Thick Peanut Butter Cookies

Giant cookie and its tiny babies

HOLY CRAP.
So, I had totally given up on being able to make the kind of cookies that are tall, thick, stacked, basically CHUNKY. My go-to cookies are amazing and chewy, but they're decidedly flat.

And I was experimenting with cookie size (basically, I wanted to make a giant one) and came across this recipe and OMFG it's amazing.

Chunky - check.
Crisp outside - check.
Smooth inside - check
Delicious - CHECK CHECK CHECK.

I had a little dance after I ate my first one. That's how delicious these are.

Feel free to experiment with the size. Just under half of this recipe made a HUGE 15cm diameter cookie, and with the other just-over-half I got 8 decent cookies.

STACKED full of deliciousness

Challah Bread

OH this is a good one.

I’m really struggling to make a good basic white loaf. And it’s really, really annoying me. But brioche-like breads have always been my friend so I went back to that so I could stop wasting flour.

I’ve been eyeing up these golden braided Challah loaves for a while now, and now is as good a time as any to get experimenting in the kitchen. Now, people get fancy with it and you can plait more than 3 strands, but I got confused just plaiting three, and I couldn’t follow the video for 6 strands. So three it is!

BONUS – it’s amazing as French toast:

(for the French toast, beat 2 eggs, 100ml semi skimmed milk, 1/2 tsp cinammon and 1 tbsp vanilla sugar. Soak 4 slices of challa bread in this mixture for 2 minutes each side. Heat 2 tbsp butter in a large pan and fry the bread for a few minutes each side. Serve with your faves - fruit, bacon, yogurt..)

Two recipes for the price of one!

Brioche Burger Buns

There comes a time in isolation when you run out of an ingredient that you really require for dinner to go ahead as planned, but you can't really justify leaving the house for the "non-essential" nature of that item.

For me, that item was burger buns. I needed to use up some bacon and lettuce - so halloumi/bacon baps were an obvious choice. But I didn't have any baps! Curses!

I promise I added lettuce to this, a small hint of green amidst the meat, bread and cheese

I also had a half pack of instant yeast that I wanted to use up, so making my own was the obvious choice, despite never having made these before. Luckily, this recipe was easy. Apart from working with a slightly sticky dough, and taking a little time, these are really straightforward.

Soft, sweet,and SCRUMPTIOUS!

Feel free to experiment, next time I see myself brushing it with garlic infused butter, and maybe topping with a little mozarella. Also, toasted with butter! GAME-CHANGER.

Big Chewy Choc Chip Cookies

Lock-down is allowing me to live my baking fantasies on the days I'm not in work. I obsessively searched for the perfect cookie recipe a while ago, and I have that down. 

But I'm always looking for slight variations on the theme, and these large, soft, choc chip cookies are perfection. Using melted butter really contributes to the chewy texture. You need a little prep for this, as in you need to remember to prep the dough the day before you want to bake the cookies. It's worth it.

You won't be sorry you made these. They stay good for about a week but they won't last that long.

Makes about 18 large cookies

Cauliflower Mac and Cheese Bake

So, you've eaten most of the meat in the fridge before it goes bad, and now you have a cauliflower sitting there in the crisper, judging you, wondering when it gets a chance to shine.

This is a quick midweek dinner, and adds some delicious veggies to this rich pasta bake. It's filling, creamy and goooood. Think of a cross between cauliflower cheese and mac and cheese. Cheese is a great common denominator.

Now, it's vegetarian as a base recipe, unless you go and add bacon (which I did). I cooked the bacon in the oven and then added the sliced bits in at the end. But it would be perfectly lovely without that.

Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Loaf

Call me a cliche - isolation baking banana bread

If you’re like me, you might have stocked up on “healthy” foods like bananas, only to look over them for more comforting treats.

I really hate waste, which means I can’t throw out over-ripe fruit. I have to repurpose it into something more delicious – enter, banana bread!

Some very smart person mentioned toasting banana bread and covering it with Nutella and I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of it before. In fact it was such a good idea I just had to make some and try it. And thinking of how well banana bread and Nutella would go together, I wanted to infuse some Nutella flavours into the loaf itself.