Home baking

As Autumn is officially here what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon doing a bit of baking. The evenings are getting darker and the mornings are becoming colder, so what more do you want than some good old comfort food!  

I've always had a love, hate relationship with macarons, with them going wrong more times than right but, as always I'm determined to get them perfect. Last weekend (27th) I was searching through the cupboards trying to pull odd ingredients together, but in the end I decided to try a classic chocolate macaron with a chocolate ganache filling.

Ingredients: 

• 125g icing sugar
• 125g ground almonds
• 50g cocoa powder
• 90g free-range egg whites
• 2 tbsp water
• 110g caster sugar
• food colouring (optional)
• 50g milk/dark chocolate 
• 2 tsp milk

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170/C/325F/Gas 3 and line a large baking tray with baking paper, or lay your macaron sheet onto a baking tray. 
2. Put the icing sugar, ground almonds, cocoa powder and 40g/1½oz egg whites together in a large bowl and mix to a paste.
3. Put the water and caster sugar in a small pan and heat gently to melt the sugar, then turn up the heat and boil until the mixture starts to go syrupy and thickens.
4. Whisk the remaining 50g/2oz egg whites in a small bowl until medium-stiff peaks form (when the whisk is removed from the bowl), then pour in the sugar syrup, whisking until the mixture becomes stiff and shiny. For coloured macaroons, add a few drops of food colouring (Note: use gel colouring as liquid changes the consistency of the mixture). Tip this meringue mixture into the almond paste mixture and whisk gently until it becomes stiff and shiny again.
5. Spoon into a piping bag.  With the bag held vertically, pipe 4cm/1½in flat circles onto the lined tray, about 2cm/¾in apart, twisting the bag after each one, or pipe into the indents on the macaron sheet. The mixture should be quite loose to give a smooth finish. The piping will leave a small ‘tip’ on each circle so, when they’re all piped, give the tray 2–3 slams on a flat surface to flatten them. At this stage, sprinkle with desiccated coconut if you want.
6. Leave to stand for 30 minutes to form a skin then bake in the oven for 12–15 minutes with the door slightly ajar until firm. Remove from the oven, lift the paper off the baking tray and leave the macaroons to cool on the paper/mat. (Note: The macarons will not peel off a macaron mat easily until cooled).
7. To make the filling, put chocolate into a heatproof bowl and gently melt over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir in the warm milk until smooth. Leave to cool and thicken a little, then use to sandwich the macaroons together

As well as these delicious Macarons I made some indulgent chocolate chip cookies. I've been making these cookies for about a year now and haven't looked back. Their crumbly buttery texture is divine, along with the gooey chocolate chunks throughout. 

Ingredients:

• 125g butter
• 100g light brown sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 225g self-raising flour
• ½ tsp salt
• 200g chocolate

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4
2. Cream butter and sugars, once creamed, combine in the egg and vanilla.
3. Sift in the flour and salt, then the chocolate chips.
4. Roll into walnut size balls, for a more homemade look, or roll into a long, thick sausage shape and slice to make neater looking cookies.
5. Place on ungreased baking paper. Bake for 7-10 minutes until they have reached your desired colour. The longer they are left in the oven the crunchier they will be.
6. Take out of the oven and leave to harden for a minute before transferring to a wire cooling rack. 

Thanks for reading, happy baking! :P