Rich gentlemen have it boys….

Ingredients:  
4oz butter or marg
3/4 cup sugar (caster is best)
1 2/3 cups of flour - I’m sure you shouldn’t mix up measurements but I’ve got a jug that measures cups and I’ve never managed to remember to weigh what 1 2/3 cup is. You can borrow my cup jug if you like
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
vanilla essence - couple of drops

2 tablespoons caster sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon for rolling mixture

Method:

Cream butter and sugar - ie mix together until soft and fluffy

Add vanilla and beaten egg

Add flour, salt and baking powder

Roll into balls (two teaspoons make a good ball if your mix is a bit sloppy and you don’t want it all over your hands, it took me bloody ages to get the consistency of snickerdoodles right) and drop into cinnamon and sugar mix. Roll all around until liberally coated and put on greased baking trays slightly flattening each one, leaving plenty of room between each one for spreading out as they cook.

Cook for 10-15 mins on gas mark 6 

Chop one onion and several cloves of garlic and soften in oil, mix in some dried or fresh herbs. Set aside.

In the oil brown sausages and some chopped up bacon.

Par boil some potatoes cut into fairly small chunks.

Mix up the batter (2 eggs, 4oz flour, 1/2 pint milk - beat well).

Put two pans into the oven (high - GM 7 ish) with the fat of your choice (lard, dripping, oil etc).

Put the potatoes into one with some of the onion, garlic and bacon to roast.
Put the sausages, the rest of the onion, garlic and bacon and the batter into the other pan.

Potatoes may take longer - I cooked mine for half an hour or so on GM6 before raising the heat of the oven and adding the toad in the hole for about 45 minutes.

Was lovely with gravy and peas.

The recipe for this called them apple squares and suggested they were cooked tray bake style and cut into squares, we made it as a loaf in a tin and ate it spread with butter in slices. Was lovely

100g butter
125g brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
250g flour
125g chopped walnuts
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
450g cooking apples, peeled and sliced (we left them quite chunky and it worked really well)
1 tbsp demerara sugar

Mix butter, eggs, sugar, baking soda, vanilla, cinnamon and flour together in a bowl and beat until mixed well.
Add apple and nuts (we also added some sultanas) and mix.
Scrape into loaf tin, sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top and bake at 180 for 40-50 minutes.

Who may well be the only person reading

6oz butter (I use real butter although it is Sainsburys Basics range)
6oz brown sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup (buggered if I’ve ever worked out how to measure amounts of something like syrup even with all the tips of dipping metal spoons in hot water and other such shenanigans - so adhering to the less is more mantra which has shaped my life thus far I tip the tin up over the pan and let a generous amount dollop into it considering that a very scientific way of judging two tablespoons!)
8oz rolled oats or porridge oats (you can guess which brand I use!)

line a shallow tin with greaseproof paper and grease the paper too. Pre heat oven to GM3.

 

Chop the butter up and bung it in a pan with the syrup and sugar, heat gently until melted. Stir in the oats so they are all well coated in the mixture.

Empty into the lined tin and press down gently - you don’t want it too dense or it’s crunchy and you don’t want it so loosely packed it falls apart while you try and eat it.

Bake for about half an hour until oats are golden brown - it often doesn’t seem quite set but it will firm up as it cools. Give it a few minutes to cool and then mark out squares with a sharp knife. Leave in tin to cool completely and then scoff before anyone else gets home!  

Very basic recipes to make the bits and pieces, just fiddly to put together.

First I made ears from a basic cookie dough recipe (which I halved as I only needed a small amount):

5oz plain flour
2.5 oz caster sugar
4ox butter
egg yolk
drop vanilla essence
tsp salt
2 tsp cocoa powder

Beat the butter and sugar together, add the egg yolk and vanilla essence, add the flour, cococa and salt and knead together to make a dough.

I rolled it out to about 1/2 cm thickness and then sliced it into small rectangles to make ear shapes. The children have been eating the additonal ears all morning and I made 36 cakes so this must have made about 100 rectangles.

Cook on GM4 for about 10 minutes on greased baking sheets, leave to cool.

I then made 36 cupcakes - this recipe is for 12 so I made 3 batches of it:

4oz caster sugar
4oz soft butter or margarine
4oz flour
2 eggs
vanilla essence

Add all ingredients together in a bowl and beat until smooth.

Divide the mixture into paper cake cases and cook for 20 minutes on GM4.

 

When cool smear on some butter icing (made with 6oz butter and 12oz icing sugar), add two biscuits for ears, a chocolate button for a nose, two dots of white writing icing with two milk chocolate chips for eyes.

 

As baked in preparation for my son’s sixth birthday party which is Wallace and Gromit themed.

I used a basic shortbread biscuit recipe:

6oz plain flour
pinch of salt
4oz butter / margarine
2oz caster sugar.

Sieve the flour and salt together, rub in the butter, add the caster sugar and knead to form a pliable dough.

Roll to 1cm thickness and cut out Wallace head shapes. (I used a small round cutter, well okay a glass and then cut off strips from both side of the circle before forming the head shapes by hand.

Cook for about 35-40 minutes on GM3.

When cool I mixed up some icing with icing sugar, water and pink food colouring. I smeared it on the surface of the biscuits and popped on two white chocolate chips for the eyes.

When dry I added a blob of black writing icing to each chocolate chip to make a pupil and drew an oval for his nose. Then a line of white writing icing outlined with red writing icing to make a mouth for each one.

 

 

This is adapted from a Nigella recipe. Adapted as in I left out what I didn’t have in the cupboards or deemed one of Nigella’s very sweet tooth indulgences that the rest of us could live without! I also left off the icing she has in her recipe figuring that this makes a nice tray bake without the need for any additional stickiness.

I normally use oz but her recipe was in g and I couldn’t be bothered to convert!

175g butter
100g brown sugar
2 tbsp caster sugar
100g ish of golden syrup (I say ish cos it’s all but impossible to measure!)
same amount of black treacle
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/4 tsp bicarb of soda dissolved in 2 tbsp warm water.
2 eggs
250 ml milk
275g plain flour
40g cocoa
75g plain chocolate (Nigella said more than double this, so mine is not hugely chocolatey, I might up this a bit next time. She also said chocolate chips and I used cooking chocolate chopped up)
A handful of glace ginger (I found this next to the glace cherries in the cooking aisle at Sainsburys and have been dying to use them ever since, so added them to this recipe which they really suit)

Oven to GM3, line baking tray with greaseproof paper or grease really well.

Melt butter, sugars, treacle, syrup and spices in a large pan.

Remove the pan from the heat and beat in the eggs, milk and water/bicarb.

Stir in the flour and cocoa with a wooden spoon.

Add the chocolate and glace ginger.

Pour into the baking tray and cook for about 45 minutes. The finished gingerbread should be risen and firm with a softness under the surface. Leave to cool before cutting into about 12 slabs.

We had this as cake with tea / coffee but actually I think it would be really nice with cream or ice cream as a dessert, especially if served warm.

Made up enough for three dinners today plus a bit extra as a pizza topping for tomorrow night too using the following:

About 1lb of mince
4 tins of tomatoes (I used very cheap plum tomatoes from Tesco or Sainsburys - about 13 pence a tin)
two onions
five or six cloves of garlic
generous amount of hot chilli powder
Chopped birds eye chillis - I used a whole packet which is about 10 or 12 of the small hot red ones.

Chop the onions and soften in a frying pan with some oil and the chopped garlic.
Brown the mince in a frying pan.
Add all ingredients to the slow cooker and cook all day!

 

After cooling I’ve split this amount into three portions - and frozen two for dinner later in the month. 

Shamelessly nicked from Kirsty’s recipe (which I believe she nicked from Kath…) we made pizza dough today. One batch made the kids tea (cheese and tomato pizza for S and garlic bread for D) and a garlic bread to go with our dinner tonight. I’ve made another batch up in the breadmaker ready for pizza for our tea tomorrow night. Mine will be cheese and tomato, A will have some of the chilli I cooked in the slow cooker today on top as well (recipe for chilli to follow).

 

500g flour (I used cheap i.e. 14 pence a bag from Tesco value plain flour)
300ml water
2 tablespoons oil (I used vegetable oil)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried yeast

Bung in breadmaker on ‘dough’ setting.
When the breadmaker beeps to let you know it’s ready split the dough in half - half the mix makes a pretty decent sized pizza, one quarter of the dough was enough for individual pizzas / garlic bread for the kids.
Roll out on a floured surface and bung on an oiled pizza sheet / baking tray / bit of tin foil and add toppings.

For plain cheese and tomato smear with tomato puree and top with grated cheddar and mozerella cheese.

For garlic bread spread with butter / margarine,  smear some garlic puree over it and sprinkle with garlic granules. I added some grated parmesan cheese to ours to and a sprinkle of mixed herbs.

Cook for 10- 15 mins at gas mark 7. 

As requested by Sarah

2oz butter or margerine (I use Stork)
3oz soft brown sugar
4oz peanut butter (it says use crunchy, I used smooth and I would definitely half the amount next time - they were way too gooey)
2oz flour
2oz rolled oats
1oz or so peanuts crushed or chopped small to top

Cream the butter, sugar and peanut butter.
Sift the flour into the mixture, add oats and stir well.
Get your hands in and knead it up a bit.
Divide into 12 balls, place on greased baking sheets and flatten slightly.
Top with crushed / chopped peanuts (the recipe said to brush with beaten egg first but the recipe was wet enough not to need it so I didn’t bother).

Cook for 15 mins or so on gas mark 3. Leave to cool for a few minutes until firm enough to transfer to cooking rack.

Serve with cold milk!