Violet Macaroons

Violet Cakes' Macaroons

Ever since that afternoon I spent at Violet Cakes however long ago I have been besotted, foolishly besotted, by a macaroon.

Everything else of that afternoon seems distant in my memory now, apart from that golden, crispy, syrupy rounded mound of baked coconut.

Before my near death experience involving sugar, my only knowledge of a macaroon (the real deal, not the contemporaneous meringue kind, I’m talking about the poor macaroon that was overshadowed by that) came from a packet of 4 overly chewy macaroons commonly found in my aunts, or even dating back 10 years ago, my late nan’s flat – where there would always almost certainly be a packet of chocolate dipped store bought macaroons. But hey, I knew no better, and I still ate the whole bloody packet.

Who says the coconut cant be desiccated?! 

The recipe for Violet’s delicate, perfectly proportioned macaroon can thankfully be found in Leon’s Baking &Pudding’s book – I will take this moment to mention how lucky we are that Ptak & the founder of Leon live in the same neighbourhood. Leon is one of the best food chains in England, but truthfully, I bought their book for the macaroon recipe but I’m sure I will be dipping myself into some more recipes such as the Lemon Bars fairly soon (as should the poor soul reading this). 

What really sets this recipe apart from the rest is the addition of honey; it makes the world of difference through extra subtle sweet flavours on top of that already coming from the caster sugar (trust me, it works). It also makes the macaroons extra sticky, so sticky you will need to keep your paper towels well away until its time to wipe the stickiness from your fingers - licking is totally acceptable btw. 

The Recipe: Violet Macaroons

Adapted from Leon Baking & Puddings: Coconut Macaroons 

150g desiccated coconut 

150g caster sugar 

3 egg whites

3 heaped tbsp honey of your choice 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

Makes 6 large macaroons 

Equipment

Deep, medium sized saucepan 

Ice cream scoop

The Method:

Place all the ingredients except vanilla into the saucepan and stir on medium heat until the sugar has dissolved and the bottom of the pan leaves bubbles when scraped across - about 7 minutes. 

Take off heat and leave to cool completely, about 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180 C. 

Place baking parchment over a baking tray. 

Scoop level amounts of mixture straight onto the baking tray making sure they are slightly spaced apart. I used an ice cream scoop to get uniform macaroons. 

Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown. 

Leave the macaroons to cool completely before removing from the parchment. This allows the macaroons to crisp up. 

The macaroons will lose their crispiness if stored in an airtight environment, so try to eat them ALL on the day of baking! 

So, here's the big question that's playing on both our minds - do you plunge yours in chocolate or leave them raw?

Love Em xx 

Brown Butter Buckeyes

Brown Butter Buckeyes 

I am a lazy girl. 

If you’re lazy too, peanut butter balls might just be the key confection you’ve been looking to make all your life, to fill in the gaps between waking up at 1pm and dinner – on your day off, and not the one you called in sick, of course.

I first lay my eyes on these big balls of beauty a year ago here, I luuuurvved the idea of digestives adding an extra crunch to a sweet peanut butter candy, it works especially well for anyone who is not a fan of crunchy peanut butter.

After a scant bit of research I was fully ready to create my own delicious peanut butter balls (not to be mistaken for the overly sweet cake pop). The name ‘Buckeye’ comes from the Ohio buckeye tree in America and the balls are made to look like an actual buckeye which falls off the tree in the autumn/fall. If you’re having trouble placing an Ohio buckeye tree into your imagination, just think of a conker. So famous buckeyes are to this state, that they have even named a football team after it!

The traditional recipe for a buckeye calls for 6 cups of icing sugar. My recipe has a quarter of that, more cream cheese and a whole lot more of digestives.

Lastly, if you want an even richer nutty flava then it is absolutely necessary to brown that butter! It will add just 20 minutes to your assembly job (because it would be a crime to call this sort of think baking) but you won’t regret it I promise, lazy being. 

Buckeyes with brown butter

The Recipe
Makes 26 Buckeyes 

100g cream cheese
390g smooth peanut butter
145g brown butter* or plain unsalted, melted
300g icing sugar
14 digestive biscuits/350g
For the coating:
350g good quality melted chocolate of your choice

Special Equipment
Toothpicks
Vegetable oil (to thin the melted chocolate out)
Electric scales

Note* if you're gonna go ahead and brown the butter, all you need to do is put it in a saucepan on medium heat and whisk away until the frothy goodness turns a light shade of golden brown.

The method

Start with the digestives; there are two ways to get a shardy yet fine-ish crumble with these - which is exactly what you want. You can either give them a 30 second whizz in the food processer (my preferred method, do this if you're lazy and own a dishwasher), or put them all in a sturdy plastic food bag and beat them up with a rolling pin.

In the bowl freestanding mixer or a large bowl and an electric whisk, beat the peanut butter and cream cheese until the mix has lightened in colour - about half a minute.

Add all of the digestive crumbs to the peanut butter, remembering to scrape down the sides of the bowl for even distribution.

Alternately add the brown butter (it doesn't have to be cold when you add it in!) and icing sugar until you get a huge bowl of thick golden crumbly looking stuff. Set aside. The buckeye filling will last in the fridge for 3 days so you can always wrap it in cling film and come back to it when you're ready.

Next, line a fairly large baking sheet with parchment. Depending on how anal you are, grab a pair of scales and weigh out pieces of peanut butter dough at 43-45 grams each. This weight gives a big buckeye.

With each piece of buckeye, stretch out both your palms with the dough in the middle and gently roll it around until eventually, you have a round ball. Do this until you have no dough left and put in the fridge to set for at least 20 minutes.

Melt the chocolate over a ban merie. Add no more than a tablespoon vegetable oil to the melted chocolate and stir in to give a smoother consistency.

Pick up a buckeye with a toothpick and gently immerse the ball 3 quarters the way into the chocolate and roll around until you have what looks like a 'buckeye' (a bit of peanut butter showing at the top).

Put back on the baking tray and take the toothpick out.

Leave to set until the chocolate coating hardens and enjoy for 3 days!

BEFORE I FORGET! Keep your buckeyes in the fridge for ultimate freshness. Although...I highly doubt they will last long enough for that!

Love Em xx

Traditional Petticoat Tail Shortbread

Traditional shortbread with rice flour 

I have no idea how my desperate desire to bake something festive somehow translated into traditional shortbread – look, it’s even round like they do in Scotland! Having said that, I have no idea if this is even constituted as Scottish shortbread, anyone? 

For days now I’ve just craved biscuits and fresh, raw raspberries, but I can't bake those so they don't get a blog post. All I wanted was two things from these biccys: that they were home baked and that they included those festive Christmas spices. Y’know, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and a bitta cinnamon?

I knew I couldn’t bake the bog standard non temperamental gingerbread man recipe, this is a blog for grown-ups after all, so then the search began... the search for a biscuit which contained those beautifully tasting and oh so aromatic spices, but that wasn’t specifically a traditional a gingerbread man recipe. It was a disaster. There is NO SUCH THING. I came across this one recipe; it was from a shabby website which clearly hadn't been updated since the 17^th century so god knows why I put my trust in it and went ahead, 3 eggs I used!

I was originally after a Christmas spiced shortbread, the biscuits (if you can call them that) were not at all ‘short’ and certainly weren’t spicy enough! They were these crunchy, tough and downright ugly plaques of sugar in my eyes – see if you can spot them down below (I call it the name and shame)… 

So that’s when the shortbread was born, at 2 in the morning, after a frustratingly painful bake off it was time to just adapt from a real recipe from a real website and viola… short, delicate and just the right yield. Hey ho (ho-ho), maybe my next post will cease from such arrogance and be filled with some spicy real gingerbread men! 

Traditional Shortbread

The Recipe: (all of the 'good quality' variation)

115g unsalted butter at room temperature 

40g rice flour

130g plain flour 

55g caster sugar plus extra for dusting 

Pinch of salt (optional)

Note: Rice flour can be found in most continental aisles in the supermarket. Or, if there is no such thing in your area, you can substitute it for 40g of cornflour. It does the same job, only, giving a more delicate as opposed to 'grainy' mouth feel.  

The Method:

Preheat the oven to 150C. 

In a large bowl lightly cream the butter and the sugar till fairly smooth, with a wooden or plastic spatula. 

Add both of the flour at once, along with the optional pinch of salt.

With a clean hand, start moulding the dough together using a groping/squeezing motion, until all of the ingredients are barely strung together. 

Grease an 8 inch sandwich tin with butter.

Put the dough in the tin and press neatly into the corner, remembering to use a light hand.

Decorate accordingly, using a fork to poke holes into the dough to allow air to escape. Score portions into your petticoat if you wish.

Dust with caster sugar/sprinkle it all over and bake for 50 minutes.

Leave to cool completely in the tin, the shortbread should come out of the tin very easily after its cooled! 

Have you been doing any festive baking? Tell me about it, lets share our disasters :) Love Em xx