Marshmallow Malteser Cookies

These are the stuff of dreams, the ultimate weekend cookie!! Perfect for the Week of Cookies here on Milis!

I wanted to make a new cookie and my boyfriend had recently asked if I could put marshmallows into brownies, so with that in mind I created this bad boy!

I used the successful cookie dough from the Nutella Pillow Cookies, added in some broken up Maltesers and chopped marshmallows at the last minute (I gently mixed these in using a dessert spoon) et voila!

These are not for the faint-hearted! The marshmallow brings a sweet candy-floss like flavour to them, but the Maltesers added great depth to the cookies and I will definitely be using them again to flavour recipes in the future!

I wanted to leave some chunks of Malteser in the cookies so I roughly bashed them with a mallet! I didn't have any ziplock bags so I made an envelope out of baking parchment, taping up the sides. 

For the marshmallows, I used mini ones (I got these in Aldi, perfect for hot choc!) I halved them using a scissors which easily the most efficient way to halve marshmallows!






You will need:

1 1/2 Cup Self-Raising Flour, sieved

1/2 Cup Butter at Room Temp.

1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Medium Eggs

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1 Cup Marshmallows (Mini, halved)

1 Cup Maltesers (Bashed)

1. Preheat your oven to 170degrees Celcius.
2. Line a baking tray with baking parchment.
3. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the sugars and butter until fluffy.
4. Add the egg and vanilla extract while beating.
5. Once incorporated, turn off mixer.
6. Sift in 1/4 cup of flour. Beat until incorporated.
7. Repeat step four twice more so that all of the flour is added.
8. Sprinkle some sea salt on the cookies before baking, this really adds depth to the flavour.
9. Bake for 14minutes, until slightly golden at the edges but still spongey/soft in the middle. These cookies continue to cook once you remove them from the oven so DO NOT OVERBAKE. Removing them any later than 16minutes will result in rock hard, inedible cookies trust me! Allow the marshmallows to caramelise but not burn.
10. Leave to cool on the baking tray for 5-10minutes.
11. Remove onto a wire rack.
12. Enjoy!

Come back tomorrow for delicious dark cookies!

Stay sweet! x

Scumptious Oat-Rolled Cookies

These beauties are insane! I know, you're looking at them saying "a porridge cookie, really??" But they're nothing like what you would expect! As a self-proclaimed chocaholic I actually love these, sans the brown stuff. They're buttery yet crunchy, fast to make yet scrumptious, drool-inducing... ENOUGH! Make these now! :)

They're whipped up in less than twenty minutes, are a fraction healthier with the addition of oats plus, when can you go wrong with a cherry on top? ;)

Plus, I think kids would enjoy making these as there's a bit of fun to be had with the oats!

These came courtesy of Mary Berry's The Baking Bible (with a few alterations). I implore you to take time out of your weekend and enjoy these with a cup of tea! 

   

You will need
8oz Butter (softened)
6oz Caster Sugar
2 large Egg yolks
Few drops Vanilla Extract
10oz Self-Raising Flour 
2oz Old-fashioned Porridge Oats (on a separate plate)
12 Glacé Cherries (chopped)

1. Preheat oven to 190degrees Celcius (fan-assisted) or 170degrees Celcius (minus the fan!)
2. Line trays with baking parchment.
3. Chop cherries into 3-4 pieces, whatever's easiest for you!
4. Mix together butter, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla and flour.
5. Form little balls out of the dough.
6. Roll these balls in the oats until covered.
7. Place in tray, flatten slightly and top with a piece of cherry.
8. Bake for 20minutes or until golden.
9. Allow to cool on trays for a few minutes before removing to wire rack.
10. Enjoy!

Come back tomorrow for another fab cookie recipe!

Have a great Saturday and stay sweet! x

Vanilla Chocolate Swirl Cookies

The Week of Cookies continues, today with an eye-catching cookie that's so impressive looking but only requires minimum effort!

I just finished reading The Great Gatsby, and although I detailed how to host the greatest Gatsby party here, I think these monochrome treats would look fab in a 20's themed party!

I sliced these cookies up using unflavoured dental floss, major trick of the trade! It's quick, pain-free as there's no chance of chopping a finger off, plus you get uniform slices. Just put the dough on top of the floss, drag the two ends of the floss to meet at the top of the log, overlap them and pull! Et voila!

Confession: When I made these cookies I found the chocolate part to be overly bitter, so perhaps using your personal favourite chocolate biscuit recipe would be advisable... I've included this one from Mary Berry's Baking Bible below nonetheless.


You will need:
For the Vanilla Biscuit-
2oz Butter (softened)
1oz Caster Sugar
1oz Cornflour
2oz Plain Flour
1 Small Egg
A few drops Vanilla Extract

For the Chocolate Biscuit-
2oz Butter (softened)
1oz Caster Sugar
1oz Cornflour
2oz Plain Flour
1 Small Egg
1/2oz Cocoa Powder

1. Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment.
2. Mix ingredients for vanilla biscuits in a stand mixture to form a soft dough. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.
3. Repeat step 2 with ingredients for chocolate biscuits.
4. Flour your worktop and roll out both pieces of dough to oblongs about 10x7inches.
5. Place vanilla dough on top of chocolate dough and roll together to form a kind of sausage shape.
6. Wrap in clingfilm and chill again for 30 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 180degrees Celcius. 
8. Using a sharp knife, or tooth floss, cut the roll into about 20 slices and place on baking trays.
9. Bake for 20 minutes until the vanilla is lightly golden.
10. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
11. As my chocolate section was quite bitter I melted some white chocolate in a double boiler and drizzled (well smothered!) over the top, bellissimo!
12. Enjoy!

Let me know what you think of these pretty pinwheels in the comment section below! :)

Stay sweet! x

Jammy Dodger Hearts

To continue with the Week of Cookies to celebrate Milis' one year blogoversary I'm sharing with you one of my most popular recipes!

Confession: my boyfriend berates me for naming these jammy dodgers as there's no buttercream in the filling. If you want to add in a dab of buttercream, be my guest- just let me know how it goes! ;) Personally, I think these are perfect just with jam!

These are a major crowd-pleaser and have a huge yield! The buttery crumb of the cookie is complimented brilliantly by the tang of strawberry jam! Bonus points, these are super easy to make!

These would be perfect for Valentine's Day, an anniversary or just to say 'I Love You' to someone special! 

I made them originally to celebrate my sister's engagement (very appropriate!) but if you don't have heart-shaped cookie cutters, a large glass and bottle cap would make equally pretty cookies. 

I kept the innards of my cookies (the tiny hearts) and served them in small bowls, they were yummy and great to pick on, sans jam! 

You will need:
1 cup of butter (at room temperature)
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
2 tbsp light brown sugar
2 cups plain/cream/all-purpose flour
1 egg
1/2 jar of your favourite spreadable strawberry preserve

1. Preheat your oven to 176degrees Celcius.
2. Line two to three baking sheets with baking parchment.
3. In a stand-mixer, beat together butter, sugars and flour together until partially combined with the rest resembling a dusty-sand.
4. Add in the egg. Beat until combined.
5. Flour a counter top and roll out to about 1/4 inch thick.
6. Cut out shapes and transfer onto baking sheets. *I cut out the large hearts first, then counted them, and used the tiny heart cutter to cut the centre out of half of the batch.
7. Cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for 10 minutes (this prevents spreading in the oven).
8. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
9. Leave cool for ten minutes before transferring onto a wire rack.
10. Piece together using your strawberry preserve.
11. Enjoy!

Come back tomorrow for #3 in the Week of Cookies!

Stay sweet! x

Nutella Pillow Cookies

The cookies I made last week were such a hit that last night I recreated them using only what I had in the cupboards. I love that you don’t need chocolate chips to have an incredible cookie. 

Best part is, they took less than thirty minutes to make, or the time it took the boyfriend to go to town and rent Django Unchained (granted, it's a smaller batch!) You’ll never have to buy cookies again!

This recipe requires a measuring cup, if you don't own one don't try to use average cups- chaos will ensue! You can buy really cheap ones here or use this handy cups to grams converter.

Cream the sugars and butter until they look fluffy, as shown above.

This is the consistency of your finished dough... Which also tastes incredible raw,FYI.

Cookie baking can be a messy business... One of those things you wish you had three hands for! :)

You can probably tell from this picture just how much these beauties spread while baking.

You can see that straight from the oven this cookie is golden on the outside and spongey in the centre! I love the marbled effect from some Nutella-strewn dough! :)

Yield: 5 huge cookies (just double up to make a larger batch, but don’t underestimate how big these guys are!)

You will need:

3/4 Cup Self-Raising Flour, sieved

1/4 Cup Butter at Room Temp.

1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Medium Egg

1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

5 Dessert Spoons Nutella

1. Preheat your oven to 170degrees Celcius.
2. Line a baking tray with baking parchment.
3. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the sugars and butter until fluffy.
4. Add the egg and vanilla extract while beating.
5. Once incorporated, turn off mixer.
6. Sift in 1/4 cup of flour. Beat until incorporated.
7. Repeat step four twice more so that all of the flour is added.
8. Here comes the messy part! Scoop out some dough onto the palm of your hand.
9. Place a tablespoon of Nutella on top of the dough.
10. Place another spoon of dough on top of this. Ensure that all of the Nutella is sealed by the dough, place on prepared baking tray. *Act quickly as the dough will melt from the heat of your hand. Scrape off excess dough/Nutella from your hand back into the mix, you'll need all the dough you have!*
11. Sprinkle some sea salt on the cookies before baking, this really adds depth to the flavour.
12. Bake for 14minutes, until slightly golden at the edges but still spongey/soft in the middle. These cookies continue to cook once you remove them from the oven so DO NOT OVERBAKE. Removing them any later than 16minutes will result in rock hard, inedible cookies trust me!
13. Leave to cool on the baking tray for 5-10minutes.
14. Remove onto a wire rack.
15. Enjoy!

Although this is a small batch it's easy to double up but I liked having all the cookies gone in one night-less temptation the following morning!

These cookies got a great response on Facebook, a few people have already recreated the recipe- let me know what you think in the comments section below!

Don't forget to tune into sUCCulent 98.3fm on Thursday 11-noon!

Until then...

Stay sweet! x

Giant Nutella-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

I discovered these cookies on Two Peas and Their Pod. Maria Lichty is the undisputed Queen of Cookies, and this is yet another one of her genius brainwaves. These were perfect for last Thursday's show (mostly because I didn't have enough chocolate chips to make decent cookies!) They turned out even better than I had expected. 

Think Nutella lava cakes, but better! I hear you- how could anything be better than those sweet little cupcakes? Because the juxtaposition between the crunchy cookie, and the vanilla-sugar taste of the dough is deepened by the addition of luscious addition of Nutella... I could sit here and drool over my keyboard all day. YUM! I intend on making these again soon minus the chocolate chips but with extra Nutella, as a kind of pillow cookie... Watch this space ;)

These cookies were HUGE! I scooped them into relatively medium sized balls yet they still spread so much during baking. Here's a large baking tray that just fits my oven (as in, slots into the tray holders at the side). Yes, it only held four cookies!

I did find that my yield was a little smaller than the dozen Maria had suggested; nonetheless every morsel was delicious!

I've been saying this a lot lately, but these cookies could just be the nicest thing I've ever baked!

Apologies for the lack of 'before' shots, my brain was not in blogger mode... I made these at 8.30am last Thursday! You probably already knew that if you follow me on twitter @orlmurf. FYI, you can use your twitter account to follow the blog, so handy!

They're incredibly easy to make though, just bung everything into a stand mixer and let it do all the work! :) This is a really great base cookie dough recipe and until I find a better one (if that's even possible) I'll use it as my standard one! 

Two exceptions to the listed recipe: 

1. I didn't include any salt in the actual cookie because I used normal butter (some claim that by using unsalted butter, you can regulate how much salt you bake with by adding it in yourself after, personally I find unsalted butter hard to come by so I just used regular Irish Creamery Butter!). I did however sprinkle sea salt on top of the cookie dough mounds before baking, definitely a must-do! 
2. I only used a teaspoon of Nutella inside the cookies **Confession: this was a mistake, my sleepy eyes misread the quantity! But it worked out great, as you can see below!**

I love the philosophy behind these cookies, the same as that of a Baked Alaska, or the Mint Cupcakes I made for St. Patrick's Day... Once you seal in whatever you're hiding inside your dessert it won't melt. So the world is your Nutella-stuffed cookie! Check out Picky Palate for loads more stuffed cookie recipes!

I also compared these cookies to Subway's Chocolate Chip Cookie (all in the name of research!) and found that this is a much more similar cookie to those I made last year (however the Copy Cat Cookies have a much larger yield so might be better for large gatherings!)

Make your Monday a little brighter, and bake these cookies!

Stay sweet! x