Sugar Cookies

Hi :)
Today I decided to try and get back into my baking groove so I made some sugar cookies.  I wasn't feeling so great yesterday, I couldn't stop sneezing and my eyes were watering and itching like crazy but i'm glad i'm feeling soooo much better today 'coz i really needed to bake something.  I'm trying to stick with my plan to bake/update this blog at least once a week.

My Sugar Cookies turned out pretty darn good, if I do say so myself LOL.  They don't take long to bake and it's only like 1 minute between being perfect and being burnt, yes, I found that out the hard way...Anyway, once you decorate them all pretty with icing and sprinkles no one will notice that they're burnt haha.

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter (softened)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg (beaten, room temperature)
• 1 tablespoon milk
• icing sugar for rolling out dough

Method

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, place butter and sugar and beat with an electric mixer until light in colour.
Add egg and milk and beat until combined.
Turn the mixer to a low speed, gradually add the flour mixture and beat until the mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl.
Divide the dough in half, wrap in baking paper and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 180ºC

Sprinkle surface where you will roll out your dough with the icing sugar.
Remove dough from the refrigerator, Sprinkle rolling pin with icing sugar. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick.  Move the dough around and check frequently underneath to make sure it is not sticking.
Cut into desired shape (I used a small drinking glass to make my circle shape).
Place onto a greased baking tray and bake for approximately 15 minutes or until the cookies are just starting to turn brown around the edges, rotating the baking tray halfway through baking time.
Let the cookies sit for 2minutes after you remove them from the oven before transferring them onto a wire rack to cool completely.  Decorate as desired.

To Make the Icing

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 to 2 tablespoons milk

Method

In a medium mixing bowl, combing icing sugar, butter and vanilla extract.  Use an electric hand mixer to beat together until the mixture is smooth, adding enough milk to make a good spreading consistency.  Add food colouring
Frost cooled cookies, sprinkle with sugar sprinkles if desired.  Set aside until frosting is set.


Thats all for now! I'm off to go do something boring like read or sleep.

Bye

♡ B

Raspberry Macarons

Hello! Yes its been forever since my last post.  I've been busy, lazy and distracted lol.  It was my brothers 21st birthday party on Saturday so i had to help out with the preparations and there were tons of leftovers and the most GIANT-normous cake i've seen in my life, no joke and yes i made up the word "giant-nornous" so with the mass amount of food, i haven't needed to bake anything.  Hopefully, since the olympics are over, i can get back to baking and blogging.  Every one of our athletes did an amazing job whoop! Not to mention YAY! for Valerie Adams who gets the gold medal in shot put after that Balarusian woman tested positive for drugs :O Ok people, Don't do drugs.

Now onto the sweet stuff...

I first discovered macarons after watching the final of Masterchef NZ, season 2, where they had to make a macaron tower.  I thought they looked to cute and sounded like they tasted delicious so i found a recipe and they turned out pretty good.  So when it came to making Macarons again for this mission, i was pretty confident.  As you can see from this photo, this time around, they turned out kinda bad LOL.  They shouldn't be this flat or soft...

Macarons are quite easy to make, but at the same time, its really easy to get them wrong.  My mum liked these so much, i gave her the recipe to give them a go...

So this is my mums attempt...I was like "what happened?!" and she gave me a sad face.  It looks like she hacked at it with a chainsaw lol.  I think she just undercooked them coz Macarons stick like crazy to baking paper if they aren't baked long enough.

Anyway, I'm a bit of a perfectionist sometimes so I decided to try again...

This is my second attempt, they turned out much better.  From what i've read, they should be crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside.  Don't they look like lil burgers? haha reminds me of Spongebob's Krabby Patties LOL.  One day i'm going to make a whole bunch of these in different colours, i reckon they would make nice gifts.  So I just noticed that the bakery story macarons have a raspberry filling and i just used white chocolate ganache oopss.  You could just add some fresh or frozen raspberries to the ganache.  If you are having trouble with these, like I was, watch some "how-to" videos on YouTube.  You might want to double the batch 'coz these don't last long :)

Raspberry Macaron Recipe

Ingredients

For the Macarons:

• 70g almond meal 
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 2 egg whites (room temperature)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• a few drops of raspberry food colouring

For the Ganache:

• 75g white chocolate
• 3 tablespoons cream
• 3 tablespoons icing sugar

Method

1. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
2. Place the almond meal and icing sugar into a food processor and pulse until combined.
3. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until they are frothy, add the sugar gradually and continue to beat until it forms stiff peaks.  Add the food colouring.
4. Using a spatula, gently fold the almond mixture into the egg mixture.  Fold until the mixture folds back onto itself, it is important not to over fold.  It should have a consistency like lava.
5. Place mixture in a piping bag with a 2cm opening.  Pipe onto the lined baking tray about 3cm in diameter.  You should get 12 single macarons on each tray.
6. Leave the macarons to sit on the bench for about 30mins so the macarons form a kind of skin.
7. Preheat the oven to 140ºC.
8. Bake the macarons for 18-20mins.

To make the Ganache:

1. Place the chocolate and cream in a glass bowl and place in the microwave for 1 min.  Whisk gently to combine.
2. Stir in the icing sugar and leave until thickened.
3. Once thickened, place mixture in a piping bag or spoon onto the centre of half of the macarons and sandwich with the other half.  

-Enjoy :)

♡ B

Blueberry Muffins

I've been pretty distracted from my blog lately, olympics anyone? It only happens once every four years so i'm like addicted.  OMG last night was amazeballs, two gold medals for NZ! Those guys are beasts! Plus it put us in the top 10 on the medal table for like 5mins and it was like suck on that Australia! LOL i'm totally joking, i love Australia.  Anyway, did I just get way off topic or what?

I love blueberry muffins! I found this awesome recipe to make these massive sized muffins (well in my opinion, they are massive lol).  They taste pretty good thanks to the crunchy, cinnamon sugar topping nom nom.

The biggest muffins i've ever made! Almost the size of my face! Not actually...but they were big!
This recipe should make 8 massive muffins.

Blueberry Muffin Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk or buttermilk
• 1 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200ºC
2. Grease muffin tin or line with muffin cups.
3. In a large bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder.
4. Place vegetable oil in a 1 cup measuring cup, add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup.
5. Mix this with the flour mixture.
6. Fold in the blueberries
7. Fill in the muffin cups right to the top and sprinkle with the crumb topping mixture

To make the crumb topping:

In a bowl, mix 1/2 sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon.  Rub together with your fingers until it resembles rough breadcrumbs.
Sprinkle over muffins before baking.
Bake muffins in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

-Enjoy :)