Salted Caramel Stuffed Cookies

So.. these have been a work in progress for 3 nights. 

By which I means this is attempt #3 and I had to surrender to follow a recipe - as opposed to trying to alter and combine two different (because I'm awkward).

  What I'd been aiming for was chocolate chip (rather than just chocolate), but huh, I won't show you what happened. You can imagine it. Everyone has a few disasters (or non-workers) every so often and my success rate was going alright so I suppose it was about time something Went Wrong. I mean, the flavours for attempts 1 & 2 have been fine, but the end result looked a lot more like a puddle than a cookie. Or a cow-pat as my dad affectionately called them.

Not what I had in mind.

Mum said she was impressed with my determination, but I think it's more stubbornness and refusal to be beaten by cookies of all things. The trick certainly seems to be a very soft batter and not using too much caramel for the innards or it tends to leak/explode. Incidentally these are not the neatest of things to assemble, so if you like to try and keep clean hands then..well.

I think attempt #4 will be on the cards tonight, or perhaps another, because again with the whole stubbornness issue, I have an idea of how I want these to be and I'm not going to admit defeat just yet.

And yes I did even make my own salted caramel.

Recipe from Pastry Affair

Selkirk Bannock (almost)

One day I'll manage to get hold of some old boards, nice plates and cutlery for these photos. It's a bit off-putting when all you have is a few odds and ends you have to somehow arranged in a square foot or so on a counter.

Anyway.

Selkirk Bannock is a traditional Scottish bread made with a lot of raisins, similar to or sometimes compared to fruitcake. I say that this is almost Selkirk Bannock because we didn't have many raisins and the only sultanas I found probably needed to be chucked out sometime last year, so this was made with fruit mix. So really it's more like a yeast fruit cake.

It's a really delicious, comforting bake, beautiful with butter (and perhaps turned into toast. I'm not sure on the traditions of serving it if I'm honest). Again this was something else I made for my mum, who's remarkably fond of her fruit cake, fruit loaf, and all things bread and raisin-y. It went down very well too.

                     

Recipe as follows (again from BBC GoodFood):

7g fast-action yeast

1 tsp caster sugar

500g strong white flour

140g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

450g sultanas/raisins

50g brown sugar

milk for glazing