Peanut Cookies - Gluten Free and Slightly Miraculous!

So here's a cookie in the "Free" series I mentioned in my Banana Bread post a few weeks ago.  They're gluten free because they contain no flour...at all...not even GF flour.  I know...how is that possible?  Not only is it possible, I think I prefer them to their 'normal' cousins!  Generally I don't buy biscuits (cookies) because they tend to contain all sorts of ingredients that I just don't recognise.  My rule of thumb is that if the ingredient isn't in my pantry it's probably best avoided...I know, it's a slightly Luddite approach but I really can't spend all day on Google investigating trade names and chemical formulae!

My nearly-5-year-old absolutely LOVES baking so it's an activity we can do together which benefits everyone...win-win-win-win people!  Oh, I nearly forgot to mention: they take 28 minutes to make plus 30 minutes of fridge time.  That's about the limit of a 5 year old's attention span so these get made fairly often round here.  The original recipe can be found here though I have tinkered with it a bit - I just can't help myself!  Now, when you read the ingredients list you might think I've left something out...that this combination can't possibly work.  I really haven't and it really does.  Please trust me!

Ingredients:
1 cup crunchy or super crunchy peanut butter at room temperature
1/2 cup caster or superfine sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips (morsels)

1. Place everything in the bowl of a free standing mixer and switch on for about 2 minutes until everything is mixed well.  I have one of those paddle attachments which scrapes the edges of the bowl but if you don't, scrape down after about a minute then continue.  This mixture is soft enough to mix with a wooden spoon too, I just love using my mixer!
2. Place the mixture (in the mixing bowl) in the fridge for about 30 minutes until it is firm.
3. Preheat the oven to 150 C or 325 F and line 2 baking sheets with greaseproof or parchment paper. 
4. Once the dough is firm, take a small ice cream scoop - one of those with a squeezy handle that releases the contents of the scoop - and pack it with dough by scooping the mixture then dragging it up the inside of the bowl.  The excess should fall back into the bowl and you can release the shaped dough directly onto a lined baking sheet. Space them about 5cm or 2" apart.  They won't spread much as there is no flour or leavening agent.  If you don't have a small enough scoop, just pinch off pieces of the dough and roll them between your hands but you need to work quickly so the warmth of your hands doesn't soften the dough too much.
5. Apparently, the traditional pattern on a peanut cookie is cross hatch made with a fork.  I just happened to have a little masher (it's been redundant since I stopped making baby food!) in the utensil pot beside me so I used that. Please feel free to use a fork or any other kitchen implement that calls you.

Bake for 20 minutes then leave to cool on the tray for at least 5 minutes.  This is really important as the cookies are a bit fragile when they are first baked.  Finally transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.  They crisp up considerably during the cooling process so if you try a warm one (as I did) please don't worry that it's a bit soft.

This recipe make about 18-20 cookies depending on the size of your scoop...and how much of the dough is pilfered by little fingers before it even reaches the oven!

Enjoy with a cuppa, or a glass of cold milk. It's a mouthful of YUM!!

Chocolate Ganache Slice - a huge bang for just a few bucks! 
Well it seems like a very long time since my last post, I've been making cakes for friends, catering for parties of different sorts, and then of course there's the normal mayhem of everyday life! Thankfully I've been taking photos of all the baked creations along the way so now I just need to write them all up. So here's a slice I made for the grown ups at my son's first birthday party: in its most basic and elegant guise it uses just 4 ingredients and the reaction it gets is massively disproportionate to the effort required to make it. I can't really call it "baked" as no oven is required...unless you want to make the chocolate cookies in the base yourself. As with many of my recipes, this can be made gluten free very easily, just switch the standard crumb base for a GF one. The other thing I should mention is that this can be tweaked in a number of ways depending on your preference: you could add a liqueur such as Grand Marnier or Baileys or Tia Maria; you could add ground nuts to the base; you could add the zest of an orange to the ganache; you could make a simple caramel to drizzle over the slice; or even (and this is what I'm going to try next time) make almond or hazelnut praline and sprinkle it over for a bit of extra crunch. Whichever option you choose, it'll be yummy in a really big way and people will ask you for the recipe! Now, I have a particular fondness for Willie Harcourt-Cooze (his website can be found here) and I recently found a source for his 100% cacao out here in Oz. Of course I just needed an excuse to use it, so in the recipe below you'll see that there's a total weight for the chocolate but within that weight you can mix and match as you please. I used about 100g / 4oz of the grated cacao mixed with 200g / 8oz Green & Blacks organic milk chocolate. Decadent? Possibly. To die for? Definitely!

For the base: 
150g / 6oz plain chocolate crunch biscuits or cookies
60g / 2 1/2 oz unsalted butter

1. Blitz the biscuits or cookies in the food processor, or place them in a roomy zip lock bag and beat them with a rolling pin until you have a fine crumb. 
2. Melt the butter then mix it with the crumbs until you have a damp sandy texture. Press the mixture into a loose bottomed slice tin: mine is 30x10cm (or 12x4 inches) but you could just as easily use a round one. Be sure to press the crumbs up the sides of the tin. To avoid big wads of crumb base at the edge, I use my 1 cup measure to press the crumbs down and against the sides at the same time, this seems to result in a good even thickness. 
3. Place the tin in the fridge while you make the ganache. 

For the ganache: 
300g / 12oz chocolate (milk, dark or a mixture) chopped roughly
300ml / 1 1/4 cups double or heavy cream

1. Gently heat the cream until bubble start to appear around the edge but do not allow it to boil. Remove it from the heat. 
2. Add the chocolate rubble to the cream and allow it to stand for a couple of minutes. Stir the mixture until all the chocolate is combined with the cream and you have a smooth glossy mixture. 
3. Remove the slice tin from the fridge, carefully pour in the ganache and return the whole lot to the fridge for at least 30 minutes. 

When you're ready to serve it, remove the tin: I stand mine on a couple of cans and gently ease the sides down but I have to confess that I don't attempt to remove the slice from the flat base. Now, this can be served straight from the fridge but I prefer to allow it to come back to room temperature. In any event, it's easier to slice if you use a hot sharp knife. I just dip mine in hot water, dry it and cut 2 or 3 pieces then go back to the hot water. You can serve 12 people quite easily with the above quantities, it's pretty rich so less is more! I served this with cream but that really is gilding the lily, it's perfect on its own.

Fabulous Cheesecake - Reduced Fat So You Can Eat More!!
Who doesn't love a good cheesecake?  With the crunchy base, silky smooth top, and a pleasing tang of lemon it's both elegant dessert and comfort food all at the same time.  Now I am not usually into the low fat version of anything baked - mostly because substituting some weird spread for butter just doesn't work...but your traditional cheesecake recipes are so loaded with cholesterol I find it hard to justify the enjoyment.  So, I've come up with the recipe below, probably based on Nigella's but I can't be sure: it's been through a few versions - some worked, some didn't!  I think I've managed to preserve all the yummy texture and flavour, but you make it and decide.  Also, this one was made for Mother's Day so it has a little dark chocolate swirled on the top, but you could just as easily use a raspberry coulis - or nothing at all!  Oh, and the heart shape was a bit of whimsy, if you don't have a tin like this just use a 20cm / 8" round one.  And this can easily be made gluten free: just use GF cookies for the base, the remainder of the recipe is the same.

For the Base:
175g / 7oz Hob Nobs or Anzac Biscuits (or some other crunchy cookie with oats in) 
75g / 3 oz unsalted butter melted

1. Either place the cookies in a grip seal bag and beat them to a fine rubble with a rolling pin, or place them in a food processor and pulse them a few times until you have the same texture.
2. Combine the melted butter with the cookie crumbs and press into the base of a 20cm or 8" springform tin.  I like to use the base of my 1 cup measure to press the crumbs down evenly.  You don't need to press them up the sides of the tin - just make sure you have a nice level platform.  Place the tin in the fridge while you make the next layer.

For the "Cheese" Layer:
500g / 1lb 2oz Light Philadelphia (or other) cream cheese, softened
150g / 6oz caster or superfine sugar
3 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tblspn vanilla extract, or the scraped seeds from 1 vanilla bean
Zest of 1 large lemon - use a microplane if you have one
2 tblspns lemon juice

1. Preheat your oven to 170 C / 350 F, fill the kettle with water and put it on to boil.
2. Now, you can do all of the mixing part by hand in a big bowl with a wooden spoon providing the cream cheese is at room temperature.  Just follow the instructions below to get the order of ingredients right.  If you have a free standing mixer: place the cream cheese in the bowl and using the paddle attachment beat for about 30 seconds just until it looks like thick whipped cream.  
3. Add the sugar, eggs, egg yolks and vanilla.  Beat on medium for about a minute until everything is well combined.  Lastly, add the lemon zest and juice and beat briefly.
4. The next step is REALLY important to get that soft silky texture: take your springform tin out of the fridge and place it on a double thickness of foil.  Bring the edges of the foil up as far as they will go - they need to be at least half way up the tin.  Stand the tin in a roasting pan and carefully pour the cheese mixture on to the crumb base.  I like to pour it over the back of a big spoon so that it doesn't disturb the crumb base...but I'm probably being over cautious!  
5. To avoid the risk of scalding yourself by carrying a big pan of boiling water: place the roasting pan in the oven, then immediately pour boiling water into it (around the springform tin) until the water level is halfway up the cake tin.  Close the oven door and bake for about 45 minutes (depending on your oven) or until the middle of the cake feels lightly set.

For the Topping:
8 tblspns low fat or fat free sour cream
2 squares of plain or bittersweet chocolate melted

1. If your sour cream is fairly firm, stir in a tablespoon or 2 of milk until it can be poured easily.  Take the cheesecake from the oven (still in its water bath) and pour over the sour cream.  Drop dots of melted chocolate from the end of a teaspoon around the edge of the cake.  Using a toothpick or fine skewer, swirl the dots of chocolate into the sour cream (see photo above).
2. Cook for a further 8-10 minutes until the sour cream is just set.  Take the cake out of the oven and leave it to set in the tin for about 15 mins.  Then, I like to run a thin off-set spatula carefully around the inside of the tin just to make sure it doesn't stick.  Unclip the springform and remove it, but leave the cake on the metal base plate.  Allow to cool completely then place in the fridge for at least an hour or two, but as long as 3 days is fine if you want to make this ahead. 
   TOP TIP:  place loosely scrunched up balls of foil (that are taller than the cheescake) around the cake before you cover the plate with cling wrap.  This will hold the cling wrap clear of the top of the cake...if it touches the cake it will ruin the beautiful smooth surface of the sour cream layer!
3. Remove from the fridge and allow the cake to come to room temperature before you serve it, the texture and flavour is much better than when it's fridge-cold.  Serve it just as it is, or with a few berries...scrumptious!

Toffee Cinnamon Bites:
Here's a really quick recipe for a really quick snack.  The sweet version can happily join in with morning coffee, afternoon tea, or movie-time munchies.  The savoury version I've included at the end of the recipe is a great accompaniment for drinks whether it's civilised cocktails with the girls, or beers with the boys!  Excluding the time it takes to pre-heat the oven, I made both versions (which gave me 32 pieces) in 15 minutes.  If you're feeding a larger number of people just double or triple the quantities.

For Cinnamon Bites:
1 sheet frozen puff pastry - thawed
2 tblspns caster or superfine sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C / 400 F.  Remove the plastic sheet from the back of the pastry, lay it on the bench and place the pastry back on top.
2. Mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.  Sprinkle evenly over the surface of the pastry then press into the surface lightly.
3. Roll each side of the pastry sheet in towards the middle, keeping the plastic backing on the bench.  When the two sides nearly meet, fold the along the central gap so that you have a long narrow log shape.  
4. With a sharp knife cut off any ragged edges at the top and bottom of the log, then cut approximately 15 or 16 slices from the log.  Lay the slices on a lined baking sheet leaving space between for expansion.  Bake for 10 minutes or until puffed and golden.  When you bring them out of the oven immediately remove them from the baking tray with a spatula or palette knife and place on a cooling tray.  The reason for this is that the melted sugar will spot weld the bites to the baking tray if allowed to cool!

For Parmesan Bites:
1 sheet puff pastry - thawed
1/4 tsp chilli powder
2 tablspns freshly grated parmesan - or Grana Padano, whichever you prefer.

1. The method is identical, just mix the cheese and spice together in step 2 then proceed with the rest of the steps.

Icing Options
My last post was a recipe for orange nutmeg cookies (you can find it here) and I used some of the dough to make lambs and chicks for my little lamb and chick...and I promise this will be the last cutesy posting for a couple of months!  I also promised I'd post a recipe for royal icing which I have combined with ready to roll fondant on the lambs, and used 'neat' on the chicks.  It has taken me quite a while to settle on the recipe that works best for me and the local climate and I still need to adjust the amount of water if it's a particularly hot, dry, or stormy day...so don't worry if you need to make small adjustments too.  Also, most recipes I have read talk about 'meringue powder' which I haven't been able to find locally.  But, I did find something called Pavlova Magic (well of course, it's practically the national dish!) which seems to work just fine.  Now, there are several videos on You Tube if you're new to piping, and this one is my favourite for basic technique.  Oh, and please don't think you have to do any of that origami business to make your own piping bags...get a pack of disposables from the supermarket or a cake decorating shop.  Lastly, please don't freak out that the lamb and the chick are the same size, this is not some scary steroid experiment...they're just cookies!!

Royal Icing: enough for at least 36 cookies
3 tblspns Pavlova Magic or meringue powder
500g / 1lb 2oz icing or confectioners sugar
5 tblspns water (which should be hand hot)
Upto 2 tsps of flavouring (vanilla or almond essence, lime juice etc)

1. Place the Pavlova Magic or meringue powder in the bowl of a free standing mixer and add the hand hot water.  With the paddle attachment, beat on slow for about 30 seconds until it's dissolved then increase the speed to medium and beat for about a minute until the mixture is nice and frothy.
2. Add the icing or confectioners sugar all in one go and beat on slow - to avoid getting covered in sugar - until everything is well mixed.  Increase the speed to medium and beat for about 6 or 7 minutes.  The mixture should be very white and very stiff.  If you remove the paddle attachment and run it through the icing, you should be able to turn the paddle upside down and the peak of icing will stand straight up.
3. At this point, I usually divide the icing between a number of smaller plastic boxes or bowls, according to how many colours I need, cover each batch with a piece of cling wrap - and make sure the wrap is touching the entire surface of the icing to ensure that no air gets in - put the lids on, and stash the whole lot in the fridge until the next time I get an opportunity to potter in the kitchen! 

For the Lambs:
Pre-baked and cooled cookies
A small amount of light corn syrup (such as Karo) or runny honey 
White ready to roll fondant icing
White royal icing
Black sugar beads
Disposable piping bag fitted with a coupler and PME 1.5 piping tip

1. Dust the kitchen bench with a little cornflour / corn starch.  Roll out the fondant to approximately 3mm or 1/4"  thickness.  Using the same lamb cutter you used for the cookies, cut out as many shapes as you need.  You can re-roll the scraps of fondant a couple of times, but after that there's usually too much cornflour incorporated and you need to use a new piece.
2. Brush the surface of the cookies with a little corn syrup - don't go right to the edges of the cookie as they will have spread during baking and the fondant shape will be slightly smaller.
3. Place a fondant cut out on top of each cookie and press lightly all over.  Push a black sugar bead into the fondant for the eye.
4. Next, take a couple of tablespoons of white royal icing and place in a small bowl.  Add a teaspoon of water and beat really well with a spatula.  Pour the icing into the prepared piping bag.  Lift the bag and shake the icing down to the tip then twist the top part of the bag to make a seal.  (See the Sweetopia video link in the top paragraph for the visuals).  Now, pipe a line all round the body of the lamb and around the edge of the face.  Pipe some spirals and "C's" on the body - and there you have your woolly little lamb!

For the chicks:
Pre-baked and cooled cookies
Royal icing
Black sugar beads
1 disposable piping bag fitted with a coupler and a PME 1.5 tip (for the orange)
1 disposable piping bag fitted with a coupler and #2 plain tip (for the yellow)

1. Colour a portion of the royal icing yellow - I used Americolor's Egg Yellow - and just add one drop at a time until you have a colour just a shade lighter than you would like.  Now, you want to create what I call 'all purpose' icing.  That means an icing you can use to outline AND flood a cookie at the same time.  So, when you draw a knife through the bowl of icing you want the gap to close and for there to be no trace of the knife mark in about 10 seconds.  So, add about a half teaspoon of water and mix well with a spatula.  Try the knife test.  If it takes 15 or 20 seconds for the mark to disappear, add another half teaspoon of water and beat again then re-test it.  Cover the icing and set it aside for about 30 mins, the colour will develop further.  Take a tiny amount of royal icing and colour it orange - I used Americolor's Electric Orange.  Just add a couple of drops of water off the end of your finger to thin this tiny amount.  Beat it well after the water is added.
2. Pour each batch of icing into their respective piping bag, shake down and twist to seal.
3. Take the yellow icing and pipe an outline around the body of the chick (not the beak).  Immediately flood the shape by piping inside the outline until the body and head areas are filled.  Gently shake the cookie left and right on the work surface to make sure the icing is even and levelled.  With a pair of tweezers, drop a black sugar bead into the wet icing as an eye.  Leave the icing to set for about 30 minutes.  Next, outline and flood a little wing shape on top of the piped body - it will look very dimensional!
4. Finally, outline and fill the tiny beak and pipe on the legs and feet.  Leave the cookies to dry completely for 4-6 hours then place them in an airtight box and they will keep prefectly well for about a week.

Deci-Dela-Delicious
Many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I used to wear a perfume called Deci Dela.  And (call me an Ad Man's dream) I originally bought it because I LOVED the packaging, there's a link to it here so you can see - a hot pink matte glass bottle with gold embellishments.  And there was a hot orange matte bottle too...but I don't remember what the differences were between the two options.  Anyway, I have always carried the design around in the junk drawer that is my right brain.  Today, I opened the junk drawer...and some decorated cookies fell out!  Now, the cookies themselves are truly delicious, you could easily enjoy them without the decoration.  But I can't leave well alone and had to whip up a batch of royal icing.  I'm including the cookie recipe today and will endeavour to blog the royal icing bit tomorrow...or the next day.  Believe me, it's important to be precise with the icing part so I'd rather devote a whole post to it!  It's perfectly OK to allow these cookies to sit in a tin for a few days (or the freezer for a few months) before you decorate them, so there's no rush to complete them all in one go.  Oh, and the smell of these cooking is divine.  Divine I tell you.  Try it, and tell me I'm wrong!

Orange Nutmeg Cookies:
120g / 5oz unsalted butter, softened
100g / 4oz Trex or Cookeen or Shorteen or Crisco (butter flavour is the best option)**
250g / 10oz caster or superfine sugar
1 large egg
1 tblspn runny honey
Zest of 2 medium oranges (use a microplane, and only get the orange part)
1 nutmeg grated (or 1 tsp of ready ground)
3 cups plain or all purpose flour + 1 tsp baking powder

1. Beat together the butter, shortening and sugar until it is very light and fluffy - about 3 minutes.
2. Add the egg, honey, orange zest and grated nutmeg.  Beat again for about 1 minute until everything is very well combined.
3. With the mixer on slow, gradually add the flour and baking powder.  Mix only until everything is combined and the dough starts to clump around the paddle.
4. Divide the dough into 2 pieces, wrap each piece in cling wrap, squash down into a fat disc shape, then refrigerate for at least 30 mins.
5. Preheat the oven to 170 C / 350 F.  Line at least 2 baking sheets, maybe 3 with baking paper or parchment.  Remove the dough from the fridge and its wrapping.  Scatter some plain or all purpose flour on the kitchen bench. Knead the dough lightly but firmly.  This will be tricky at first and the mixture may be quite crumbly.  Don't worry, keep going until everything comes together.  
6. Roll the dough out until it is roughly half a centimetre / quarter of an inch thick.  Using your cutter of choice (mine are eggs because it's nearly Easter and that cutter was on the top of the pile!!) cut out as many shapes as you can from the first piece of dough.  Lift them onto the baking sheet with a bench scraper or palette knife.  
7. Wrap the dough scraps in a piece of cling wrap and set aside.  Repeat steps 5 and 6 with the second piece of dough.  Now, combine both lots of dough scraps, lightly knead them together, re-roll and cut out as many shapes as you can.  Any scraps left over from this cutting should be binned, the dough will be too tough if you roll and cut it again.  Bake the trays of cookies for 10-15 minutes depending on your oven, the cookies should be just golden around the edges.
8. Allow them to cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.  They can be stored in an airtight tin for a week quite happily in their un-iced state, though if it's going to be longer than a week before you get to them I would recommend that you wrap them in cling wrap (in little piles of 5 or 6) and freeze them.

**  Since moving to Australia I haven't been able to find Trex, Cookeen, Shorteen or anything similar...until...I found Crisco in the USA Foods shop.  Can you hear angels singing??  No...it's just me then.  Finally my cookies are light and crisp, just as they should be.  USA Foods offer a delivery service, and the website can be found here.