Oat and Chocolate Biscuits

Mary Berry strikes again! This time, I’m adapting her recipe for some short oat biscuits. They are crunchy, and rolling the biscuits in the oats give a great texture to the outside.

The recipe makes A LOT of medium-sized cookies, I got about 36 in total. Great for whipping up for a party or picnic.

I added the chocolate (about a quarter of a square) and ginger, instead of the suggested glace cherry (that was just a bit too vintage, sorry Mary). And I think that worked out well, these biccies are ever so slightly dry, and the chocolate nub just improves the whole thing.

I also decided to do a white chocolate and coconut version, by adding coconut to the oat layer, and using amazing white chocolate with coconut that I picked up on my holidays in France.

Heavenly!

I should have known that the white chocolate would melt utterly into the cookie, instead of keeping its shape like the milk and dark chunks. 

Pretty!
 

A bit splotchy...

Yes, they're kind of ugly, but still taste goooood!

Apple Crumble Muffins

These are my favourite muffins ever. Bold statement, attention grabbing.

Pre-baking

Baked to perfection

I suppose we are in Autumn then! I think that is probably my favorite season for flavours. I love the delicate spices and sweet fruits that define the season for me.

And I think this muffin defines the season's best flavours, from the slightly tart apple and scented cinnamon, coupled with the crunchy, sweet crumble which is just perfection. The cake portion of these is also perfect for a muffin: springy, light, but still dense.

In short, these are muffin heaven. You need these in your life.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a food processor for the crumble, in that case just rub the flour and butter together until you get coarse breadcrumbs, and stir through the sugar and some chopped nuts (or you can easily leave the nuts out).

Ginger and Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

I have been on a bit of an oaty cookie kick at the minute, and these are unusual in texture and flavour, but I really like them. The honey makes them a little bit floppy, but I really like the texture that it gives. The oats and coconut also give a nice firming quality.

You could add some orange or lemon to this, but I didn’t want to go overboard with flavours on the first attempt. As they are, they are delicately spiced, sweet and delicious.

Makes about 18 cookies, but next time I think I would make them a little smaller.

Pork Ramen

So, I did say that I had been travelling recently, and the first stop was TOKYO! It was amazing, and crazy, and unlike any holiday I have ever had. I would go back in a heartbeat, mainly for the food.

When I go on my holidays, I don’t tend to seek out haute cuisine or Michelin stars. I want to eat what the locals are eating, I want to hit up their versions of fast food, and greasy spoon cafes. And that is what we did in Tokyo. Sitting on a little stool at a bench, in front of a guy making whatever local thing I was getting was one of my absolute favourite memories of the holiday.

And my absolute favourite thing I had to eat there? RAMEN! And the best one I had, I am trying to recreate here. A smooth but dark and translucent broth, topped with scallions, an egg and a chunk of amazing pork belly.

So, there are a few schools of thought with ramen, there’s miso ramen and shoyu ramen, there’s a myriad of toppings, but always the noodles reign supreme. God forbid you overcook your noodles – many ramen places in Japan refuse to give ‘to go’ as the noodles may have overccoked in the broth by the time you get home.

Most of the ingredients and utensils are pretty standard in any supermarket or Asian food store. I easily found the soy sauce and sesame oil in Asda, and the mirin and ramen noodles were just as easily found in my local medium sized Chinese supermarket. I also found the little flat spoons there for sluuuurping the sauce, and they had chopsticks too (though I brought loads of them home from Tokyo). Including CHARMANDER ONES!

Other toppings can of course be used, including mushrooms, beansprouts, nori (seaweed), corn etc etc. I just used what I liked! And I like it very, very much.

Serves about 3

Pistachio Chocolate Fudge

Well, here is the concluding part of my pistachio chronicles. Fudge!

God, I love fudge. But I am notoriously terrible at making it. I have memories of home economics class, stirring an innocent-looking pot of fudge, and having it bubble ominously, growing bigger and bigger until it nearly spilled out of the pan and the teacher had to take it off me.

Yeah.

So, my adult foray into fudge is going to start simple. And this recipe is really, really simple. Just add most of the ingredients to a pot, melt, then add the nuts, chill, and chop. Freeze to help it keep its shape, which is useful because it tastes best cold!

Very delicious.