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Triple Chocolate Almond Brownies

~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 9 Comments

Super rich in flavour, dense yet chewy in the middle, those brownies offer the perfect cross between cookies and a cake.

Purposefully made to not be a sweet as traditional brownies whilst retaining all the wonderful flavours you would expect they offer a more intense experience. The chewy middle encapsulated with a crunchy exterior is complimented with the nuts for that pleasing crunch the mouth adores and all backed up with a small tingle from the coffee buzz… could you ask for more.

Ingredients:

  • 150g dark chocolate; roughly chopped
  • 150g caster sugar
  • 115g butter; cubed
  • 100g almonds; roughly chopped
  • 55g plain flour
  • 50g white chocolate; roughly chopped
  • 30g drinking chocolate
  • 2 eggs; beaten
  • 1tbsp instant coffee
  • 1tbsp filtered hot water
  • 1/2tsp vanilla essence

Super rich in flavour, dense yet chewy in the middle, those brownies offer the perfect cross between cookies and a cake.Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C and prepare an 8-inch square tin by lining it with baking paper, unless you, like me, bake in a silicone tray in which case no lining is necessary.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, over a very low heat melt the butter and dark chocolate slowly. Once melted remove from the heat and add the sugar, stir constantly until it is all dissolved.

Put aside the mixture to cool down.

In a small cup mix together the hot water and instant coffee and again set aside to cool; once cold add the vanilla essence.

Beat the eggs with a fork or whisk in a small bowl or cup.

In yet another bowl sift the flour and drinking chocolate together.

Once your dark chocolate has cooled down to around room temperature pour into a mixing bowl and then add the whisked eggs, the coffee and vanilla mixture and stir the mix until combined.

Fold in your flour and drinking chocolate; finally gently fold in the chopped almonds and white chocolate chunks.

Spread the mixture out evenly in your pre-prepared baking tray and bake for 28-30 minutes or until just set in the middle… avoid over baking as over baked brownies will tend to be dry and hard, I like to check on them once my timer hits the 25-minute mark just to keep a close eye on them.

Remove from the oven and place the tray on a cooling rack to allow them to cool completely.

Cut into your desired serving portion size and enjoy!

Super rich in flavour, dense yet chewy in the middle, those brownies offer the perfect cross between cookie and a cake.

Super Quick and Easy Nutella Cookies

~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 15 Comments

I am convinced that as soon as you say Nutella most kid’s eyes light up! After all who doesn’t like it? These fool-proof quick and easy Nutella Cookies are made within minutes. They will make for a wonderful treat at any time and I be sure in the knowledge that all kids will love them.

Super Quick and Easy Nutella CookiesIngredients:

  • 1 cup Nutella (messy but necessary)
  • 1 cup self-raising flour
  • 1 egg

This quantity of ingredients should make around 8 large cookies, so if you are in the mood for a lot of cookies or just have a large family and have to share them, then simply double the ingredients or even triple them.

As to measurements, I hardly ever use cups, but when it comes to foods with a texture like Nutella, it is much easier to measure it this way. Just remember to use a flexible silicone spatula to remove your nutty cream from the measuring cup so there is not a lot of waste.

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180C.

With baking paper line 1 large baking tray.

In a mixing bowl measure out the flour (and sift of course) – I’ve used just a normal white flour – Nutella and an egg.

Turn your mixer on and mix with a medium speed setting until all the ingredients are combined and look fluffy.

Once this is done, your “dough” will be very playful and easy to form; the Nutella will lose all its stickiness but it will be still very “fatty” and slippery, so be careful not to drop it 😉

Grab some dough, form it into a small ball and press down a little until you have a traditional cookie like shape. Place it on the baking tray and repeat until all the dough has gone.

We had quite a disagreement with Mark about it last night. His idea of “forming” the cookies was just to pinch some of the dough and drop it on the tray untouched… sounds easy, right? Well, this method is great if you are making the cookies for yourself… they taste wonderful but they just don’t look the part… we both agreed they reminded us of dog walks and poop… so if you want to have lovely, round and cookie like cookies, shape your dough just as per my instructions above.

Bake in the earlier preheated oven for 7-10 minutes. The time will depend upon how thick your cookies are. Watch them and you will notice your cookies cracking a little at the edges but still having a moist, slightly darker patch in the middle… they are done as soon as that patch has gone. This will not take more than a maximum of 10 minutes.

Super Quick & Easy Nutella CookiesIdeally you are aiming for crunchy outside and soft, gooey (but cooked!) middles.

Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on the tray for 5 minutes or so… they will be too soft and you would end up squeezing them if you were to remove them from the tray straight away. Once they have harden up a bit then move them onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

And then… well is it only one thing left to do… devour!

…and enjoy!

Have you ever baked something like Nutella cookies before?

Yum

What’s Cooking – Christmas Gingerbread Man Cookies

~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 9 Comments

The Christmas season is in a full bloom so it is time to get some festive food ready. What can be more festive than some tasty little gingerbread cookies?

The recipe I want to share with you today is from The Christmas 3D Cookie Kit from Parragon. The kit contains 3D cookie cutters (so you can make your own 3D snowman and 3D Christmas tree) and a recipe book with a fantastic selection of Christmas cookies.

The recipe I’ve chosen was originally for a Mini Gingerbread House Cookies, but we thought that a gingerbread man shaped cookies will be a better choice 🙂

Ingredients:

125g butter

2tbp golden syrup

175g light muscovado sugar

300g self-rising flour

2tbsp ground ginger

1 large egg

Method:

Prepare 2 large baking sheets, ideally pre-lined with a baking paper.

Heat the oven to 160C.

Place the butter and the golden syrup in a pan and heat gently, stirring all the time until melted.

Remove the pan from the heat, add sugar and stir until dissolved.

Sift the flour and ginger into a large bowl and make a well in the middle ready for the wet ingredients.

Pour in the warm, wet ingredients and add the beaten egg into the mix.

Stir thoroughly to form a smooth dough.

Wrap it in a cling film and chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Remove your dough from the fridge and prepare to roll it out; ideally you want your rolled dough to be about 5mm thick.

Cut desired shapes using a cookie cutter or an upside down glass if you want to make a classic round shape or even a knife if all else fails.

Transfer your cut cookies to your baking sheets.

Chill in the fridge for a further 10 minutes.

Bake in earlier preheated oven for about 12-15 minutes or until firm and lightly brown.

Remove from the oven and allow them to cool down.

Now the fun can begin…

It is time to decorate!

If you are good with decorating you can make your own royal icing (just mix 150g of icing sugar with 2tsp of white egg powder and 2 tbsp of cold water)… I am not a master decorator so we used shop bought icing pens to make this job easier 😉

Happy baking!

What’s Cooking – Quick and Easy Cinnamon Biscuits

~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 20 Comments

From time to time we all get cravings, sometimes we can satisfy them, sometimes we can’t. One day last week sometime around 11pm I developed a huge craving to have some fresh baked cookies. We had guests over so it wasn’t exactly sleeping time yet so we decided to bake something. Obviously we knew that this had to be a quick and easy recipe as no one wanted to start a long preparation process at that time of the night. We settled on a batch of Quick and Easy Cinnamon Biscuits. As there were four people in the kitchen including a fellow foodie blogger Iwona from Smakowite Jadlo, we had a lovely warm biscuits in no time!

So if you ever get that feeling you must have a cookie now, I would highly recommend this recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 160g flour
  • 120g soft butter
  • 3tbs icing sugar
  • 1.5tsps cinnamon

Method:

To start preheat your oven to 180C and using some baking parchment line two large baking trays.

In a large bowl mix all your dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon and sugar. Add soften, cubed cutter and combine until you have a nice smoo0th and even dough.

Now depending on the shape of your cookies you can either:

- Form small balls which you will shape into roundish biscuits with your hands.

or (my preferred way)

- Roll your mixture flat using a rolling pin and then just use a cookie cutter to achieve your desired shape.

Bake in your earlier preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes or until firm to the touch.

Remove the biscuits and place on a wire cooling rack so they are allowed to cool.

Decorate if needed or desired.

They are perfect for storing, as long as you put them into an airtight container of course.

Now remember there were four of us in the kitchen and we all wanted something just a little bit different, we just couldn’t seem to settle on just one flavour, biscuits by committee! As it is a democratic household we ended up baking four batches of biscuits in four different flavours 😉 So if cinnamon is not for you, you can try adding some grated almonds or chocolate or dry coconut (our coconut biscuits also had an orange food colouring, I am quite unsure what we were thinking at the time but I suspect that a degree of tiredness may have resulted in the wrong bowl receiving the colouring. Though witnesses were few and far between…)

In the end for what amounted to less than an hour of fun and good humour in the kitchen, delayed somewhat by the deliberations over flavours, resulted in a huge box of awesome crunchy and super tasty biscuits. Possessing a wonderful snap when you bite into them and having a texture very similar to shortbread they are now a permanent feature on our “bestest recipe list”.

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What’s Cooking – Apple and Oat Cookies

~ Agata @BarkTime ~ 16 Comments

Home-made cookies always make for a lovely treat and kids love them but what about sticking some goodies into them? This quick and easy recipe for Apple and Oat Cookies is a perfect combination of both – it makes for a perfect treat and it is full of good ingredients (more or less) 😉

This is yet another recipe from Make, Bake, Cookies – The Recipe Book I told you about some time ago. These one are from chapter 2 – soft & chewy and yes indeed they come out just as intended – nice and soft with lovely chewy middle. They are really nice with a cup of coffee, or milk or even a hot chocolate and make for a perfect snack.

So how do you make them?

Easy… let’s start with the ingredients:

  • 2 large apples, peeled and cored
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 225g unsalted butter, softened plus a little extra for greasing
  • 100g brown sugar
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 225g self raising flour
  • 150g rolled oats
  • 85g raisins

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C / 350F or a Gas Mark 4.

Grease three large baking sheets.

Dice the apples and toss in the lemon juice.

Place the butter and sugars in a bowl and beat together until creamy. Gradually beat in the egg. Sift the flour and add the oats, raisins and apples. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Place dessertspoonfuls of the mixture on the prepared baking sheets spacing them well apart.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden around the edges.

Leave to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

That’s all.

Nothing else to do but eat 🙂

Do you think they would count as one of your 5 a day?

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