Anzac Cookies with Salted Caramel Sauce

Every year, we celebrate today with a batch of Anzac cookies. Although living in the UK, we want our boys to remember their New Zealand heritage and every year Anzac Day honours the armies of New Zealand and Australia who fought at Gallipoli. Sweet Anzac cookies have become associated with the war because their ingredients don't spoil easily and so the wives of the army men could send these little biscuits to their loved ones and they wouldn't spoil on the long journey.

These cookies are simple to make and are full of ingredients that could easily be found in your kitchen at home. I wanted to shake them up a little so thought it would be fun to add a drizzle of salted caramel to make them even more delicious :)

We start by popping the oats, sugar and coconut into a bowl and sifting the flour in there too, whilst the golden syrup and butter are melted together over a low heat. When the butter and syrup are smooth and well mixed, we take the bicarb and mix it a tablespoon and a half of water, pop it in the saucepan with your sugary mixture and stir. Remove it from the heat and then pour this into the dry ingredients. The mixture needs to be combined well and then you're ready to shape your little cookies.

To make my cookies evenly sized, I always take a little time to weigh each cookie (these ones were around 30G each) but you can eyeball each scoop if you prefer. We roll the cookies into little balls and pop them onto a lined baking tray. When they're all ready, flatten each one a little and they're ready to go in the oven. Super easy.

They're quick to bake but it gives you just enough time to make the salted caramel sauce. We melt the golden syrup and sugar in a saucepan and then stir in the butter, cream and salt. Super yummy! Let it cool down to room temperature and when the cookies are baked and cooled, you can have lots of fun drizzling them with the sweet, sticky sauce :) I topped them with another sprinkling of sea salt. And they're done!

It's great to honour traditions and with something so simple to bake you can get the kids involved in the kitchen. Last year, my little boy made Anzac cookies for his house cookery competition and loved every minute!

But don't think that their simplicity means that they're not absolutely delicious and I think the salted caramel gives them an extra special twist.

They're just perfect for sharing with loved ones and friends 💕 

Anzac Cookies with Salted Caramel Sauce

Makes around 20 cookies

Cookie Ingredients

• 200G PLAIN FLOUR
• 100G ROLLED OATS
• 110G CASTER SUGAR
• 65G DESICCATED COCONUT
• 45G GOLDEN SYRUP
• 150G UNSALTED BUTTER
• 1/2 TSP BICARBONATE OF SODA

Caramel Sauce Ingredients

• 100G LIGHT SOFT BROWN SUGAR
• 50G GOLDEN SYRUP
• 75G UNSALTED BUTTER
• 75ML DOUBLE CREAM
• 1 TSP SEA SALT

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees (fan)
2. Line two baking trays
3. Put the oats, sugar and coconut in a bowl and sift the flour over the top
4. Stir to combine
5. Melt the butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan over a medium heat until melted and smooth
6. Mix the bicarb with with a 1.5 tablespoons of water
7. Add this to the sugar mixture and remove from the heat
8. Mix this with the dry ingredients until fully combined
9. Form little balls of mixture (weigh them if you want identical cookies) and place them on the baking trays
10. Flatten each ball slightly and then pop them in the oven for around 10-12 minutes or until they are golden in colour
11. Whilst they're in the oven, make your salted caramel sauce
12. To make this, place the sugar and golden syrup in a small saucepan with a tablespoon of water
13. Bring it just to the boil and then simmer for 3 minutes
14. Add the butter, cream and sea salt in one go and stir for another minute until everything is melted and fully incorporated
15. Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool at room temperature
16. When they cookies and the salted caramel are cooled, drizzle the cookies with the caramel
17. Add a final flourish of sea salt to the cookies and enjoy :)

Mexican Wedding Cookies

The calm before the storm. The last week of spring term at school before four whole weeks with the boys. For our last few days of calm, it's been a pretty busy week with an open book day, easter school concert and our spring fair. As well as baking for the fair (this time experimenting with both regular cupcakes as well as gluten-free and dairy-free offerings), I went with a friend to do a Biscuiteer Beatrix Potter icing course - always great to learn a new skill, but I need a LOT more practice and my desire to make everything perfect meant I wasn't entirely satisfied with my finished biscuits! (I think we chose a very tricky icing course as our first attempt) You can see photos of my easter fair and biscuit decorating endeavours on facebook and instagram :)

So now as I sit writing this, I'm already in the storm of the school holidays and with several bakes planned for this week, I'm just wondering how I'm actually going to get time to get everything done! We have a new local bakery (a chain that's fast springing up across London) and as I went on my maiden voyage to the one which has opened two minutes from our house, I had a delightful little biscuit called a Mexican Wedding Cookie. I instantly knew I wanted to recreate this at home so set about looking into the tradition and recipe behind this little treat.

Mexican Wedding Cookies are also known amongst other names such as Russian Tea Cakes, Viennese Sugar Balls and Polvorones - but we're going to call them the name by which I discovered them, so called as they're often presented as favours at Mexican weddings. They're very simple to make and require only a handful of ingredients. It seems like everyone has their own recipe for these and all slightly different so I decided to mix them all up in the one below. They have a light velvety taste but a slight crunch too. The only thing I might try differently next time is to add some other ground nuts to see if this gives a little more crunch (maybe hazelnuts and/or pecans). But they are seriously yummy!

Mexican Wedding Cookies Makes 30 cookies

Ingredients

• 230G BUTTER
• 60G ICING SUGAR
• 1 TSP VANILLA EXTRACT
• ¼  TSP SALT
• 250G PLAIN FLOUR
• 95G GROUND ALMONDS
• 90G ICING SUGAR IN A BOWL (FOR ROLLING WHEN BAKED)

Method

1. Heat the oven to 165 degrees (fan) and line two baking trays
2. Put the butter, icing sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy
3. Then add the salt, flour and ground almonds and mix on the lowest setting until the dough forms
4. Using a tbsp measure, make little round balls with 1 tbsp dough and line them up on the baking trays, one inch apart
5. Bake for around 15 mins - you want the balls to be set but not browned so worth checking on them from 12 mins onwards
6. Remove from the oven and leave a for few minutes to cool down and then roll them in the remaining icing sugar - and then enjoy!

Peanut Butter & Marshmallow Cookies

Woo hoo, it's Friday! I've definitely got that TGIF feeling today! There was much excitement in our house this morning as not only was there the eclipse, but it's the House Singing Competition this afternoon (cue crazy costumes and Freddie Mercury songs on the way to school!) Then I had a lovely breakfast with a friend, booked a cheeky little Biscuiteer decorating course and came home to bake cookies for a playdate this afternoon.

We have our Easter Fair at school next week and when I was looking at gluten and dairy free options for this, I found this cookie on  Bakers Royale. Made made with peanut butter, it's both gluten and dairy free. I've found a number of gluten free recipes using peanut butter, however the marshmallow frosting transforms this into something much more indulgent (I contemplated turning the frosting pink but living in a house of men, resisted the urge!)

Mine is an adapted version - for one thing, I use liquid egg whites to make my meringues and marshmallows which you can pick up in the supermarket. These have been pasteurised which makes them safe for pregnant people which is an added bonus - in this recipe we do heat the egg whites but you can feel safer knowing that they have been already been pasteurised. It does change the properties a little but I've always had complete success with them.

This recipe makes 6 large sandwiched cookies. As they're quite sweet, I'd probably try to get 9 or 12 cookies out of the dough next time - as they are, they are a huge sweet treat and maybe more dessert sized than snack sized!!

Peanut Butter & Marshmallow Cookies (adapted from Bakers Royale)

Peanut Butter Cookie Ingredients

• 1 CUP (225G) CRUNCHY PEANUT BUTTER (USE WHICHEVER TYPE YOU PREFER)
• 1 CUP (140G) BROWN SUGAR
• 1 LARGE EGG
• 1 TSP BICARBONATE OF SODA
• 1 TSP VANILLA EXTRACT

Method

1. Put the oven on to 160 degrees
2. Prepare two baking trays with greaseproof paper
3. Put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and combine until smooth
4. Put 1½  tablespoons of mixture on the baking tray - this should make 12 little mounds
5. Then flatten the cookie with a fork in a criss cross pattern
6. Bake for 12 minutes until the edges are golden
7. Wait for them to cool for a few minutes and then using a slice (they'll still be soft) move them to a cooling tray

Marshmallow Frosting Ingredients

• 165G LIQUID EGG WHITE (5 EGG WHITES)
• 300G WHITE SUGAR

Method

1. Mix the liquid egg white and sugar in a microwaveable bowl and heat to 70 degrees celcius - I do this in blasts of 20 seconds and then stir and take the temperature
2. When it's reached the right temperature, transfer it to a mixer with whisk attachment. If you feel the outside of the bowl it should feel warm/hot to the touch and you need to beat the meringue until the bowl has cooled down - around 10 minutes on high speed until the meringue has formed stiff peaks.
3. Then put the meringue into a piping bag with the nozzle of your choosing and pipe meringue onto one half of each cookie and sandwich it together with another half
4. I did have half a bag a marshmallow frosting left which you could use to decorate cupcakes or any other cake that needs a bit of jazzing up - or eat it straight from the piping bag if you prefer :)

Bacon & Chocolate Chip Cookies

Welcome to my very first blog post (ever!)  As this baking adventure is all about testing my  creative skills, challenging me to create new things and embracing new taste sensations, I decided to make these Bacon & Chocolate Chip Cookies from the fabulous I Am A Food Blog (Stephanie Le's website is very cool and as well as having amazing food photography, she has so many fun recipes to try).  

Now I'm not a savoury and sweet kind of girl (I mean, I like my pancakes with maple syrup but I'm just not that sure about the bacon on the side bit) although I liked the sound of trying a new tasting cookie - and as I was going to my very first coffee morning of the year, what better opportunity than gifting some of these cookies?  What I love about cookies is being able to prepare the dough the day before and then get them out of the fridge the morning of, all ready to go on their baking trays, and you have freshly baked yummy treats in no time.  So the verdict? Well, I just loved them and everyone else thought they were pretty scrummy too (especially the little bits of rock salt on top of a sweet cookie and the salty bacon throughout).  Pretty darn good.  And I will DEFINITELY be making them again.  So I think that qualifies as a very successful first official bake...and coffee morning :) 

Bacon and Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is taken from I Am A Food Blog but I've added some extra info that will help me next time I make them.  Stephanie makes 9 cookies out of the dough and these are huge so next time I may split this into 18 dough balls and cook them for less time.

Ingredients

• 1 ¾ CUPS PLAIN FLOUR

• ½ TSP BAKING SODA

• ¾ TSP BAKING POWDER

• 145g BUTTER AT ROOM TEMPERATURE

• 115g CASTER SUGAR

• ½ CUP + 1 TBSP SUGAR

• ½ CUP + 2 TBSP BROWN SUGAR

• 1 EGG

• 1 TSP VANILLA EXTRACT

• ½ CUP DARK CHOCOLATE CHIPS

• 6 SLICES ENGLIGH BACON, FINELY CHOPPED & PAN-FRIED UNTIL CRISPY & DRAINED ON PAPER TOWER (THIS MAKES AROUND A ½ CUP OF BACON BITS)

• SEA SALT

Method

1. Sift the flour, baking soda and baking powder into a bowl and set aside.  Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix well, ensuring you scrape down the sides of the bowl. 
2. Now add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Drop in the chocolate and bacon and mix through until evenly distributed.  Refrigerate for 24 hours. 
3. The evening before baking, line a baking tray with parchment paper and divide the mixture into 9 balls and then pop them back into the fridge until ready to bake.
4. When ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees and sprinkle the dough balls with a little sea salt.  Bake for around 18-20 minutes until the cookies are golden brown but still soft. 
5. Cool on their baking tray for 10 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.  Then – ENJOY!