Halloween Cookies

I've had a break from this blog for nearly a year - as I had to concentrate on revising.  I've finally passed the exam and now never have to sit one again.  I can't tell you what a relief that is.  I also can't really believe that I was still taking exams well into my 30s - definitely one of the downsides of choosing medicine as a career.

Now that have more time on my hands I'm getting right back into my baking, and have been particularly motivated by watching the latest series of Great British Bakeoff.

I've always enjoyed making cookies and biscuits using a wide variety of cookie-cutters, so when the kids were invited to a Halloween party it was the perfect excuse for me to get out my tried-and-tested pumpkin cutter and new-and-exciting ghost cutter.  Taking food with us to a party serves two purposes - it's always lovely for the host to receive home-baked goods and it means that the 3-year-old is definitely allowed to eat something sweet.

I've tried these out with a few flavour combination, but find that orange and cinnamon works best for autumn.  The kids like them in all their incarnations (so far), which is pretty unusual, and explains why I've so much practice making them.

Recipe

Ingredients - Biscuits

90g sunflower spread
100g caster sugar
1 egg
230g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
zest of 1 orange
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Ingredients - Icing

100g icing sugar, sieved
1 egg white (I use powdered, as then it is kid-safe)
Juice of 1 orange

Method

Cream sunflower spread and caster sugar.  Beat in the egg, orange zest and cinnamon.  Mix in the flour and baking powder to make a dough.
Cover in clingfilm and put in the fridge for about an hour

Roll out thinly and cut into your desired shapes

Bake for 8-10 minutes at 180 C

Meanwhile, make the icing sugar by combining the icing sugar and egg white with enough orange to make a spreading consistency and colour as required.

When the biscuits are cool enough, ice them.  The icing will set within about 30 minutes, so you have to work relatively quickly at this stage

Recipe evolution

This is based on Nigella's 'cut-out cookies' from her Feast book, but dairy-free and flavoured for autumn

Variations

Nigella's original recipe calls only for vanilla (1/2 tsp), with plain icing.  Lemon also works well (zest of 1 lemon in the dough and some lemon juice in the icing)

WeightWatchers

Using the recipe builder this works out as 2 propoints per biscuit (if 40 biscuits made - adjust points accordingly if making more or fewer biscuits)

Pumpkins from our vegetable patch last year

Dairy-free Peanut Butter Cookies

This blog seems to be turning into a 'how-to' for good dairy-free baking - which shouldn't really have come as a surprise to me, as I've spent the last 15 months or so perfecting some dairy-free recipes. My goal is always to bake things that work well without dairy products and that I would be happy to eat even if there was a dairy alternative.

I have experimented with a lot of cookies over the last year or so, and although I've found several combinations that work relatively well, these are the best so far. I'm sure that the peanut butter makes all the difference, and the texture is (if I say so myself) perfect. My son absolutely loved them straight out of the oven, but was less keen once they had cooled down. However my daughter (for whom all this dairy-free baking is done) was not at all keen and wouldn't even take a bite, warm or cold.

Myself and my partner loved them however, so I will definitely be making them again.

Ingredients

170g Sunflower Spread ( I use Pure)

105g Demerera Sugar

100 Gram Caster Sugar

1 Egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

185g Crunchy Peanut Butter

260g Plain Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

Method

Beat the sunflower spread and sugars together, before mixing in the peanut butter. Then beat in the rest of the ingredients.

Roll the mixture into approx 2.5 cm sized balls and place on a baking tray. Press down with a fork. Bake them for about 10 minutes at 170 C

Recipe Evolution

This recipe here is the one I adapted, from the excellent website The Joy of Baking

Weightwatchers

If you make 32 of these, then they will have 4 propoints each (using the recipe builder calculator on the website). Without the chocolate chips they will have 3 propoints each, but I haven't tried baking them without the chocolate. I expect they would still be good though.