Triple Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix In A Jar

I'm a big fan of giving and receiving Christmas gifts that can be used up, whether that's eaten, drunk, poured into a bath or spent.  Unless I know someone wants something very specific, I always try to give them something I know they will be able to use up and won't have to keep lying around the house for years to come.  Last year, I gave several friends and relatives homemade jars of cookie mix as part of their present.  They went down really, really well so I'm doing a few more this year.

After trawling the Internet for hours last year trying to find the perfect cookie-in-a-jar recipe, I ended up combining a couple and adjusting the quantities to perfectly fit the 750ml jars I had.  The recipe below will fill this size jar perfectly and you can easily increase the quantities of each ingredient by, say, 25% to fit litre jars.

Of course, you have to do a trial run of the cookies, just to make sure they're good enough to give out as gifts...that's my excuse, anyway.  I don't like 'hard' cookies, so when I sampled the recipe, I baked the cookies for 10 minutes which gave a lovely, soft chewy texture.  If you like them more crunchy, bake for a few minutes longer until they're just right for you.

Triple-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie-Mix-In-A-Jar Recipe

Fills one 750 ml jar

60g white chocolate chips

60g dark chocolate chips

60g milk chocolate chips

15g Rice Krispies 

150g plain flour

Half tsp of bicarbonate of soda

Quarter tsp of baking powder

80g dark brown soft sugar

75g caster sugar

30g porridge oats

Layer the ingredients into your jar in any order you like, but see the tip below on the brown sugar.

Attach a label to your jar with the following instructions:

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Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 24 small or 12 enormous cookies

1. Preheat oven to 180 C / Gas 4. 

2. In a large bowl, cream 75g of butter or margarine until light and fluffy. Mix in 1 egg and 1 additional egg yolk. Add the contents of the jar and stir until well blended.

3. Dollop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking tray.

4. Bake for 10 minutes for a soft, chewy cookie, or a couple of minutes longer for a crunchier cookie. Remove from baking trays to cool on wire racks.

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Tips on filling your jar

Obviously, you want the jars to look pretty but I found it a lot harder than it looks to get perfectly neat layers!  I just spooned the different ingredients into the jar and levelled them out as best I could.  

One thing I do recommend, is to mix the brown and white sugars together before adding them to the jar.  

Dark brown sugar has a tendency to harden and I read lots of comments on other cookie jar recipes from people who found they had to hack away at the brown sugar layer to get it out the jar!  Mixing the two certainly worked for me, and a jar I kept back for a couple of months was fine when I came to use it. 

Decorate your jar any way you like - I keep things simple with a length of ribbon and a customised gift tag.  Those retro style card luggage tags you can buy in stationery shops for pennies are perfect as they're big enough to write the baking instructions on!  

P.S How cute are my Santa and polar bear?  We had an almost identical Santa when I was a toddler in the 80s and I loved him. I was delighted when I saw this 2012 version in M & S and had to have him and his polar bear friend. Tacky, you say? Absolutely :-)

Jenny

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Strawberry Cupcakes

I have a terrible habit of enthusiastically offering to do all sorts of things well ahead of time and then finding myself flapping around at the last minute because I've got too much to do.  I promised to make cupcakes for a family party the other day but then had a hectic week in work, lots of orders for Bluefinch Boutique and a hundred and one other things cropping up so had a last minute dash to the supermarket the morning of the party looking for inspiration.  I wanted something quick, easy, light and summery so when I spotted some lovely, Scottish strawberries, my dilemma was solved.

These strawberry cupcakes are super quick and easy to make.  They're lovely and light and although the frosting is sweet, it's not too heavy as you whip it to a fluffy consistency.  You could substitute pureed fresh strawberries for the jam in the frosting but I like to use seedless jam so it's nice and smooth.  I just use a basic cake mix with a touch of vanilla which goes perfectly with the strawberry frosting.  

Recipe (makes 12)

250g butter
250g caster sugar
250g self-raising flour
Pinch of salt

2 medium free range eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Frosting

200g butter

500g icing sugar

90g seedless strawberry jam 

Fresh strawberries 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C/Gas Mark 5. 

2. Beat the butter in a large mixing bowl until smooth. Add the sugar, flour, salt, eggs and milk and whisk until the mixture is smooth. 

3. Place the cake cases into a muffin tin and divide the mixture evenly into the cases.

4. Bake for approx 20 minutes or until cakes are a light golden brown colour.  Remove cakes from the tin and transfer to a wire cooling rack.

For the frosting:

1. Whisk the butter and jam together until smooth and well combined. 

2. Add the icing sugar gradually, whisking to combine each time before adding the next lot.

3. Pipe or spread onto cakes, top with a fresh strawberry and enjoy!

They are best kept in the fridge until a few minutes before serving.

Jenny

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Malteser Refrigerator Cake

When I was little, a neighbour used to make an amazingly rich creation for parties that we kids all charmingly called 'Chocolate Poo Cake'.  I now know it to be more commonly known as Refrigerator Cake, or Traybake, being a mixture of melted chocolate, crushed biscuits, butter, and anything else suitable you have to hand, such as glace cherries or raisins.

I was planning on making two types of cupcake for a family party at my auntie's house this weekend, one fruit based and one chocolate based.  Whilst trawling the Internet for ideas for a Malteser cupcake, I came across several recipes for refrigerated traybakes and as I'm not one to turn down the easy option, I decided to go down this route instead.  

After assembling the most unhealthy group of ingredients I've ever used in one recipe, I was a bit worried it would be too rich but the dryness of the Malteser centres takes the edge off so it's definitely worth leaving them whole rather than crushing as I've seen in some recipes.  You definitely need to serve it in small squares though!

Recipe (makes approx 20 small squares)

200g milk chocolate
2 tablespoons golden syrup
100g butter
250g crushed digestive biscuits
135g Maltesers (one large bag)
100g white chocolate

1. Break the chocolate into small chunks and slowly melt over a low heat with the butter and syrup, stirring regularly (you can microwave but I prefer the bowl over a pan of hot water method)

2. Mix in the crushed digestives and the Maltesers until evenly combined

3. Pour into a large baking tray lined with clingfilm and press down to ensure an even thickness.  Leave in the fridge for a couple of hours or until fully cooled and set

4. Melt the white chocolate and drizzle or spread over the top. Return to fridge until set, then cut into small squares with a sharp knife.

Hell, yeah

Jenny

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Greek Feta & Spinach Pie

Following on from my Raspberry Cheesecake the other week, made with delicious, in-season raspberries, I thought I'd have a go at baking something else using seasonal produce. 

I often add frozen spinach to curries and things but as spinach is only in season for a few more weeks in the UK, I decided to find a recipe calling for it in its fresh form.  I found this recipe for a Feta and Spinach Greek Pie and gave it a go.  This dish is similar to traditional Spanakopita which, as a veggie, has been a staple dish for me on many Greek island holidays over the years!

It's really easy and the results far exceed the amount of effort put in.  I don't know about you, but that is the perfect kind of baking as far as I'm concerned!  I followed the original recipe fairly closely but adapted it a bit according to the quantities of the ingredients I had in.  

Recipe (serves 4)

200g bag fresh spinach leaves

Half a 270g jar of sundried tomatoes in oil*

100g feta cheese, crumbled

2 medium free-range eggs

Approx. 135g filo pastry sheets

*I used 80g sundried tomatoes (drained weight) but you can add more if you prefer

Loose-bottom cake or flan tin, anything from 20-24cm diameter will work fine

Pre-heat oven to 160C/Gas Mark 4.

1. Put the spinach into a large pan with a couple of tablespoons of water, then cook over a low heat until just wilted. Drain well in a sieve, squeezing excess water out with kitchen towel. Drain the sundried tomatoes, retaining the oil, and roughly chop.  Mix the tomatoes, spinach, eggs and feta together in a bowl. 

2. Carefully unroll the filo pastry. Take a sheet of pastry and brush with one teaspoonful of the sundried tomato oil. Drape oil-side down in the cake tin so that some of the pastry hangs over the sides of the tin. Brush another teaspoonful of oil on another piece of pastry and place in the tin, just a little further round. Keep placing the pastry pieces in the tin until you have roughly three layers.  

3. Pour the filling into the centre, then spread out to ensure an even filling.  Pull the sides of pastry over the filling, scrunch up and make sure the filling is covered. Brush with a little more of the tomato oil if needed.

4. Cook for approx 30 mins until the pastry is crisp and golden brown. 

It turned out much better than I expected, so I think I will stick to the same quantities next time.  I was worried you wouldn't be able to taste the cheese as it didn't look much going into the mixture but considering there's only 25g of feta per serving, it tastes really rich.   All in all, the perfect quick summer meal when served warm with a baby leaf salad!

It would be really easy to adapt to your personal taste and to include whatever you happened to have in.  It's pretty low on calories and fat too, not that you'd know from eating it as it's very tasty and substantial.  I've still got half a pack of pastry in and half the sundried tomatoes so I think I'll be making it again before the end of the week!

Jenny

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Easy Baked Raspberry Cheesecake

Despite being a huge cheesecake fan, I'd never made a baked one before, only the kind that you leave in the fridge to set and requires no cooking.  For a Jubilee barbecue last week, I thought I'd have a go at using some of the lovely, in-season raspberries I was seeing everywhere.  I planned on using ricotta but had to abandon this idea when I couldn't find a vegetarian version in the supermarkets, booooooo!

I used this cream cheese based recipe from the BBC instead but changed it a bit as I wanted a thicker base, more coulis and more fruit! Here's my version of the recipe:

Baked Raspberry Cheesecake

12 digestive biscuits
75g butter
600g cream cheese
2tbsp plain flour
175g caster sugar
2 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
150ml soured cream
500g raspberries
2tbsp icing sugar

20cm springform tin

1. Heat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4.

2. Crush the biscuits anyway you please - I use a deep mixing bowl and the end of a rolling pin - until you have fine crumbs.

3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat then stir in the biscuit crumbs

4. Press the base mixture into the tin.  Bake for 5 minutes then leave to cool.

5. Beat the cream cheese, flour, caster sugar, eggs, egg yolk and cream until light and fluffy. Stir in 200g of raspberries and pour onto the base.  Bake for 40 minutes until set but still slightly wobbly in centre.  Leave to cool.

6. Place 100g of raspberries into a pan with the icing sugar and gently heat until they begin to break down and the juices flow. Mash them with a fork and push the mixture through a sieve into a bowl or jug, discarding the seeds.

7. When the cheesecake is cool, decorate with the remaining 200g of raspberries, then pour over the raspberry coulis.

It turned out bloody delicious, albeit a little cracked which I believe can be caused by a few different things, such as abrupt changes in temperature.  It was no problem as I just used strategic fruit placement to cover the cracks....

The only thing I would change next time is to use even more fruit!  I'd like to add a few more to the mixture and have a few more on top.  The tartness of the fresh raspberries cuts through the creaminess of the cheesecake perfectly.

Raspberries are in season in the UK from now until September so make the most of them while they're at their best (and cheapest!).

Jenny

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