Cookie Stamp Review

Cookie stamps have been on my list of things to try for a while now and I found a pack in ALDI which included six rubber stamps and a wooden stamper.

The messages included; Home Made, I <3 cookies, Eat Me, Made With Love and two seasonal stamps; Happy Easter, Merry Christmas. i thought this was a bargain at £3.99 but the real test was if they worked.   

There are lots of recipes out there, I found this one on The English Kitchen Blog  and it's egg free!

Ingredients:

124g (4 1/2 oz) butter, at room temperature (a generous half cup)110g  (1/2 cup) caster sugar1/2 tsp vanilla paste (I didn't have this so used vanilla extract)60ml (1/4 cup) milk150g (1 cup) plain flour
110g (3/4 cup) self raising flour

Method:

As always I measure out all my ingredients first.

Pre-heat the oven to 180*. The English Kitchen then says to line your baking tray with parchment paper however, I don't own one yet so I turned over a roasting tin and lined that.

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until light in colour.

   

Add the milk and dry ingredients a bit at a time and mix until incorporated. 

I thought it looked it looked a bit wet but trust me it is meant to be like that.

Take a table spoon and scoop out the mix. I think I was a bit too erogenous with this as they came out as mega cookies!  

Use your hands to roll into a ball (of course, make sure they are clean) 

Choose your rubber stamp 

Push the stamp down on the dough ball and then lift.

As you can see it didn't turn out that well so I tried doing it again but before I pushed the stamp down I dipped it in flour and I also put the dough in the fridge for 15-20 mins.

I did this with all the stamps and as you can see they turned out much better.

Bake int he oven for 15 -18 minuets or until they turn golden brown.

Here were the results. 

As I didn't have a baking tray I turned over a glass oven dish, however the second batch slipped off (luckily on the parchment) so I squished the dough together, popped it in the fridge for 10 minuets and tried again. As you can see they turned out with a more rustic look but tasted just as yummy! 

I took these into work and also round to a friends, they all said they tasted good, even if they were being polite I thought they were yummy too.

Over all these were a good investment. There are lots of rubber cookie stamps online so why not give them a go?

Happy baking,

Ms B

xx

Vegetarian Lasagna

Yes, today's post is a savory bake, my first savory bake. I've always felt more comfortable following a recipe when cooking, for many reasons such as fear of things not turning out right after spending time preparing/cooking and fear of wasting food because it hasn't turned right.However, I thought it was about time I attempted to make something of my own. So I took a deep breath and went for it.   

I love pasta so thought it was a good place to start. I have attempted making vegetarian lasagna before with quorn mince and it didn't turn out right with under-cooked lasagna sheets and burnt quorn. The recipe below is made up so you can adapt it to what you like.

Ingredients: 

10 -12 Lasagna sheets  I used Morrison's own brand

About 250g or 1 punnet of mushrooms

2 Courgettes

One halloumi cheese 

2 bell peppers I used red and orange

1 packed of grated mature cheddar cheese 

1 jar of tomato lasagna sauce

1 jar of white lasagna sauce 

2 tablespoons of garlic oil (or oil of your choice)

1 tablespoon of mixed dry herbs

Spinach (optional) 

Method:   

If you want to, peel your mushrooms, you can wash them however I find that the mushrooms soak up the water and they lose their flavour.  Once ready slice and place in a bowl for now. 

Slice your peppers and chop the slices in half, again put to one side.

Preheat the oven to 150* 

While the oven is preheating wash your courgettes and slice with a potato peeler. I used a Y shaped peeler. Place on a baking tray add pepper if you desire and place in the oven for 5 minuets.

Heat a pan with a table spoon of oil (I used garlic) and cook the mushrooms on a high heat for 2-3 minuets then turn the heat down add your dry mixed herbs and cook until tender. Place in a bowl and add another tablespoon of oil to the same pan and add in your peppers.Cook on a low heat until tender.

Once everything is ready you can boil the kettle and fill a pan with the water, once boiling place the lasagna sheets in the water. TIP I would out a bit of oil in the pan otherwise they will stick together! They should take 5-7 minuets.

You can use the lasagna sheets as they are but I boiled them as I wanted to make sure they would be cooked through. 

While the sheets are cooking preheat the oven to 200* once the sheets are softened (but not cooked all the way) drain the water out and start assembling your lasagna. 

You can do this in any order really but here's what I did:

Spread some tomato sauce on the bottom of a dish then place 2-3 sheets of lasagna on the bottom and push down on them a bit.

Spread some white sauce over that layer and add the sliced courgettes.

Tomato sauce.

Lasagna sheets.

White sauce.

Halloumi cheese.

Tomato sauce.

Lasagna sheets.

White sauce.

Mushrooms.

Tomato sauce.

Lasagna sheets.

White sauce.

Peppers.

Tomato sauce.

Lasagna sheets.

Spinach.

Grated cheese.

Black pepper.

Place int he oven for 20 minuets or until the cheese is bubbling. 

Eat and enjoy :)

 This was a labor of love but I was very happy with the results. I served with a spinach salad. I would say this would serve 6 people. I didn't ass salt as the halloumi is a bit salty but it's up to you. You can change what's in it to your own taste. I did this as a lot of vegetarian lasagna recipes use obergine which I'm not a fan of. You could also freeze this meal. Next time I will make my own sauces to go with it :) 

Why not have a go?

Happy baking,

Ms B

xx

Creme egg brownies

I realise this is a late post, but hey better late than never! 
I have wanted to make these brownies for a while and Easter weekend came round so I gave it a go. 
The recipe I used was from The Broke Boy  I'd recommend checking out his blog or follow him on Twitter.

Now lets begin:

Ingredients:

185g unsalted butter 
185g best dark chocolate 
85g plain flour
40g cocoa powder 
3 large eggs 
275g golden caster sugar 
6 Cadbury’s Crème eggs cut in half.

Method:

As always I measure out all my ingredients before I begin.

Pre-heat the oven to 160. The first step is to melt your chocolate, I used Morrison's M Signature 72% Cocoa Dark Chocolate 100g  as it was on offer at £1 each. I got two of these which was enough for the recipe and a little bit to snack on. As long as the dark chocolate is &)% cocoa or more it should work.

I have shown you in previous posts the two ways to melt chocolate, I used the hot water in a pan and a bowl placed over method for this one. 

Place a heat proof bowl over a pan with boiling water, add the chocolate and the butter stir now and again until it's all melted. 

Place the sugar and eggs into a bowl. I took Broken Boy's advice to mix it a bit with a spoon before using the eclectic mixer. Mix until the mixer doubles in size (about 5 mins).

Fold the chocolate/butter mix into the egg and sugar mix.

 Add the dry ingredients and fold in.

Now these is were I think it all went wrong. I sadly don't own a brownie tin so instead I used a casserole dish and lined it with parchment paper.

Pop in the oven for 15 mins before tanking out and adding your half cut cream eggs. I managed to fit 9 halves on mine so I got to eat one, it wasn't planned that way honest ;)

This was the result and one of many puddings I had over Easter weekend.

My boy's Mum made home made apple pie (yum) and my favorite, lemon cake. 

I cut the brownies into individual pieces ready for our triple pudding feast.

There were very gooey in the middle, too gooey and I even tried putting them back int he oven for a while. The conclusion I came to was that I need to try these in a real brownie tin or  needed to mix the eggs and sugar for a bit longer. However, everyone still ate them even if they didn't turn out the way I planned. I will be trying out some brownies recipes again. 

Why not have a try and see how yours turn out.

Happy baking,

Ms B

xx