Butterscotch Cookies

So here's another recipe with my new favourite ingredient- burnt butter!

A lot of the stuff I bake ends up at work- because there aren't enough people in my house to eat it all- but a friend of mine from work is fussy and doesn't like chocolate so I asked him what I could bake that he would eat and enjoy. He came up with butterscotch cookies.

I tried making butterscotch chips to go in the butterscotch cookies, but they never fully set; when chilled it was like toffee, but when heated it melted again! In the end, I made butterscotch flavour cookies, make a hole in the middle and put a lump of butterscotch in there, then rolled them up and baked them like that. This kind of worked! But, they tasted great either way!

Burnt Butter Blueberry Muffins

These muffins are the one. I was a little apprehensive about burning my butter, but omg, these taste so good! The burnt butter creates a smokey wintery taste to the muffin and with the sharp blueberries make a great combo! This recipe is taken from Joy the Baker, one of my favourite bakers and bloggers. I love her style or writing and her recipes are divine!

I have changed the measurements from American to English as I always spend ages converting them in all the recipes I use from America.

Ingredients
100g unsalted butter
80ml whole milk
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
190g plain flour
150g caster sugar
1tsp vanilla
1/ 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4tsp salt

300g fresh blueberries

For Topping

40g butter (cubed)

64g plain flour

45g caster sugar

Method

(preheat the oven to 190 Celsius, line a muffin tin with 12 cases)

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Keep an eye on the butter.  Melt and cook down the butter until little brown bits appear in the pan.  The crackling will subside and butter will begin to brown fairly quickly after that.  Keep a close eye.  Remove from heat.
2. Whisk milk, egg, yolk and vanilla until combined.  Add the brown butter and stir to combine.
3. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl  Add milk and butter mixture all at one and stir gently to combine.  Gently but thoroughly fold in the blueberries.
4. Divide mix between the 12 cases and make the topping my combining the 3 ingredients in a bowl then crumble over muffins
5. Bake for 18-20 minutes then cool in pan for 15 minutes before serving

Enjoy! :) x

Butter Cookies.. with no butter!

Okay, so these cookies taste and almost look like something out of a packet  which is a nice change from post things I bake which have that 'home-made' look about them. I came across the idea of using an American ingredient called 'Butter Crisco' to replace butter in baking and thought it was a terrible idea but the next day I happened to come across an American food section in a farm shop which I love and there, right in front of me was this big tub of Butter flavour Crisco and, I couldn't resist!


It smells and looks so processed and fake 
(I know, i'm really not selling this recipe to you) 
but I used it anyway and the cookies turned out really well, however, if you don't want to use this odd ingredient, or, can't get hold of it- just use the same amount of butter!!


Ingredients
240g butter flavour Crisco (or, butter!)
200g caster sugar
90g brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tbs water
1tsp vanilla
350g plain flour, sifted
1tsp baking soda
1/2tsp salt


Method
(preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius, line 3 baking sheets with greaseproof paper, this recipe makes loads and they do spread out)

1.  In a large bowl, beat together Crisco, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, water and vanilla until fully mixed, get everything off the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and mix again
2. Sieve in the flour, baking soda and salt and mix well
3. Make the mixture into a ball in the mixing bowl and cover with cling film, then put it in the fridge for around half an hour (if you're too impatient to wait, leave for 10..)
4. Now, remove from the fridge, and begin forming 1-inch balls with the mixture by rolling them in your hands.
5. You can make them more like biscuits by making smaller balls, or big cookies by making them slightly bigger
6. Place them, spread widely apart on your baking sheets and slightly flatten the balls
7. Put in the oven for 8-10 minutes, till light brown. They should still look slightly undercooked when you remove them from the oven, this keeps them chewy as they will keep cooking after you have removed them from the oven

Enjoy! x