On the first day of Christmas (Jam Cookies)

A few of you asked what my next project was going to be now that my A.. B.. Cupcakes project is finally finished. Well, since it is nearly Christmas I thought why not bake some sweet Christmas treats? So my friends I present to you the...
Between now and Christmas I will post 12 Christmas recipes - including truffles, cookies, cakes and candy. It is going to be fun, and I hope you stick around for the ride!

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me Jam Cookies!

I thought I would start off the project with a relatively simple cookie and this Jam cookie sounded just right. Once I started making it however I ran into a few problems. First of all the dough was supposed to come together so that it could be kneaded. My dough looked like a big bunch of crumbs, so I had to alter the recipe a bit.

Then my next issue was that they were supposed to bake in 8-10 minutes, after 20 minutes I decided that the temperature must of been too low so I pumped it up and then burnt them. See the bottom of the cookies weren't too bad...


But the tops were a bit dark...


Then when you see the bottom and the top next to each other you can really notice the difference, whoops!


Luckily you dust these babies with a whole heap of icing sugar so no one needs to know just how much you over-baked them...


And also the icing sugar leaves a cool pattern on your bench top...


And everyone is more forgiving when you pile on the jam...


Even after all the issues with these cookies they were still pretty good, just like a hazelnut shortbread with jam and icing sugar to make it nice and super sweet (just the way I like it).


Jam Cookies (from Better Homes and Gardens - December 2008)
Makes about 12 biscuits

125g unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups plain flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1/3 cup hazelnuts, toasted, finely chopped
1 egg
extra flour, for kneading
1 cup plum jam (I used strawberry jam)
icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 160C (I would try 170C if I made these again). Line 2 oven trays with baking paper.
   
2. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla extract until light and creamy.
   
3. Add flours and hazelnuts and mix until well combined (at this stage I added in a beaten egg - because my dough wouldn't come together).
4. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently.
5. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface until 6mm thick. Using a 4cm fluted cutter (I just used a circle cutter), cut out rounds. Using a smaller fluted cutter (I used a small star cutter), cut out the centres from half the cookies. (Re-roll the centres into extra cookies if desired.)
6. Put whole cookies on 1 prepared tray and cut-out cookies on the other. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until pale golden (I would try at 170C for 10 minutes if I made these again).
7. When cooled sprinkle icing sugar over the cut-out cookies and jam over the whole cookies, then sandwich the two pieces together.
8. Best enjoyed on the day of baking or the next day.

Rating
3 out of 5 reindeers!

R is for Raspberry White Chocolate Cupcakes...

White chocolate mud cake with raspberry swirled through, topped with whipped cream and raspberry jam.

Now before we start can I first say sorry in advance, these cupcakes were a disaster! I was so excited about this weeks cupcakes. The plan was to make white chocolate mud cupcakes with raspberry swirled through it, top it with raspberry swiss meringue buttercream and then some white chocolate curls. Doesn't that sound good? Yeah I thought so too.

I taught myself a valuable lesson with these cupcakes, if you add too much liquid to cupcake batter you will end up of with horribly misshaped volcano looking thingys that can not leave the household unless you want to bring great shame upon your name. I should have added a few whole raspberries to each cupcake, but I didn't. Instead I thought it would be cool to mush up the raspberries and add a large tablespoon to each cupcake - this is not a good idea, don't do it. The cupcakes were so bad that I didn't even make my SMBC. Instead I picked out the best looking one, topped it with some whipped cream and raspberry jam and took my photo to record my disaster. The rest of the cupcakes were broken up put into a large bowl with some custard, strawberry jelly and whipped cream, and was made into a divine trifle. May I suggest you do this if you have any baking disasters - it was fabulous! Anyway I will now give you the recipe - proceed with caution...

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberries (adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly - Cupcakes)
Makes 16 cupcakes

250g unsalted butter, chopped
160g white chocolate
440g caster sugar
250ml milk
150g plain flour
150g self-raising flour
2 eggs
300g frozen raspberries, thawed

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius and line 2 12-hole muffin trays with cupcake cases.
2. Combine butter, chocolate, sugar and milk in small saucepan; stir over low heat until smooth. Transfer mixture to medium bowl; cool 15 minutes.
3. Whisk in sifted flours, then eggs. Divide mixture among cases.
4. Add 2 or 3 raspberries to each case - DON'T mush up the raspberries and swirl through like I did.
5. Bake for 30 minutes.
6. Top with whipped cream and raspberry jam, if desired.

The ratings?

1/10 - they tasted alright, but everything else about them was a complete disaster :(

Baking Mondays - D is for Doughnuts

Doughnut cupcakes filled with raspberry jam, topped with a doughnut glaze and sprinkles.

This week I was on a mission to make doughnut flavoured cupcakes. I scoured the blog world looking for a suitable recipe and I came across this recipe from Coconut & Lime. Looked good so I thought I would give it a try. I decided to double the recipe so that Mat would have enough cupcakes to take to work and there was my first mistake. Here is a simple mathematics question - what is a quarter of a cup of butter doubled? I can tell you that it is not 1 cup of butter - which is what I accidentally put in. Thankfully the cupcakes still turned out alright even though I doubled the amount of butter in them. While the Coconut & Lime recipe suggested using icing sugar on top of the cupcakes I decided to make a glaze that was on Bakerella's website - wasn't quite what I was looking for, but oh well.

Now the ratings...

Me - 6/10, the cake tasted good but not amazing - and it didn't taste much like a doughnut at all :(
Mat - 6/10, he wasn't sure why there was a need for lemon zest in the cakes. He thinks I should of consulted him on the flavour of the cake and that I need to try again :P

ETA - If I had actually put in the right amount of butter I'm sure these cupcakes would of been great - note to self: redo the batch if I make a mistake like that again (sorry Rachel from Coconut & Lime for not mentioning this earlier).