Gingerbread And White Chocolate Chip Cookies

These little biscuits make a nice change from ordinary cookies. The sweetness of the white chocolate works well with the heat of the gingerbread, and they have a nice "chewy" consistency rather than the hard crunch of a gingernut. They are perfect for giving as gifts, or for enjoying with the hot drink of your choice. This recipe will make about 35 biscuits, but of course this depends on the size. I chose to keep them small but they will work well as giant cookies too.

Ingredients:

400g Plain Flour
3/4 Tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda
2 Tsp Ground Ginger
2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves
1/4 Tsp Ground Nutmeg
180g Salted Butter (room temperature)
125g Dark Muscovodo Sugar
40g Black Treacle
80g Golden Syrup
100g White Chocolate Chips
1 Egg

Method:

In a bowl, sift together the flour, spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg) and bicarbonate of soda. 

In a separate, larger bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add to this the egg, treacle and syrup and beat until thoroughly combined. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients - it's best to do it two or three tablespoons at a time to prevent the flour from going everywhere, especially if you are using a handheld electric whisk like me. Once you have a smooth mixture, gently fold in the chocolate chips. 

You should now have a slightly sticky, but not runny, dough. Wrap this in clingfilm and leave it in the fridge to chill for at least a couple of hours, but ideally overnight.

Once you are ready to make your cookies, preheat your over to 170 degrees (or 150 for a fan oven). Line a baking tray with a sheet of greaseproof paper, and take the gingerbread dough out of the fridge. I found it best to warm it up by working it in my hands for a minute or two before rolling it out. You want to roll it to a thickness of about 5mm. This will give the biscuits a nice, soft texture. Use the cookie cutter of your choice to cut your biscuits and place them onto the baking tray. Make sure you leave a decent gap between them as they will expand, and you could potentially end up with a single, giant cookie! 

Bake the biscuits for 12-15 minutes until they have risen and are a nice golden colour. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Rocky Road Muffins

If anything can brighten up a dreary Monday, it's chocolate. And gooey marshmallows. And more chocolate. This is a really easy recipe, and one that would probably be quite fun to do with kids too.

Ingredients

225g/8oz Plain Flour
55g/2oz Cocoa Powder (I used Bournville)
1 tbsp Baking Powder
Pinch Of Salt
115g/4oz Caster Sugar
50g/1 3/4oz Plain Chocolate Chips
50g/ 1 3/4oz White Chocolate Chips
50g/ 1 3/4oz White Mini Marshmallows (or big ones chopped up)
2 Eggs
250ml/ 9 fl oz Milk (I used skimmed as that's what I had in the fridge)
85g/3oz Butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (or 180 if using a fan oven like me) /400 degrees f/ gas mark. Prepare a 12 cup muffin tin (either grease it, or line it with paper cases). 

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and then stir in the sugar, chocolate chips and marshmallows.

Lightly beat the eggs in another bowl before beating in the milk and the butter.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the beaten liquid ingredients into it. Gently stir until just combined. If you over mix it, it will become tough. I prefer to do the mixing by hand.

Spoon the mixture into the cases. An ice cream scoop also works brilliantly for this. Bake for 15-20 minutes until a cake tester (or cocktail stick!) can be pushed into the cake, and comes out clean. Leave in the tin for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.

When cooled, DEVOUR!!!

Although this recipe should make 12 muffins, I actually got 12 muffins and 6 smaller cakes out of it. Sadly, this means I have some extra cakes to eat. I shall be enjoying mine with a mug of Whittards Rocky Road hot chocolate.