VERY CHOCOLATE BISCUITS

This is what we set out to achieve:

Very Chocolate Biscuits straight from the pages of Vogue Entertaining. It looks like something you’d expect to be served for afternoon tea at Nigella Lawson’s place.

This is the recipe we were supposed to follow:

• 165g      (3/4 cup, firmly packed) dark brown sugar
• 220g      (1 cup) caster sugar
• 200g     unsalted butter, softened
• 1             teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2             eggs
• 260g      (1 3/4 cups) plain flour
• 100g      (1 cup) Dutch or Belgian cocoa
• 1tsp       baking powder
• 100g     dark couverture chocolate, finely chopped
• 100g     milk couverture chocolate, finely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Using an electric mixer, beat sugars, butter and vanilla  until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt over. Add dark and milk chocolate and stir to combine.
2. Roll 1/2 tablespoonfuls of mixture into balls and place on baking paper-lined oven trays, flatten slightly with the palm of your hand, then bake for 8 minutes. Cool biscuits on trays.

This is what we ended up with:

What went wrong:

Mistake Number 1:  Failing to check the fridge before starting. We were out of eggs and there was no dragging the princesses down the street to get some.

Mistake Number 2:  Similarly failing to check the pantry. We were out of baking powder.

Mistake Number 3:  Going ahead without eggs and baking powder.

Mistake Number 4:  Not chopping up the cooking chocolate finely enough.

Mistake Number 5:  Attempting to sculpt the resulting super sticky mixture into teddy bear faces.

Mistake Number 6:  Allowing the girls to decorate the faces with Cheerios (breakfast cereal).

Mistake Number 7:  Allowing the spilled Cheerios to become incorporated into the dough. It did give the finished biscuits an interestingly light texture.

Mistake Number 8:  Eating a large portion of the uncooked dough myself as it was amazingly delicious. No wonder I’ve put on 4 kgs this year.

 

 

VERY EASY BANANA MUFFINS

This afternoon’s  perfect storm of wet, miserable weather and three steadily fermenting bananas in the fruit bowl meant only one thing – it was time for banana muffins. We turned to the Best Recipes website for inspiration and discovered this very simple gem. It’s great base recipe. You can let your imagination run wild and add anything you like – dried fruits, apple, choc chips etc. Today we took the easy route.

Ingredients

3 or 4 ripened bananas

1 cup sugar

2 tbsp butter or margarine

1 egg beaten

2 cups SR flour

Method

Preheat muffin to 180C and grease muffin tin.

Smash up the bananas and mix all the ingredients together

Fill muffin tin with mixture and cook for approx 20 minutes until risen and golden.

Meanwhile allow your toddler to lick the spoon.

Remove finished product from oven and enjoy with a well earned cup of tea.

Of course with my girls, too much bling is never enough so decorating with sprinkles and shiny balls was ESSENTIAL.

http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Easy-Banana-Muffins-L3078.html