Peggy's White Chocolate & Cranberry Cookies

Disclaimer: every time I make these cookies, they're delicious. But every time I make them, they're slightly different. I don't know how I manage it, but I do. And don't be tempted to use milk chocolate, even if you - like me - don't ordinarily like white chocolate. White chocolate is a must, not an option!

Blend:
160g butter, melted
250g brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence

Mix and add:
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
280g flour

Add:
50g oats
150g white chocolate chips (or white chocolate chopped into small cubes)
150g coarsely chopped cranberries - I use dried cranberries. You can buy them in the supermarkets with the other dried fruit, e.g. raisins and sultanas

Line an oven tray with baking paper.Place little rounded heaps of batter (no more than a dessert-spoonful) on the prepared tray, about 5 cm/2 inches apart. Bake cookies, one tray at a time in a moderate oven, for about 12 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Typical, just typical!

My sunshine Babette is nearly finished - I just need one more skein of yarn. Naturally, it's the very colour that has been temporarily discontinued and is now on back order... of course it is. Anyway, with just one panel to go, the blanket is very nearly complete.



Impatient with the outrageous tardiness of my LYS' supplier, I decided to start something else. Because we've had a fresh fall of snow - yes, it has snowed again (pause for screaming) - I decided to come up with a nice, wee hat. So I rummaged in my sock yarn and found this one:



Three hours later, it has become this:



The hat is now finished, ends woven in and buttons sewn on - and quite fetching it is, too, if I may say so myself. Pictures and pattern will follow in the next few days!

And just because you're such nice readers, I'm going to give you another gratuitous foodie picture - cookies (cranberry and white chocolate, hot out of the oven. Yum yum!)

Basic Madeira Mixture

I use this mixture to make what I call muffins - but they're not muffins at all. Muffins are made with oil, as far as I know, and these - the little sisters to big, beefy American muffins - are variously called buns, tea-cakes or fairycakes in the British Isles (yes, in the interests of bloggery I surveyed my British and Irish colleagues for a consensus.) So I just call them muffins, which is an easier term for my German friends to remember (and pronounce). They're made with the most basic of all baking recipes - the Madeira mixture. This is based on a 2+2+2+1 variation:
2 ozs self-raising flour
2 ozs sugar
2 ozs butter
1 egg.

Lost already, American readers? Well, I've had to move with the times and adjust it to the metric system (sigh). And self-raising flour isn't available over here - I have a suspicion that Germans consider it cheating. So here's the adjusted version that'll make approximately 20 fairycakes/muffins:



250g white flour + 2 heaped tsps baking powder
250g sugar
250g butter
4 large eggs

In the Imperial system this would've been 8 ozs flour, sugar, butter and 4 eggs (actually, 250g is a bit more than 8 ozs, but let's not split hairs.) I use a so-called yoghurt butter, a light butter for people who don't want/like full-fat butter. Believe me, full-fat butter and I are good friends, but we don't want stodgy muffins, so we're opting for a lighter butter.



Cream the eggs, butter and sugar.



Optional step: transfer the mixture to less aesthetically pleasing bowl after splattering the kitchen wall with cake batter because the pretty bowl was too small. :-(

Sift in the flour + baking powder. Mix till there are no lumps. If you want a plain muffin, spoon into paper cases in a muffin tin and bake for 20 mins at approx. 180°C/350°F. Tidy up by licking the beaters of the mixer and running your finger along the inside of the bowl to greedily scoop up the leftover batter (note: you may have to do this quickly, as children and husbands have the uncanny ability to track down and lick baking bowls and utensils. Hide in the broom cupboard if necessary.)

If you plan to add to this recipe (e.g. by making Apple Crumble Muffins), do NOT lick the beaters. Do NOT maul the wooden spoon. Put them DOWN - that's right, you heard me: put them down, nice and sloooooooowly. You're going to need them again in a moment.

Madeira Sponge Cake

Alternatively, spoon the mixture into a round baking tin and bake for about 25-30 mins (or till you can stick a skewer into the cake and it comes out clean). Leave to cool, then split in the middle, spread with jam and whipped cream. Sift some icing sugar on top and eat fresh with a piping hot cup of tea. Yum, yum.

Apple Crumble Muffins

These are delicious by themselves: they’re not too sweet and taste lovely with a cup of tea or coffee on a cold winter’s day. They also make a tasty portion-sized dessert: serve warm with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream or in a small puddle of hot custard.

First of all, preheat your oven to 180°C (350F). For these fairycakes you’ll need the basic Madeira mixture. I used the four-egg variant. As the names suggests, you’ll also need an apple



(stop looking covetously at my swanky apple chopper. I got it at IKEA. Go and get your own), which you chop into small pieces:



You add it to the Madeira mixture and sprinkle a teaspoon of cinnamon in on top. Now you mix this quickly with your electric mixer (aren’t you glad you didn’t lick the beaters?)



Leave it aside for a moment and prepare the crumble. To make a quick crumble topping, you need a slice of butter – about 50g – plus two large dessert spoons (tablespoons) each of flour, brown sugar and porridge oats (oatmeal). Voilà:



You rub the flour and butter between your fingers till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. With a wooden spoon you mix in the sugar and oats. It should look something like this:



Now spoon the Madeira mixture into paper cases in your muffin tin (just a tip: use a spoon to give it a good mixing before you begin. Otherwise you’ll find that the pieces of apple have sunk to the bottom of the bowl – you’ll have a batch of apple-free muffins to begin with, and apple-heavy muffins at the end.) Put a teaspoon of the crumble mixture on top of each.



Bake in the oven for approx. 20 minutes. You’ll have to keep an eye on them, as this time depends very much on the temperature setting of your oven. My old oven turned out perfect muffins after 18 minutes every single time; my new oven needs two or three minutes longer. While they’re baking, you can tidy up – yes, yes, go on. Lick the beaters and scoop up any spots of cake batter than might have dribbled down on to the counter top. You know you want to.

After 20 minutes (10 of which are spent with your nose pressed to the glass of the oven door watching the muffins rise as if by *magic*), you can test whether they’re done by sticking a skewer or wooden toothpick into one; if it comes out clean, they’re ready. I personally like to remove one, break it open and look inside. Naturally, this one then has to be scoffed quickly – nothing like a hands-on (teeth-on) test to check whether it’s really done. If this quality control is witnessed by indignant family members whose fingers you've just smacked away, just state that it’s what they ‘breakages’ in the business and all part of professional baked goods production. (Ssshhh! That's our story and we're sticking to it.)


Once again, this time with exact measurements:
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
Ingredients:
250g flour + 2 tsps baking powder
250g sugar
250g butter
4 large eggs
1 apple, peeled, cored and cut into small pieces
1 tsp cinnamon

Crumble topping
20g butter
2 dessert spoons (tablespoons) flour
2 dessert spoons (tablespoons) brown sugar
2 dessert spoons (tablespoons) porridge oats/oatmeal.

Bake for approx 20 mins.