Terry's Chocolate Orange Cookies

Ok I've been having a real craving for making cookies recently, they're quick and pretty easy to make and there's no need to wait for cooling before frosting etc etc..well not these type of cookies anyway. I love Terry's Chocolate Orange chocolate and I thought to put chunks of it in chocolate cookies would be sooo goood. Ok so now comes the big question..cookies..hard and crunchy or soft and chewy? To me it's all about the soft and chewy, there's nothing worse than a hard crunchy cookie that breaks your teeth, even when I get the shop bought ones I'll open the packet and leave them out in the air for a bit to allow them to soften!! Anyway these cookies were pretty good, apart from a warning in advance they spread out loadssss during baking..which gave me more a slab of cookie rather than individual cookies, so just broke bits off that..although on one I did actually manage to get a couple of round cookies!! Woo.





Ingredients Needed




Beating all the ingredients together




Think I made the cookies a bit too big...




Mmm look at the chunk of chocolate numm



Terry's Chocolate Orange Cookies
makes 15 cookies

12 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
120g Terry's Chocolate Orange, cut into chunks

1.Preheat the oven to 350F (165C).
2.Beat butter with brown sugar and granulated sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and egg yolk. Beat in vanilla.
3. Combine the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda. Slowly beat into the butter and sugar mixture until well blended. Fold in chunks of Terry's Chocolate Orange.
Chill the dough for at least 1 hour, or until firm.
4.Using a cookie scoop or tablespoon, scoop mounds of dough onto a silicone-lined or greased baking sheet, leaving about 1 1/2 to 2 inches between cookies. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until set.
Cool on baking sheet on a rack, then remove cookies to rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Ok so every blog post seems to be me moaning about exams..but I really am drowning in them!! This week is a killer so can't wait to get past it..on the plus side I'm on study leave..which means when I'm not studying I'm spending lots of time...BAKING....ahem ahem..I'm sure my teachers would love to hear that one. Anyway this week it was one of my mam's friends birthdays and they LOVE peanut butter..as do I..I don't get how people can't like it, I think its one of those love/hate things, you either love it..or hate it. Well personally I LOVE it. So I decided to make chocolate and peanut butter cakes, a great combo num num num. I made a moist chocolate cake...buttermilk is the way forward and filled them with crunchy peanut butter, I then topped them with smooth peanut butter buttercream and sprinkled them with chocolate flakes..I didn't even get to try one of these cakes, my mam took them all into work for her friend and they were all gobbled up :(:(.




Ingredients Needed...mm buttermilk!




Cuppie liners




Stirring the melted chocolate in..wow this looks good





Finished cuppy

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcake
makes 24
170g unsweetened chocolate, melted
225g butter
385g dark brown sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
185g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
235ml buttermilk
50g cocoa powder *I added this*
25ml milk *I added this*
150g crunchy peanut butter

1. Preheat the oven to 175C(350F) and fill a muffin tin with liners, set aside.
2. In a large bowl cream together the butter and the sugar until fluffy, this should take about 3-5 minutes.
3. Beat in the eggs one at time, beating well after each addition, if any signs of curdling occur add a tablespoon of flour.
3. Add the vanilla essence and the melted chocolate and beat well.
4. Combine the flour, baking powder/soda and salt in separate bowl.
5. Alternate the dry ingredients (flour etc) with the buttermilk, im about 3 additions, into the cake batter.
6. After alternating the flour and the butter milk, in separate additions alternate the cocoa powder with the milk into the cake batter.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick is inserted into the centre and comes out clean. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
8. Core out the centre and fill each cupcake with crunchy peanut butter and replace lid.

Peanut Butter Buttecream
200g smooth peanut butter
125g butter
450g icing sugar
2 tbsp whipping cream

1.Beat together the peanut butter and the butter until smooth and creamed, slowly add the icing sugar until combined.
2. Beat in whipping cream until the desired consistency has been achieved. Pipe onto cakes.

Tropical Citrus Cucpakes

Hadn't baked any cupcakes for a while, still really busy with exams and stuff but decided something needed to be done. So I decided to do these tropical citrus cupcakes, its a lemon cupcake filled with zesty lime marmalade and topped with a coconut buttercream, made with coconut extract, and some really bright multi coloured polka dot sprinkles both got from when I was over in America. Manged to get some really good stuff over there, can't believe how great your supermarkets are compared to England, the baking isle is like WOW!! And all the food and stuff..was the highlight of my holiday hehe!! I've fallen in love with Apple Jacks cereal and Froot Loops and just generally everything, I wish I could get some of the stuff over here!! Now just need some more ideas for stuff to bake with them..hmm decisions decisions. Anyhow enough of my mad American food rant, these cakes were so so good and the zesty lime provides a nice balance to the creamy coconut buttercream, even though disastor struck whilst piping and the piping bag burst all over my hands!! So a homemade piping bag had to be made with a wrapper from some gift wrap!! Luckily it still managed to do the job!




Ingredients Needed




Spongebob Baking Cases I picked up in Walmart..in America..Oh yeah!




Cakes out of the oven




Filled wih lime marmalade




Tray of cakes





Finished cake


Tropical Citrus Cupcakes
makes 18

Lemon Cupcakes
180g butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
220g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
4 eggs
300 g (1cup) self-raising flour
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons lemon extract
lime marmalade for filling

1. Preheat the oven to (180C/160C fan assisted) and line muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, this should take from 3-5 minutes.
3. Beat in eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of flour if the mixture shows any signs of curdling.
4. Add milk/flour, alterating, beat in on a low speed until just incorporated. Add 2 teaspoons of lemon extract and divide mixture between baking cases.
5. Bake cakes for 25 minutes or until a toothpick is inserted into the centre and comes out clean, cool on a wire rack.
6. Core out the centres and fill with lime marmalade.

Coconut Buttercream

250g butter, softened
450g icing sugar
2 teaspoons coconut extract
2 tablespoons whipping cream

1. Beat butter until softened and white, add icing sugar a little bit at a time until fully incorporated.
2. Beat in coconut extract and whipping cream until desired conisistency has been achieved.