set up during my pregnancy with Max.  Not only has it been a fantastic place to ask questions about things little Max is doing/not doing, but it has been awesome for recipe sharing as well.  The Milo Biscuits and Cheesecake Brownie Swirls came from ladies in the same forum.

Ingredients:
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips (I used ½ a cup of milk chocolate drops and ½ a cup white chocolate drops).

Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 20x20cm tin with baking paper.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light.
Beat in salt, egg and vanilla extract until well combined.
Add in flour, baking powder and choc chips and stir until no streaks of dry ingredients remain.
Pour dough – it will be thick – into prepared baking dish and smooth it into an even layer.
Bake for about 30 minutes, until set and the edges are just very lightly browned.
Cool in the pan before slicing.

For Snickerdoodle Blondies, leave out choc chips and mix together 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, then sprinkle over dough before baking.

I can vouch for the ‘Snickerdoodle Blondies’ deliciousness as I had morning tea at Meredith’s house today and they were fantastic, as were the lemon cupcakes with meringue frosting she made! She has also shared her recipe for tequila cupcakes with me – so look out for that as we head into the warmer months.

One of  Mere’s gorgeous cupcakes! I am definitely going to be giving meringue frosting a go soon.

Thank you Meredith!