Speculoos and Raspberry Blondies

Ever since I tried a sample of biscuit butter in a recent Flavourly box, I’ve been obsessed with the stuff. Essentially it’s the paste version of a Belgian biscuit called ‘speculoos’ and the UK are only just catching on to how delicious the stuff is! I’ve been using Biscuit Butter which can be bought online or in a range of delis and foody outlets, but Lotus has also launched a biscuit spread that can be found in Tesco.

Speculoos paste is great in hot chocolate, as a pancake topper and it adds a delicious cinnamony flavour to this white chocolate blondie recipe.

Ingredients:

200g white chocolate
80g butter
35g Biscuit Butter or other speculoos spread
3 medium eggs
130g caster sugar
125g plain flour
20g self raising flour
125g raspberries (optional)

Preheat your oven 170°C and line a 20cm square baking tin. Melt together the butter, speculoos spread and chocolate in a heat-proff bowl over a pan of simmering water.

In a seperate mixing bowl whisk the eggs and sugar. Pour the melted chocolate into the egg and sugar mixture and thoroughly combine. Then add the flour and stir until the flour has just disappeared. Finally add the raspberries if you are using them.

Tip the mixture into your prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes. When the top is golden brown and the inside is still slghtly gooey take the blondies out of the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin and placing on a cooling tray.

“Odds and Ends” Flapjack

I love flapjack; it’s tasty, oats are good for you, and as this recipe proves, you can add almost anything (within reason). I had quite a few “last bits” left of a few ingredients, so decided to whack them all together in a flapjack. Apologies for the lack of precision with this recipe, I measured things in handfuls, but you really can make it up as you go along, adding a bit more of something if necessary.

 

Ingredients

• A couple of big handfuls of oats
• A big scoop of butter
• A glug of golden syrup
• A slight sprinkle of caster sugar

“Odds and Ends Ingredients” (this is just what I had left in the cupboard)

• A handful of raisins
• A handful of leftover muesli
• A handful of leftover strawberry crunch cereal
• A few pieces of honeycomb
• A handful of cashew nuts

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl, adding a little more of anything that looks too less. It’s a good idea to have more oats than anything else as the flapjack will bind better this way.
• Next, in a saucepan, melt the butter and golden syrup over a very gentle heat.
• When the butter has just melted, carefully pour the syrup mixture over the oats and stir until fully combined.
• Ensure all the dry ingredients are covered with the syrup mixture, if not, melt a little more butter and syrup and add until it is. I had to add a little more butter, as otherwise the flapjack would have been very crumbly.
• Transfer into a lined baking tin and gently press the flapjack down.
• Bake in the centre of the oven for about 20-25 mins or until golden brown.
• Carefully take the flapjack out of the oven and with a knife, score down the flapjack where you want to divide it into pieces, then leave it to cool in the tin. This just makes it easier to cut properly once it’s fully cooled.
• Leave to cool then enjoy!

Raspberry and Caramel Brownies

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I made brownies- almost a year! Since the orange brownies that I posted back in May were so popular I decided to make a variation with raspberries, my other favourite fruit to bake with. And because I never get tired of caramel I made a last minute decision to use that as well. You can use my recipe here or use a shop bought dessert sauce. I like Tescos Finest Salted Caramel Sauce.

Ingredients:

200g 70% dark chocolate (broken into squares)

300g unsalted butter (cubed)

4 medium eggs

300g caster sugar

135g self-raising flour

100g plain flour

125g raspberries

8-12 tsp caramel sauce (straight from the fridge)

 

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and grease a 20cm square tray.

Melt the butter and the sugar together in a saucepan over a low heat and add the chocolate. Remove from the heat. Separately, whisk the eggs before adding to the saucepan. In a separate bowl whisk the flour, and then gradually combine the dry ingredients with the mixture in the saucepan. Finally stir in the raspberries.

Spoon half the mixture into the tin and then gently blob teaspoons of caramel sauce at intervals on the top. Then add the rest of the brownie mix and and bake for 35 minutes, until the top is cracked and an inserted knife comes out with only a little of the inside attached. Allow to cool completely before cutting into squares. Brownies keep for several days in a sealed tin- though I don’t know anyone who’s  had brownies long enough to go stale!

Chocolate Orange Brownies

This recipe makes ridiculously huge, melt-in-the-middle, orangey brownies. Incredibly decadent, easy to cook and if taken out of the oven too soon, a great chocolate pudding! The height in these brownies is achieved through the extra self-raising flour.

Ingredients:

300g orange chocolate (I was tempted to use Terry Chocolate Orange, seeing as it’s my favourite but in my experience 70% dark chocolate is better when baking. But if anyone experiments let me know how it turns out!)

400g unsalted butter (cubed)

5 medium eggs

400g caster sugar

130g self-raising flour

85g plain flour

70g cocoa powder

Zest of 1 orange (optional depending on desired orange flavour)

 

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and grease a square tray.

Melt the butter and the sugar together in a saucepan over a low heat and add the chocolate. Separately whisk the eggs before adding to the saucepan (off the heat). In a bowl whisk the dry ingredients, and then gradually pour and mix the contents of the saucepan with them.

Turn the mixture into the tin and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the top is cracked and an inserted knife comes out with only a little of the inside attached.

Choc-Chip Cookie Bars with Cookie Dough Frosting

Another post from our favourite guest poster, Hollie! This week she has made cookie bars and they are AWESOME. If you have baked something yummy and want to share your creation, just email your recipe and 1-3 photos to rubyandhelen@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you!

Who doesn’t love cookie dough? Well this recipe is a double whammy! It’s inspired by the Domestic Rebel’s Recipe, which you can find here. I’ve added a few of my own variants with toppings and converted measurements.

For the cookie base:
9 tablespoons of soft butter
33g light brown soft sugar
100g granulated sugar
1 medium egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g of any kind of chocolate chips you fancy

For the topping:

9 tablespoons of soft butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g brown sugar
About 100g icing sugar
60 g of chocolate chips

peanut butter

1)Preheat the oven to 170 C and grease a small sized rectangular/square tin

2)Cream the butter and sugars. Then add the egg and vanilla extract till it is all combined well. Then add the flour, salt and baking powder. you should have a nice cookie dough going on.

3)Then add loads of chocolate chips!! Or perhaps there might be something else you fancy instead like nuts or fruit…

4)Pop the mixture into the tin – spread out as evenly as possible. Then put in the oven for 25 minutes, when it should be just the right golden brown.

5)When they are out the oven, leave to cool in the tin. Then when they are ready, put on the topping.

6)I spread peanut butter on half and then cookie dough on the other half (To make the cookie dough cream the butter, sugar and vanilla extract, then slowly add the icing sugar and finish with the chocolate chips). A variant would be to put the peanut butter on as a first layer and then smooth the cookie dough topping on top of this.

Enjoy!!

Granola Flapjack

These are really tasty and a great healthy version of flapjacks. You can change the fruit and seeds to anything you like, I used a supermarket pumpkin and sunflower seed mix. (You could even add chocolate chips!)

Ingredients

170 g light soft brown sugar

75 g golden syrup

130 g butter

75 ml fruit juice

380 g rolled oats

50 g raisins

50g sour cherries

100 g seeds

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• Put the sugar, butter, golden syrup and apple juice in a microwaveable dish and microwave until the butter has melted.
• Once all the butter has melted and the mixture is starting to bubble, remove from the microwave and add the rest of the ingredients.
• Mix well until all the dry ingredients are covered in the syrup.
• Transfer to a greased baking tin, about an 8 by 12″, and spread out evenly.
• Bake for about 15 mins until just browning on the top.
• Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.
• Cut up into squares and enjoy!

Ruby’s Brownies

I love these brownies so much- they’re ridiculously gooey in the middle and are amazing served warm with ice-cream. This is probably the first recipe I ever tried that worked and so it’s a favourite that I keep returning to. Try adding chopped walnuts or dried cherries for variation.

Ingredients:

140g quality dark chocolate

225g unsalted butter

4 large/5 small eggs

450g caster sugar

110g plain flour

55g cocoa powder

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 190°C and line/grease a baking tray. Melt the butter and the sugar together in a saucepan over a low heat and add the chocolate. Take off the heat and stir in all the other ingredients.

Turn into the tin and bake for 30-40 minutes, ensuring that the brownies stay soft in the middle but firm on the outside.

Jenny’s Millionaire’s Shortbread

A guest post from Jenny. To write a guest post, feel free to email rubyandhelen@gmail.com!

Millionaire’s shortbread is so scrummy and I think it’s so much more impressive than normal biscuits! Making each layer is really quick and simple, the only bit that takes time is letting the toffee and chocolate set, so make sure you prepare it much earlier than you need it (if you’re in a super hurry, pop it in the freezer to speed up cooling it down!).

 

Ingredients

225 g. plain flour

75 g. caster sugar

375 g. unsalted butter

380g. can sweetened condensed milk

4 tablespoons golden syrup

325 g. chocolate (up to you dark, milk, white or a mixture!)

8×8 in sq. brownie tin or similar, greased and the base lined with greaseproof paper.

Makes about 24

1.    The shortbread layer

• Preheat the oven to 170 C/gas mark 3/325 F.
• Put the flour and sugar into a bowl and rub in 175 g. of butter with your fingers, clumping the dough together to make a ball.
• Press this sandy shortbread mixture into the tin, smooth it down and prick with a fork.
• Cook for five minutes, then lower the oven to 150 C/gas mark 2/about 320 F, and cook for a further 30 minutes until pale golden, but still a little bit squidgy, leave it in the tin to cool down and it will harden!

2.    The toffee layer

• Melt the remaining 200 g. of butter in a large microwavable bowl, then add the condensed milk and golden syrup.
• Whisk the mixture well until the butter is thoroughly mixed in. Heat in microwave for 6-7 minutes until boiling, stirring thoroughly every minute.
• It’s ready when it’s thickened and turned a light golden brown.
• Pour  molten toffee over the shortbread and leave to set, you can speed this up by popping it in the fridge.

 

3.    The chocolate layer

• Melt chocolate and pour over the fudge mixture and leave to cool. If you want to do a marbled effect on top, use half milk and half white chocolate, melt separately and pour them on top a little bit at a time. Swirl the chocolate around and make whatever shapes you like!
• Pop it back into the fridge to set, which can take a little while! Once set, cut the caramel shortbread into pieces.

Happy baking!!

Cinnamon Blondies

I bought a new silicon mixing spoon recently, so naturally I needed to try it out. Seeing as this was a spur of the moment desire, I didn’t actually have enough ingredients for any of my go-to recipes (or rather I didn’t have enough chocolate). After browsing Pinterest for 10 minutes I hit upon making blondies as they’re so easy to make. This is my favourite kind of baking- stir all the ingredients in one bowl and whack in the oven. The finished result is gooey and very moreish. The recipe itself is based on the one at Smitten Kitchen.

Ingredients:

125g plain flour

113g  melted butter

238g soft dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 170°C and grease or line a baking tray.

Mix the butter and the sugar and beat in the egg, vanilla and cinnamon. Then stir in the flour and baking powder and pour the mix into a tray and bake for 25 minutes.