Rose Sugar Cookie Hearts

To be honest with you, I am not really ‘into’ Valentines Day. Unfortunately it seems like an over commercialised day, but my distain for Valentines Day doesn’t extend to heart shaped cookies, rose flavoured anything or pink icing. These things can be enjoyed any day of the year, and shared with those you love regardless of what day it is. 

I had the original idea for these about a year ago when I was testing recipes for my Baking with Rose eBook. I had an idea for a heart shaped shortbread with rose icing. As it turns out, the shortbread looked great, but I found they took on the moisture of the icing and went a bit soft. I ended up creating my Rose Cardamom and Pistachio Shortbread (sans any icing), which I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed. 

View fullsize

Baking with Rose eBook Test Recipe

View fullsize

Rose Cardamom & Pistachio Shortbread

Now a year later, I came back to the heart shaped cookie idea and knew that a sugar cookie was the only way to go. I added crystallised rose nibs (I buy mine here) and a few drops of natural rose extract, however you could definitely leave both of those out if you wanted. 

I used Gewürzhaus rose powder to colour and flavour the icing, however if you can’t get rose powder, just leave it out and add a little pink food colouring. You will still have the rose flavour from the rosewater, and they will still taste great (you may even need a little less rosewater than the recipe says if you aren’t using the rose powder). 

My Baking with Rose eBook is available here if you are interested in more rose recipes.

Gewurzhaus Rose Powder

Rose Sugar Cookie Hearts

Ingredients: 

200g unsalted butter, softened

200g caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

5 drops natural rose extract, optional

15g crystallised rose nibs (or very finely chopped crystallised rose petals)

1 egg, lightly beaten 

400g plain flour 

Ingredients for the Icing: 

230g icing sugar

2 tsp rose powder (I used this one from Gewürzhaus)

2.5-3 tbsp rosewater

Method: 

Line three large baking trays with baking paper.

Place the butter, sugar, vanilla and rose extract if using in the bowl of a stand mixer and cream using the paddle attachment, until just combined. Add the crystallised rose nibs and mix until combined.

Slowly add the beaten egg to the mixture and mix until well combined. 

Add the flour and mix on low until just combined and the mixture forms a dough. 

Bring the dough into ball, remove from the bowl and cover in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30-60 minutes. 

Lightly flour your work surface and tip the dough out onto it. Dust the top with a little more flour as well to prevent the dough sticking to your rolling pin. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out until it is about 5 mm thick. 

Use a medium sized heart shaped cookie cutter (approx. 7-7.5cm in width at the widest part) to cut out the cookies, placing on the prepared trays. Bring the dough together and re-roll when necessary to ensure you use all the dough. Place the cookie filled trays into the fridge for another 30 minutes. 

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. 

Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, or until they are lightly golden around the edges. Rotate trays in the oven about half way through to ensure they cook and colour evenly. 

Allow the cookies to cool on their trays. 

To make the icing, mix the icing sugar and rose powder in a medium bowl, then gradually add 2 tbsp of the rosewater to form a smooth thick icing. Add a little more rosewater if the icing is too paste like. The icing needs to be fairly thick so the icing won’t run off the cookies, but not so thick its difficult to spread. 

Using a small palette knife ice half of each heart shaped cookie, and place back on their trays and allow the icing to set for a few hours. I found I had a little icing leftover at the end, but to be honest I’d rather have a little too much than not enough! You could always ice some of the biscuits fully rather than just half if you really wanted to use it all up. 

Allow the icing to set before storing in an airtight container. Will keep for about a week.

Makes about 36 heart shaped cookies.

Reference: ‘Cookies’ by Peggy Porschen (Quadrille Publishing, 2014), p.8. 

Cookbooks Worth Waiting for in 2020

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but when the prospect of a new year means new cookbook releases I get pretty excited. Every now and then I check the 'Coming Soon' in the Cookbook section of Booktopia and have a look at what and when things are going to be released. Sometimes I preorder straight away (as was the case for a few below!), others go into my wishlist so I can remember them for another time. 

Below are a few new releases for 2020 I am especially excited about. 

What cookbooks would you add to the list?

1. 'Now for Something Sweet' by Monday Morning Cooking Club - release date 24th February 2020: The highly anticipated fourth book by the Monday Morning Cooking Club ladies is the top of my list, because if the previous three books are anything to go by, it will be good. And the fact that it is almost solely dedicated to sweets means it's right up my alley!

2. 'Beatrix Bakes' by Natalie Paull - release date 1st March 2020: This is the cookbook all those who have visited the bakery Beatrix in North Melbourne have been waiting for. I visited once last year, and the one cake I tried had me desperate to recreate it at home it was that good (recipe here if you are interested). Soon there will be a whole book filled with these glorious recipes, my guesswork will no longer be needed!

3. 'Confidence in the Kitchen' by Emmylou MacCarthy - release date 1st June 2020: If you follow Emmylou on Instagram, or have watched her TV show, you'll know this book is bound to be as fun and jam packed with ideas as possible. Emmylou has showed some of the BTS of the photoshoot for this book, and it has been so interesting to really see more of what goes on before a books hits the shelves.

4. 'Falastin' by Sami Tamimi & Tara Wigley - release date 31st March 2020: Co-written by one half of the Ottolenghi empire, Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley are taking us through Palastine via recipes and stories. I am imagining this book to be in a similar vein to Jerusalem (by Tamimi and Ottolenghi), and I for one cannot wait.

5. 'Table Manners The Cookbook' by Jessie Ware & Lennie Ware - release date 3rd March 2020: If you listen to the podcast 'Table Manners' this is the cookbook for you. Mother and Daughter team up to compile the recipes they made their podcast guests, and I think I'll have to listen to a few more episodes before the book is released!

Links to books on Booktopia removed 15/07/2024.

Caramelised White Chocolate Lamington Slice

I love lamingtons so much. They were probably my favourite treat as a kid, and probably the only thing that contained chocolate that I genuinely really loved. 

I loved when I found a lamington at a bakery that had lovely soft icing, not the kind that set really firmly. I remember taking a Chinese exchange student who stayed with us a week or two to the local French bakery and insisted that she try one - she was only in Australia for a couple of weeks after all, and tasting a lamington is a must do when someone visits! And oddly the French bakery made very good lamingtons!

I also remember getting those small lamingtons from a packet in the supermarket in my lunch box sometimes at school. I’d probably hate them if I tried one now, but back then they felt like I had hit the lunchbox jackpot.

Quite a few years ago I realised chocolate was no friend to me, and decided I must stop eating it (in any form) to avoid the side effects I was experiencing. And one of the most difficult things to give up was lamingtons. I made them at home a couple of times (recipe here), and they are well worth the effort, but sadly not if you actually can’t eat them. 

I’ve been thinking about a white chocolate version for a while, and finally I have given it a go. I have made the whole lamington making process much more simple by making a slice rather than individual lamingtons. I have also incorporated one of my favourite things, caramelised white chocolate. Please use good quality white chocolate (Lindt couverture or similar with a cocoa butter content of around 30%) for this. 

I am really happy with how this lamington slice has turned out, and to have a new version of a lamington I can enjoy!

Let me know in the comments if you give this recipe a go!

NB. Do not try using any white ‘baking’ chocolate you can find in the baking isle at the supermarket. As these chocolates are not pure white chocolate, the caramelisation process will not work.

Caramelised White Chocolate Lamington Slice

Ingredients:

125g unsalted butter (softened) or margarine

165g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs 

250g self-raising flour

105ml milk

80g mixed berry or raspberry jam

Ingredients for the Icing: 

100g good quality white chocolate (see note above recipe)

280g icing sugar

7g unsalted butter, softened

65ml milk 

40g shredded coconut

freeze dried raspberry, about 1 tsp if powdered or 4 raspberries if whole

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and line a lamington tin (rectangle tin with dimensions approx. 30 x 20cm) with baking paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. 

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add half the flour and half the milk and mix. Add the remaining flour and milk and mix on medium speed until combined.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tray and smooth the top. Place teaspoons of jam over the mixture, and using a knife to swirl the jam into the batter.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the cake is light golden in colour and springs back to the touch. 

Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. 

Allow to cool completely before making the icing. 

To make the icing, preheat oven to 120 degrees Celsius/110 degrees Celsius fan. 

Line a small baking tray completely with foil, and place the chocolate in a single layer in the centre of the tray. 

Place in the oven for 5 minutes, then stir. Repeat every 5 minutes for about 25 minutes or until the chocolate has smoothly melted as is a lovely golden colour. 

The chocolate will seem grainy for the first 10-15 minutes, don’t worry just keep stirring every five minutes and the chocolate will become a smooth consistency again.

In the last five or so minutes you can decide how caramelised you want your chocolate - leave in the oven for an extra five minutes after stirring for a slightly deeper golden colour, and caramelised flavour. 

Once you have caramelised your chocolate place in a medium bowl, and whisk together with the icing sugar, butter and milk until it reaches a smooth consistency. Cover the cake with the icing, allowing it to fall over the sides. 

In a small bowl mix the coconut with the freeze dried raspberry (crush up any whole raspberries between your fingers before mixing), then cover the cake with the coconut. 

Cake can be stored in an airtight container for a few days.

Cranberry and Caramilk Cookies

I had the idea for these cookies (or biscuits, I am still feeling conflicted as to which they should be called!), at work one day. A colleague of mine is American and her and another in our team where talking about Thanksgiving foods, as Thanksgiving was the following week. I heard them mention something about cranberry, and for some reason the idea for these biscuits just popped into my head. It probably wasn’t long after I had made my Raspberry and White Chocolate biscuits, on which this recipe is based. Maybe I just had biscuits on the brain. 

While I didn’t get a chance to make my new cookie idea before Thanksgiving, I did ensure I tried them out on Boxing Day. I had kept a bar of Cadbury Caramilk for my next biscuit batch, as while this white chocolate is already caramelised, I thought it would be great used in biscuits where the white chocolate has extra time to further caramelise in the oven. I’m so glad I used it as the Caramilk tastes great in these cookies, and if I can find anymore I will buy some and keep it for my next batch. 

These cookies are also great for this time of year, when we all hopefully have some time to bake, and maybe have some leftover dried fruit from making other Christmas-y things. I love using cranberries, but I’m sure other chopped dried fruit would be great too. 

I hope you are having a lovely festive season, and have a great start to 2020. If you want to keep up with my news and more baking talk, my weekly newsletter will be restarting a couple of weeks into January - to sign up click here. 

Cranberry and Caramilk Cookies

Ingredients: 

250g unsalted butter, softened or margarine (I use Proactiv Buttery)

200g brown sugar

100g white sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 egg yolks

325g plain flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

200g dried cranberries, roughly chopped

180g bar Caramilk (or other white chocolate), chopped

Method: 

Beat the butter or margarine and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until combined. Add the vanilla extract, then the egg yolks mixing until combined. 

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and the baking soda, then add to the butter mixture and mix on a low speed until almost combined. Then add the cranberries and chopped Caramilk and mix until combined.

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer, cover and refrigerate for at least 30-40 minutes (the dough can also be shaped into two logs, covered with plastic wrap or baking paper and frozen at this point too). 

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius and line 3-4 trays with baking paper. Once the dough has been in the fridge for 30-40 minutes, scoop out heaped tablespoons of the mixture and place on the prepared baking trays (leaving room for the biscuits to spread as they cook).

Bake for about 18 minutes (rotating trays halfway). The biscuits will be golden once done.

Allow to cool on their trays.

Store in an airtight container, they will keep for about 1 week.

Makes about 55 biscuits.

Reference: ‘The Violet Bakery Cookbook’ by Claire Ptak (Ten Speed Press, 2015), pp.140-1.

Christmas Gift Guide for Foodies 2019

After putting one of these gift guides together last year, I thought I would make it a yearly thing where I seek out all the great food related gifts for the food lovers in your life (or for yourself!). 

This year I have also included some homemade (mostly edible) gift ideas too. I love gifting people food at this time of the year. It’s thoughtful and also can be a more cost effective gift option if you have many people to buy for.

Merry Christmas!

NB: If buying online from these great small businesses, please note their Christmas delivery cut off dates so you aren’t disappointed. 

BOOKS

1. Just Desserts by Charlotte Ree, $21.35 - This newly released title is super fun and colourful and contains the perfect baking recipes for those who are new to the game. 

2. Bake Australia Great by Katherine Sabbath, $29.95 - This book looks like it is full of fun and amazingly creative recipes. Possibly the replacement for the 1980s Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake book we all looked at as kid - but even more fun!

3. Taverna by Georgina Hayden, $40.75 - This is one of my favourite releases of 2019. Georgina takes the reader through her Greek Cypriot family history through food. The recipes are delicious and it’s a book you will come back to again and again. 

4. Farmer Cookbook, $29.95 - I recommended this book last year when it was still on a fundraising platform, but now the book is available from most bookstores. It is filled with great recipes from such a variety of people, and is still raising money for farmers in need. 

5. Blushing Confetti x Nectar and Stone Dessert Journal, $39.95 - For those who love pretty things and the written word. The cloth bound notebook is a super sweet addition to any bakers collection, which over time can be filled with all your own recipes. 

6. Fortnum & Mason: Christmas and Other Winter Feasts, $63.75 - This one has been on my list for quite a while. I love Fortnum and Mason, and there is something about an English Christmas that just seems so appealing. 

FOOD GIFTS

1. Grounded Pleasures Christmas Gift Box, $69 - These boxes are the sweetest gift. There are four to choose from, all with a handmade mug from a local Ballarat ceramicist. I bought the Dreaming of a White Christmas one as a gift to myself, and I am absolutely loving it.

2. Sprinkle Spices Sweet Gift Hamper, $99 - This would make a great present for that person (or family) in your life with a sweet tooth. Filled with three of the best sweet spices from Sprinkle, plus a few other goodies (including a couple of things from Grounded Pleasures), this hamper is sure to please. 

3. Flour and Stone Gingerbread Trees Gift Box, $35 - For those that love baked goods but hate being in the kitchen! These gingerbread are the best you can buy in Sydney, and are always perfectly decorated. 

4. Gewurzhaus Christmas Advent Tea, $18 - I love a good festive tea, and particularly those like this one, that are great made warm or cold. This tea has a warming Christmas flavour, and is a very festive red colour once brewed.

5. Hey Tiger Oh Crumbs! Chocolate Bar, $15 - This chocolate bar is the bomb. Caramelised white chocolate (my all time fave), with gingerbread crumbs. As Hey Tiger say, is it even the holidays without gingerbread? No, is definitely the answer to that one for me. 

6. Frank Green Reusable Cup (Regular Size), $34.95 - This the gift that keeps on giving. I have been using mine for about a year now and I love it as much as I did when I first bought it. Dishwasher safe, and spill proof, these reusable cups are worth the small investment. They are also bright and fun, and I find having a colourful cup means the barista always remembers my order!

Grounded Pleasures Dreaming of a White Christmas Gift Box

HOMEMADE GIFTS

Homemade Jam and Muesli

If you have time, edible homemade gifts are super special and heartfelt. They can also be a more cost effective option which is great. Glass jars with a little ribbon and label or sticker are all you need to dress them up. Here are some ideas for what you could fill your jars with:

1. Jam - see recipes for Strawberry Jam, Mixed Berry Jam and Peach & Passionfruit Jam.

2. Muesli - see recipe for Honey Muesli here.

3. Biscuits - shortbread, gingerbread, chewy macaroons, spiced Christmas Biscuits.

4. Rocky Road - see Pink Rocky Road Recipe here and recipe for a Rocky Road Wreath I developed for Grounded Pleasures here.

5. Marshmallows - see recipe for Blackberry Marshmallows here, Bergamot Marshmallows here, plus more marshmallow recipes in my Cosy Winter Bakes eBook.

6. Nougat - see recipe for Rose and Pistachio Nougat in my Baking with Rose eBook.

The Hottest Cookbook Releases of 2019

This is the time of year where it becomes obvious that some pretty good cookbooks have been released. The few months in the lead up to Christmas see's us welcome many new titles to the cookbook section of our favourite bookshops (or even our own cookbook shelves!). Here are the recent releases I am most excited about. 

1. Veg by Jamie Oliver - As a lover of vegetarian food I was really excited to hear Jamie Oliver was releasing a book dedicated to veg. It's filled with really interesting and often fairly simple recipes and great food photography (I love it when a book has an image for each recipe!).

2. Bake Australia Great by Katherine Sabbath - This book seems like pure fun. And I don't think we could expect anything else from the queen of cakes Katherine Sabbath. Katherine and her wild imagination have dreamed up a selection of recipes paying homage to all things Aussie.

3. Just Desserts by Charlotte Ree - A super cute book by a super lovely person. This little book packs a punch in terms of fun, colour, design and photography. And of course baking recipes! I tried the Brown Butter Bundt at one of the book release events, and it immediately went straight to the top of my must bake list.

4. From the Oven to the Table by Diana Henry - Diana Henry is a food writer based in the UK, and if you've not heard of her you're in for a treat. Diana creates beautiful recipes and gorgeous cookbooks, and this one is all about easy and tasty food that takes minimal effort from you. I have bookmarked many recipes in this book, but I first want to start with Chicken with Plums, Honey and Pomegranates - as soon as plums are in season! Check out Diana's previous releases such as How to Eat a Peach for more divine recipes and food writing.

5. Just Add Love by Irris Makler - If any book could be described as a book filled with love, this is it. This book compiled by journalist Irris Makler, shares the stories and recipes of Holocaust survivors. The stories are detailed and to be honest, they are what keep me picking up this book to read more. Irris also has a blog of the same name which I highly recommend you check out if you want to know more.

6. The Little Library Year by Kate Young - If you are an avid reader as well as a lover of cookbooks this is the book for you. Kate had created recipes to suit the changing seasons and paired them with the perfect read. I own Kate's first book, The Little Library Cookbook, which contains recipes created from the pages of Kate's favourite novels, and even though I am not a very avid reader of novels I still love the book and particularly enjoy the Harry Potter references!

Links to books on Booktopia removed 15/07/2024.