Continue reading “Easy Cheesy Biscuits – Kids In The Kitchen”
Easy Cheesy Biscuits – Kids In The Kitchen
White Chocolate & Rosemary Biscotti
I love the unusual white chocolate and rosemary flavour combination. I actually don’t like white chocolate at all, so recommending this is high praise.
I have loads of rosemary from my summer on the allotment, so I’m glad for something extra to use it on too.
The sugar in this recipe is flexible. I normally make it with 45g brown sugar, but you can make it super sweet with as much as 90g. If you don’t want to use icing sugar for sprinkling on the tray, you can get away with using more cornmeal, but I prefer the end result with icing sugar.
Keep an eye on the biscotti in the oven as different ovens run differently, but if you want the biscotti really crispy, return it to the oven for the second time. If you want it more chewy, don’t return it to the oven the second time.
White Chocolate & Rosemary Biscotti
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Author: Keeper of the Kitchen
Serves: 20
Ingredients
- 150g plain flour
- 45g brown sugar
- 65g yellow cornmeal
- 2 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt (I use Himalayan pink)
- 40g coconut oil
- 2 eggs
- 100g white chocolate
- Extra: 2 tablespoons icing sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 150C
- Add everything (except the icing sugar) to the Thermomix® bowl and mix speed 4/30-45 seconds. The mixture should be firm and pliable.
- Sprinkle the icing sugar on a baking tray, then add the dough and roll out to about 1cm thick
- Place in the oven and bake for 25 - 30 minutes until golden and firm.
- Set aside until cool enough to handle, cut lengthwise and then crosswise to make individual cookies. Return to the oven at 100C for 30 minutes.
- Allow to cool before serving
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Cheesy Straws
These cheesy straws are a lovely snack for lunch boxes and last minute visitors. They can be prepared whenever you have time, and the pastry frozen – then just pop out a handful and bake when you need them. I was setting an Autumn scene for some photos I had to do, so we broke up the straws to make a ‘woodpile’. I was glad when the kids walked in and said ‘Oh, look at the brooms!’ Always useful when people can tell what you’re going for!
These cheesy straws can be made as straws, though simply baking them in rounds is okay too – I tend to freeze them as round biscuits, making them easier to use with dips. If you’re going to make brooms, I recommend that you use the stringy type of kids cheese, rather than regular blocks of cheese which crack rather than pull apart. And have more chives than you think you need as they break really easily too.
I also like to add paprika or rosemary to cheese strings – it just depends on what flavour you like, or whether you like something different from time to time! Also, you don’t have to add parmesan, it just heightens the cheese flavour. If you decide not to, just make another 50g cheddar cheese.
Cheesy Straws Recipe:
Cheesy Straws
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Author: Keeper of the Kitchen
Serves: 60 sticks
Ingredients
- 375g plain flour
- 225g butter
- 150g cheddar cheese
- 50g parmesan cheese
- 1 tsp mustard (I use a grainy mustard, but powder will work too)
- 2 egg yolks
- pinch of salt
- pepper to taste
Instructions
Thermomix® Instructions
- Add all the ingredients to the Thermomix® bowl
- Mix speed 5/30 seconds
- Remove and shape into a log. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes
- Heat the oven to 180C
- Break off pieces and roll into sticks using your hands
- Bake for 10 - 12 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool before moving but be gentle as they are fragile
Regularly Instructions
- Add all the ingredients to a food processor
- Mix until everything is combined and the dough forms a ball
- Remove and shape into a log. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes
- Heat the oven to 180C
- Break off pieces and roll into sticks using your hands
- Bake for 10 - 12 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool before moving but be gentle as they are fragile
Carrot And Cheddar Shortbread Recipe
An odd side effect of growing your own food is that sometimes you have very small amounts of produce. For example, we harvested a handful of carrots this week, thinning out space for the other carrots to grow bigger. This gave us about 8 small carrots which is barely a snack of one person, never mind a side for three, so I had to think of something we could make that use the carrots to best effect.
I decided a good snack for a picnic we were attending would be Carrot and Cheese Shortbread. I know shortbread is normally a sweet treat, but why should it be!?
This recipe was a bit trial and error, but it worked out so well, I’m really pleased with it. And if we have another small batch of carrots I intend to do the same again, but freeze the dough so that we have ready shortbread whenever we want – I think it’s a great way of saving summer produce too! I’ll let you know how I get on with that.
In the meantime, here’s the carrot and cheddar shortbread recipe.
Carrot And Cheddar Shortbread Recipe
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In the Thermomix® this just takes a few minutes, then there's a 30 minute chill time. After chilling you need to slice the cookies or you can roll them out to make shapes.
Author: Keeper of the Kitchen
Recipe type: Snack
Serves: 20 biscuits
Ingredients
- 115g (4oz) salted butter
- 90g (3oz) carrot and cheese*
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- ½ tsp thyme
- ½ tsp rosemary
- 220g (1¼ cups) plain flour
- 1 tbs water (a bit more if your flour is organic)
Instructions
- (If you're not using a Thermomix®, grate the carrot first)
- Add room temperature butter to a mixing bowl and using an electric beater whisk it till it's light and fluffy
(Thermomix®: add the butterfly and mix on speed 3 for 30 - 40 seconds)
- Add a mixture of carrot and cheese to add up to 90g. In this case I used 45g of each, but more or less of whichever you have, to add up to 90g.
- Add the rest of the ingredients, except the water and mix until combined
(speed 6 for 1 minute)
- Add the water and mix till it combines and pulls away from the sides
- Tip out onto greaseproof paper, and shape into a sausage. Chill for 30 minutes in the fridge.
- After 30 minutes, turn the oven on to 180C/350F. Slice the sausage into 1cm thick slices and place on a baking tray. Bake for 20 -25 minutes.
- Leave to cool.
Six Minute Chocolate Puddings
In a life before my children, I used to host regular dinner parties, and Six Minute Chocolate Puddings were a go-to standard pudding for a number of reasons. First, it’s so easy to make. You mix all the ingredients together and set it aside, popping it in the oven for 6 minutes when you’re ready for your warm and yummy dessert. Secondly, these chocolate puddings a small portion, but it’s so rich you really only need a small portion per person. Thirdly, it’s really good, hot or cold, with cream or ice cream.
The key to these chocolate puddings is to have the oven hot and to keep an eye on the puddings. In a normal small round ramekin, they should only need 6 minutes in the oven. If your ramekins or bowls are bigger, they may need a little longer, but sit and watch it, if need be, so you can see when it forms a skin on top that looks like cake. Like this:
Pull it out of the oven immediately, and serve. If you leave it in too long it’ll sort of ‘set’ and not be runny any more, but it will still be delicious.
Six Minute Chocolate Puddings
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Recipe type: Dessert
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
- 60g Sugar
- 3 Eggs
- 3 Egg Yolks
- 185g Dark Chocolate
- 185g Butter
- 15g Plain Flour
- Cocoa Powder, for dusting
- cream or ice cream for serving
Instructions
- If you're serving immediately, turn the oven up to 230C/450F
- Add the sugar to the Thermomix® and whiz on speed 10 for 3 seconds
- Add the eggs and the extra egg yolks and whisk the eggs for 30 seconds, speed 5
- Set aside
- In a clean bowl add the chocolate and whiz on speed 10 for 3 seconds again to get the chocolate to melt faster. Scrape down the sides if you need to then melt the chocolate for 2 minutes/speed 2/ 50C
- Once it's melted add the butter and melt 1 minute/speed 2/ 50C
- Finally add the sugar and egg - pour it in in a steady stream - and then the flour
- (If you're organised, you can just set the chocolate on to melt for 4 minutes, and add the butter after two minutes, and the egg and sugar mix and the flour after another minute so you don't keep having to reset the timer)
- Pour into ramekins. This mix will rise slightly, so don't fill all the way to the top.
Serving straight away
- Place into a hot oven and bake for 6 minutes (vary according to the size of the ramekins)
- Serve as is for the molten inside to be a surprise or turn upside down to have it running and oozing pleasantly over the plate
Serving later
- Once everything is mixed, pop the chocolate mix into the fridge. When your guests arrive, remove it so that it returns to room temperature, when you're having your mains, turn on the oven and after dinner put the ramekins in the oven for six minutes.
- Serve with cream, ice cream or on it's own
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Almond Biscuits With Fondant Icing
Cookies, or biscuits, if you will, are so synonymous with Christmas to me. My mom used to do a huge bake i the beginning of December somewhere, and I remember a lot of cookies through the month, always stored in old fashioned cake tins. That was always fun.
I love this recipe because it’s a little different to the ‘usual’ butter biscuits, with the addition of almond extract. You can try it with rum extract too.
The white fondant may need rolling out on a clean surface with a sprinkling of icing sugar, and left to set it’ll provide a lovely soft, pillowy counter point to the crunchy biscuits. I love these! My kids like decorating them with silver balls pressed into the surface, but I just think of broken teeth!
Even though you use the same shapes for cutting out the fondant in the baking and moving of the biscuits they may change shape a little, so use your fingers to ‘smooth out’ the edges of the fondant to fit perfectly over the biscuits.
Almond Biscuits With Fondant Icing
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Author: Luschka
Recipe type: Biscuits
Cuisine: Bakery
Ingredients
- 230g Butter
- 340g Sugar
- 6 cups Plain Flour (780g)
- 6 Eggs
- 1 tablespoon Baking Powder
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 tablespoon Almond Extract
For the Icing Sugar
- 140g butter
- 280g icing sugar
- 1-2 tbsp milk
Instructions
- Add the butter and sugar to a food processor and mix till it is light and fluffy
- Add the rest of the ingredients and stir till combined and a soft dough forms
- Place in the fridge for 1 hour, heat the oven to 180C, then roll out on a well floured surface
- Cut out shapes and move to an oven tray then back for 10 - 12 minutes until they are golden brown
- Meanwhile, role out some fondant and use the same cutters to cut matching shapes from the fondant. Set aside.
- Once the biscuits have cooled, mix the butter, icing sugar and milk together, and spread generously over the biscuits
- Top with the fondant shapes shaping them to fit on the biscuits
- Place gently in an airtight container and allow to set
- They should keep well for 1 - 2 weeks
Thermomix® Instructions
- Place the butterfly whisk into the Thermomix® bowl and add the butter and sugar 3 minutes/speed 4. The butter should be light in colour and fluffy
- Remove the butterfly and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix together 30 seconds/speed 5
- Empty out onto cling film and refrigerate for at least an hour to make the dough easier to work with
- Remove from fridge, roll out the dough to about half an inch thick and cut into shapes
- Transfer onto a baking tray and continue until all the dough is used up
- Bake for 10—12 minutes at 180C till golden brown
- Store in an airtight container
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Chocolate Cranberry Muffins (Egg-Free)
I’ve been making muffins a lot lately, because they’re a really easy way to fill the kids up when they’re hungry thirty-seven million times.a.day. They are pretty quick to make while I’m making breakfast, and then they can snack for the rest of the morning. Of course these have too much sugar for that to be a sustainable idea, but we’re calling it a Christmas treat.
These are really only egg-free because I ran out, but the banana binds it together. If you want to use egg, substitute the banana for two eggs.
These have dried cranberries in, but you can substitute that as you wish – raisins or choc chips, both work well.
With the banana in these do have a little bit of a banana taste, but chocolate and banana work well anyway.
Chocolate Cranberry Muffins (Egg-Free)
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Author: Luschka
Recipe type: Breakfast
Cuisine: Breakfast, Snacks
Serves: 12
Ingredients
- 280g self-raising flour
- 30g cocoa powder
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 100g brown sugar
- 70g olive oil
- 1 banana
- 200g milk
- handful of dried cranberries - more or less depending on taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C
- Add all the ingredients to the Thermomix® bowl, except the cranberries
- Mix speed 4/ 60 seconds
- Add the cranberries
- Scoop out into 12 large or 36 small muffin cases and bake for 10 - 20 minutes, depending on the size of the muffins.
- Find the largest muffin and stick a knife into it. If it comes out clean, it's ready.