Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Triple Chocolate Heart Valentine cookies


Triple Chocolate Heart cookies made using my favourite super chocolate cookie recipe filled with dark and white chocolate chips. Perfect valentines for those who are looking for something that's not overly cute but still super delicious.

and I didn't even use a special heart shaped pan........that's right no special equipment here just cookies made with love. 

This trick should work for most chocolate chip cookie recipes that do not spread too much during baking. You just get 2 tear shaped bits of dough, place them together in a V and as they bake, rise and expand voila instant love hearts.


Probably works best if you chill the dough in the fridge quite a bit before shaping them into the tear drops and baking, not like the melty sticky ones in the picture above.

I also picked all the red and pink M &M's out of a mini M&M packet and stuck them on the top before baking for a bit of extra valentine cuteness.
Recipe after jump

Thursday, January 20, 2011

"My love is blossoming for you" valentine cookies


'My love is blossoming for you" valentine cookies.

Yes another bunch of cute heart themed cookies, I have been a bit out of control with them, I love them, I mean who wouldn't love them.

Well I guess all the husbands and boyfriends and any other random males you might be thinking of bestowing any valentine sweetness on.


Someone mentioned they were cute but her husband would laugh at her if she gave them to him, and I guess it's true so I'll try and come up with something less loving for my next valentine post.

Although in my household, I made these and left them out whilst I popped to the shop and when I got back there weren't enough left for me to take the photo's, I had to make more.

"They smelled too good" he said, but I wasn't tricked they might pretend otherwise but men like pretty just as much as we do.


The lovely red gingham bags and twine in the photo's are from Little Sooti.

Oh and I also made some pink ones, they would look good in any colour really but I liked the red ones best.



My love is blossoming for you cookies simple instructions



These cookies were made using this sugar cookie recipe and cutting out flower shapes - the one I used was 7.25 cm and came from a set that looks like this, but don't get hung up with the sizes use what you have.

When the cookies were cooled they were covered with white fondant by rolling out fondant with a small rolling pin on a cornflour dusted surface and using the same flower cutter to cut out the fondant. I secured the fondant to the cookie with a tiny amount of water brushed onto the cookie and then carefully rolled the fondant on with the rolling pin.

I coloured some of the fondant red, rolled it out and cut small red hearts, securing them to the white fondant covered cookie with a really really tiny amount of water. In fact sometime you can lightly press it on without the water.

My heart cutter was 2.5cm (about an inch) across the widest point and came from a set that looks like this, which I got it from Little Betsy Baker.

Finally using some white royal icing I did a messy squiggly outline of the flower shape. I know my piping is not really that good at the best of times but I promise these ones were meant to be squiggly.



Let the cookies dry for a couple of hours or overnight before packing in bags.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Australia Day Lamington Macarons - MacTweets #15 MacInspirational


The challenge for January MacTweets #15 was to incorporate a favourite dessert into a macaron and I decided to go with the lamington.

So I'm going to come clean with you all right from the start, Lamington's are not my favourite dessert, in fact I don't really like them much at all.

But the thought of them as a macaron intrigued me, not long ago I made hazelnut macarons and filled a few with jam and they were honestly some of the best macarons I have ever made.

Plus it's coming up to Australia Day soon and I thought it would be nice to have a patriotic theme to my challenge.

So I made up a batch of chocolate macarons using this recipe (click here for recipe) and sprinkled some coconut onto them straight away, before the rest period and then filled the cooked and cooled macarons with raspberry jam.

They were nice, chocolate and coconut combined with the jam to make a sweet treat perfect for afternoon tea with a nice cup of tea.  Kinda like a lamington I guess.
I styled this picture with an Old Country Roses cup, I was going for a CWA (Country Women's Association) look and I'm not being disrespectful at all - I own this tea set and most of the CWA could bake me under the table : )

So lamington MacIspired macarons - check......

Next I filled the rest of the chocolate macarons, the ones I didn't pop coconut on with a white chocolate coffee buttercream. They were dreamy and creamy with a pretty piped center. I haven't included the recipe here as it is a work in progress (translation - means I mixed together stuff on the spot and didn't write down the exact measurements for you sorry), but it was based on Italian Meringue Buttercream from the Whimsical Bakehouse cookbook.

Mmmmmm MacDreamy

Checkout MacTweets round up later in the month to see what everyone else came up with.