What’s Cooking – Quick and Easy Cinnamon Biscuits

From time to time we all get cravings, sometimes we can satisfy them, sometimes we can’t. One day last week sometime around 11pm I developed a huge craving to have some fresh baked cookies. We had guests over so it wasn’t exactly sleeping time yet so we decided to bake something. Obviously we knew that this had to be a quick and easy recipe as no one wanted to start a long preparation process at that time of the night. We settled on a batch of Quick and Easy Cinnamon Biscuits. As there were four people in the kitchen including a fellow foodie blogger Iwona from Smakowite Jadlo, we had a lovely warm biscuits in no time!

So if you ever get that feeling you must have a cookie now, I would highly recommend this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 160g flour
• 120g soft butter
• 3tbs icing sugar
• 1.5tsps cinnamon

Method:

To start preheat your oven to 180C and using some baking parchment line two large baking trays.

In a large bowl mix all your dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon and sugar. Add soften, cubed cutter and combine until you have a nice smoo0th and even dough.

Now depending on the shape of your cookies you can either:

– Form small balls which you will shape into roundish biscuits with your hands.

or (my preferred way)

– Roll your mixture flat using a rolling pin and then just use a cookie cutter to achieve your desired shape.

Bake in your earlier preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes or until firm to the touch.

Remove the biscuits and place on a wire cooling rack so they are allowed to cool.

Decorate if needed or desired.

They are perfect for storing, as long as you put them into an airtight container of course.

Now remember there were four of us in the kitchen and we all wanted something just a little bit different, we just couldn’t seem to settle on just one flavour, biscuits by committee! As it is a democratic household we ended up baking four batches of biscuits in four different flavours 😉 So if cinnamon is not for you, you can try adding some grated almonds or chocolate or dry coconut (our coconut biscuits also had an orange food colouring, I am quite unsure what we were thinking at the time but I suspect that a degree of tiredness may have resulted in the wrong bowl receiving the colouring. Though witnesses were few and far between…)

In the end for what amounted to less than an hour of fun and good humour in the kitchen, delayed somewhat by the deliberations over flavours, resulted in a huge box of awesome crunchy and super tasty biscuits. Possessing a wonderful snap when you bite into them and having a texture very similar to shortbread they are now a permanent feature on our “bestest recipe list”.

Regis Stone Non-Stick Breakfast Challenge

JML challenged me to create a healthy fried breakfast using their new Regis Stone non-stick pan. I’ve heard about non-stick pans before but to be honest they never seemed to work as advertised, so I was really keen on trying Regis Stone.

I wanted to prepare a full English breakfast but then I thought to myself “hmmm, sausages have fat in them so my frying will not really be fat free, therefore I will not be able to truly test the new frying pan”… I could of course cook the eggs first but it would be such a waste of all that tasty nice sausage fat…

This led me to a new cunning idea – I will make Apple & Cinnamon Breakfast Pancakes! No fat in them so I will actually be able to make a fat free breakfast and thus test if the pan is really non-stick.

So how did it go?

Perfectly! I am quite amazed by the Regis Stone pan. I must admit I was tempted to add just a drop of oil… just in case… but I didn’t. My pancakes were cooked without any fat whatsoever and the pan didn’t even require a wash afterwards.

If you would like to try my breakfast pancake recipe, this is what you need and how you make them.

Ingredients:

• 1/2l milk
• 2 eggs
• 300g flour
• 100g white sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 2 apples
• Icing sugar for serving

Method:

Separate the eggs whites from their yokes.

Place the whites in a separate bowl, ready for whisking.

Place the flour, sugar, salt, soda, cinnamon, milk and both yokes in a large bowl and mix all ingredients with a whisk until everything is well combined.

Wash, peel (or not), core and dice your apples. Add them into your main mixture.

Whisk the egg whites until they are able to form firm peaks and then gently fold them into the main mixture with a metal spoon.

Now, you are ready to start cooking.

As I used a Regis Stone pan, I had no need for any fat. I just grabbed a good spoonful of my mixture and place it in the preheated pan. It should take you just over a minute for each side to cook and brown nicely.

Serve warm after dusting with icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Oh, and if you are in need of a new frying pan, I would highly recommend Regis Stone! We are going to order a large 28cm one. This is really one amazing frying pan!

*  I received one 24cm Regis Stone pan for free as well as shopping vouchers, to cover the cost of the ingredients, but all opinions expressed in this post are honest and my own.

What’s Cooking – Cinnamon Swirls

Cinnamon Swirls

Guest post by Mark :-)…  again

The other night for some inexplicable reason I awoke at 3am, you know the one where you feel like you have had 8 hours sleep and could take on the world even though you have only been asleep for a couple of hours. So the dilemma unfolded, stay in bed and try to return to the land of nod or get up and do something. What to do if I did get up, stumped I lay there and thought. Then it occurred to me, I’ll cook up a treat for breakfast. Instantly I was consumed with a burning desire to munch on a cinnamon swirl, don’t ask me why as I have no idea, I have not had a cinnamon swirl for years, all I knew now was “I want one NOW”.

So off to the kitchen we go. The dogs looked at me like I had lost the plot, but undeterred I carried on. Rummaging around in the pantry the ingredients started to form up on the island worktop. The final collection included the following items:

• 150ml of warm milk
• 150ml of warm water
• 1tsp heaped of honey
• Fresh yeast about 25g
• 500g strong bread flour
• 1tsp salt
• 3tbs of Olive oil
• 2tbs of ground cinnamon
• 50g butter melted
• 100g Raisons
• 1 Shot of espresso coffee
• Shot of brandy
• 100g of flaked almonds
• 1 pack of course ground natural brown sugar
• Some butter and grease proof paper for greasing your baking tray

So how do we make them…

Put your oven on at 180C and place a shelf in the middle position.

Put your milk and water (300ml total) into a beaker and microwave for 1 minute, or heat up in a small saucepan. When warm but not burning to the touch mix in the honey and then crumble in your yeast, give it all a good stir and place somewhere warm.

Make your espresso coffee by whatever method you would normally, we are after a single but strong shot. Put your raisons into a bowl and pour the hot coffee over and add the brandy. Place this bowl with your yeast cocktail.

Melt the butter gently, again in the microwave or a small saucepan. When almost melted remove from the heat and add your cinnamon and stir to make a nice thick paste. Add this to your growing collection of bowls.

Take a large baking sheet and with your butter give it a good greasing all over, don’t miss anywhere out.  Now place a large handful of your sugar in the middle and with a 70’s disco dance move shake the tray all around so that the sugar sticking to the butter ends up forming a nice even layer all over. Tip out any excess sugar into a bowl, we will use that later. If there are any gaps repeat until you have them all filled in.

Now if you have a food mixer this next bit is easy, if you don’t then prepare for your early morning workout. Measure out your flour and sift it into your mixing bowl, add the salt and olive oil.

By now hopefully your oven is up to temperature, place the almonds on a baking tray and bake for 8-10 minutes till they are a nice golden brown. This as it goes is just enough time to add your yeast mixture to your mixing bowl and mix until a dough has formed. Now either with a dough hook kneed your doe in your food mixer, or alternatively tip out onto a floured work surface and hand kneed. Remember you cannot stop until the almonds are toasted, so keep going. When done rub some olive oil over you dough ball and around the inside of you mixing bowl, put your dough in the bowl and cover with cling film and a spare tea towel and leave somewhere warm for an hour, or at least until the dough has doubled in size..

Take your almonds out of the oven and leave to cool.

Ok, you can now go and have a cup of tea, or coffee and relax for a while, you are ahead in this game.

When the dough has doubled in size remove the cling film and punch the dough to flatten it down. Grab your dough and place on a floured worktop and kneed for another minute or two. Then with a floured rolling pin roll out your dough gently. You want to try as hard as possible to keep a rectangular shape to your dough and it should be about half a cm thick.

Take your almonds and roughly smash them up to get a range of sizes in the pieces.

Finally we can start building. Spread your cinnamon/butter mix all over the dough, like your buttering a slice of bread. Drain your raisons and sprinkle them over the top, and then the almonds. Now sprinkle half the remaining sugar from your dusting remains to complete the toppings.

Use a large knife or preferably a pallet knife to lift up the short end of your dough and start to roll gently till you end up with a large sausage roll. With a very sharp knife cut into slices about 2cm thick and place on your sugared baking sheet. Don’t fret a small degree of reconstruction will inevitably be required at this point. Place your swirls close to each other so they almost tough their neighbours. When your tray is full, lay a sheet of cling film over the top and return to a warm place for another 45 minutes to an hour.

They should now be all puffed up and starting to look tasty, but resist! Sprinkle the last of the sugar over the top and a dusting of cinnamon powder and pop into the oven for 20-25 minutes until they are a nice golden brown. Remove and let cool on the tray for 10 minutes, you can use this time to fully appreciate just how amazing your house smells at this moment.

Straight from the oven

Now the sugar from the tray and what you sprinkled on top should have caramelised so you may need a knife and a fish slice and a degree of delicate persistence to get them out but trust me it’s worth all the effort .

Serve with a nice homemade latté (boil some milk and add a shot or two of espresso or just a spoonful of instant coffee), or if you have the equipment make a proper one!

Perfect combination – cinnamon swirls and freshly brew coffee

Best enjoyed when warm.

***

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• Cinnamon and sugar swirl loaf (sophiedoesbaking.wordpress.com)
• Cinnamon Roll Pancakes (tastesoflizzyt.com)
• Cinnamon and ginger swirls (eatinginedinburgh.wordpress.com)