Thursday 26 April 2012

Oreos!

Admit it. Who doesn't love oreos? They're amazing! The person who cam up with the idea of getting two delicious chocolate biscuits and sticking them together with icing to make one biscuit is a genius. A god. It's probably one of the best inventions since...a while. Either way, they're good, so when I saw this recipe, I knew I had to make oreos out of them. I didn't use the icing recipe that she gave though, I used a slightly different one, but I think that it worked really well, so that's the one I'm going to give you all. Enjoy!


Oreos
Bare Necessities
For The Cookies
1 1/2cups/150g Flour
2/3cups/66g Cocoa Powder
1 1/4cups/155g Icing Sugar
1 Egg
1tsp Vanilla Essence
3/4cups/170g Butter


For The Filling
2cups Icing Sugar
1/2cup Butter
2tsp Vanilla Essence
1tbsp Milk


1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence until it's fully combined.
3. Gently fold in the flour, cocoa powder and icing sugar until it is all mixed in.
4. Gather your dough together in a ball, wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge for about 1 hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
6. On a lightly dusted surface, roll out the dough to about 1 or 2 cm thick and cut out smallish circles with a cutter and place it on a greased baking tray.
7. Pop in the oven for about 10 minutes.
8. When they're cooked, put them on a cooling rack to cool.
9. Blend the remaining icing sugar, butter, vanilla essence and milk together until light and very fluffy.
10. Put the icing in the fridge for a bit to chill it.
11. Once both the icing and cookies are cool, take one cookie, spread some icing on it, place another cookie on top, push them together slightly and put it on a plate.
12. Repeat this until you have used up all your cookies and put your oreos in the fridge to chill.
13. Enjoy!

Wednesday 18 April 2012

The Best Blueberry Muffins

These are nice. I love blueberry muffins anyways, so maybe I'm a tad bias, but honestly? These are nice. My mum actually had them for breakfast every morning for about a two weeks, and she doesn't even normally have breakfast! I'd actually been wanting to find a really decent blueberry muffin recipe for a while now, so when I saw this over here, I knew I had to make them. This recipe is a direct copy from the original blog that I found them on, and to be honest, I wouldn't change a thing now that I've tried it, it worked perfectly!

The Best Blueberry Muffins
Bare Necessities
3cups/300g Plain Flour
1/2tsp Baking Soda/Bicarbonate Of Soda
1tbsp Baking Powder
1cup/225g Sugar
2 Eggs
1 1/2cups/375ml Plain Yogurt
the zest of 1 Lemon
1 1/2cups/150g Blueberries
1/2cup/114g Butter

1. Preheat the your oven to 375F/190C.
2. Line your muffin tin. I don't remember how many I made, but I think it was about 24.
3. Beat the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy.
4. Add the butter and beat until it is fully mixed in.
5. Add the baking soda, baking powder and half the flour and fold it in.
6. Mix in the yogurt.
7. Fold in the remaining flour.
8. Stir in the zest and blueberries, but be careful not to squish the blueberries too much, or your muffins will go a grey-ey purple and won't look as nice.
9. Pour the batter equally into all your muffin cups and pop in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until a nice golden colour and a knife comes out clean.
10. Pop onto a cooling rack to cool and then enjoy!

Tuesday 10 April 2012

Ever So Slightly Naughty Peanut Butter Cake Bars

Bit of a mouthful isn't it? The title, I mean, not the food, that all depends on how you cut it. No, I mean the title, it's a bit long, not very catchy, but, to be honest, this recipe is what the title says, no catchy way about it. Well, none that I can think of. Sadly, the long title means that I don't really need to talk to you all about how yummy but ever so slightly naughty it is, or how peanut buttery it is.


Damn.


Well, whatever.

I love peanut butter. It's second best to Nutella, and that's no exaggeration. Loads of my friends seem to have favourites, they prefer nutty or smooth. Me? Well for me it tends to depend on my mood. And what there is lying around. At home there is usually nutty, but at school we now seem to be getting smooth. Not that I care in the slightest. I mean, as long as there IS some, who cares? Apparently, peanut butter is very good for you, high in protein and all. My brother loves the stuff, we go through it almost by the barrel at home. I was lucky there was enough to make this! This is, if my memory serves me right, the first peanut butter related recipe I've made before, so I was pretty chuffed with how it turned out. I got the idea to do a peanut butter recipe when I visited my friend in Brighton, I sat there with her very cute 7-year-old brother (who made me the most awesome birthday card) playing top trumps whilst she made some lush peanut butter cupcakes for us. I also remember how there was this one that came out that looked a bit like a mushroom. Not that that's to do with anything.


Ok, so now I'm rambling. I'll get on with the recipe.


Ever So Slightly Naughty Peanut Butter Cake Bars
Bare Necessities
2/3cups/150g Butter
2/3cups/165g Peanut Butter
2cups/425g Sugar (use any sugar you want for this, I didn't have enough caster sugar at the time so I did half caster, half brown. Having said that, if you are using only brown, use slightly less than 2 cups, simply because brown sugar is sweeter.)
4 Eggs
2tsp Vanilla Essence
1cup/100g Plain Flour
2tsp Baking Powder
Chocolate Chips (I didn't have enough of these either, so use as many as you want, within reason. One small pack should do)


1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Cream together the butter, peanut butter and sugar until light(ish) in colour and completely blended.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time and beating thoroughly after each one to minimise curdling and such. Don't worry if it does curdle though, it doesn't really affect the taste or texture once it's cooked.
4. Mix in the vanilla essence.
5. Stir in the flour and baking powder and chocolate chips until fully combined.
6. Grease and line a baking tray.
7. Pour in the mixture, trying not to lick the bowl yet.
8. Pop in the oven.
9. After 15 minutes, turn the temperature down to 150C and leave for another 15 minutes or so, but I'd check after 10 minutes to see how cooked it is. It will all depend on your oven.
10. Once it is cooked, take it out of the oven and turn it out onto a cooling rack, cut up into pieces and enjoy!