Cookies & Biscuits

Digestive Biscuits

Digestive Biscuits are a simple but delicious biscuit. They are also very easy to make.

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Ingredients

225 wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
90 gram icing sugar
120 gram cold butter
60 ml milk

Instructions

Combine dry ingredients, mix well.

Add the butter in small cubes and rub in the flour until you have something that looks like breadcrumbs.

Add milk and form a ball of dough.

If dough is soft, flatten a bit, wrap in plastic wrap and set aside in fridge to firm up for about 15-20 min.

In the meantime, preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

Roll out dough to about 0.5 cm. Use a cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits. I used a 6cm round cookie cutter but any shape will do.

Transfer the biscuits to a baking sheet (lined with baking paper) and if you want, prick a few holes with a fork or toothpick.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Cookies & Biscuits

Coconut Macaroons

These Coconut Meringue Macaroons are so delicious and so dangerously easy to make. This coconut macaroon recipe makes about 20 macaroons. You can easily half the recipe for less cookies.

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Ingredients

250 gram shredded coconut
200 gram sugar
4 egg whites
Pinch of cream of tartar (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
1 teaspoon coconut extract (optional)
150 gram dark chocolate for bottom
50 gram dark chocolate for the drizzle on top

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

Add the egg whites in a bowl of the stand mixer, with a pinch of cream of tartar, and whip till soft peaks.

With a tablespoon at the time, add the sugar and combine until mixed well. About 5 minutes.

Add vanilla extract and coconut extract and mix until combined.

Take the bowl of the stand mixer and fold in the shredded coconut with a rubber spatula. This will go best if you do this in batches.

Line baking sheets with baking paper. Use a bit of meringue to 'glue' it down to the baking sheet.

Drop about 8 macaroons, using an ice cream scoop, on the baking sheet and gently press them down to about 1 cm thickness. This will go best if you wet your hands a bit.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes.

Let cool completely on a wire rack before transferring them.

Melt the chocolate au bain-marie (Bowl on top of a saucepan that has boiling water in it. Don't let bowl touch the water)

With a small offset knife, or normal knife, spread about a teaspoon of melted chocolate on the bottom of the cookie and let harden on a wire rack.

Melt some more chocolate and pour it in a zip lock bag. Set aside for about 5 minutes to harden a bit.

Cut off a small corner of the zip lock bag and drizzle some chocolate over the top of the cookies.

Notes

Use an ice cream scoop to make nice and even looking macaroons. Ice cream scoop size is about about 1/4 cup. You can also make this using a hand mixer of course.

ANZAC biscuits are a popular biscuit in Australia and here in New Zealand. These cookies are a simple mixture of flour, oats, golden syrup, desiccated coconut, sugar, butter and baking soda. I added some cacao, a few chocolate chips and some instant espresso powder to the mixture to turn them into chocolate ANZAC biscuits. YUM!

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Ingredients

150 gram all purpose flour
90 gram rolled oats
85 gram desiccated coconut
100 gram brown sugar
55 gram white sugar
125 gram butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
-- For Chocolate Anzac biscuits add the following as well --
2 tablespoons cacao
2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional)
chocolate chips to taste

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

Combine flour, oats, sugars, coconut and, if using, cacao and espresso powder.

Add butter, syrup and water in a small saucepan and combine till the butter is melted.

Stir in baking soda and when it starts to bubble, remove from heat.

Add the melted butter mixture to the flour and stir until combined.

Add chocolate chips and mix them through the cookie dough.

Make about tablespoon size dough balls and transfer to a baking sheet lined with baking paper.

Flatten the balls till about 1 cm thick cookie.

Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven.

Let cool for about 10 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cookies & Biscuits

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Delicious and easy recipe to make lemon crinkle cookies. They are soft and cake-like cookies with a hint of lemon.

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Ingredients

250 gram all purpose flour (2 cups)
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
115 gram butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
few drops of yellow food colouring (optional)
1/2 cup icing sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Sift flour, salt and baking powder in a medium size bowl

Cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl of stand mixer

When the butter mixture is white and creamy, add the eggs, one at the time.

Add vanilla extract, lemon juice and a few drops of yellow food colouring and mix until combined

Slowly add the dry ingredients and fold in gently until you don't see any flour.

Put the dough in the fridge for at least an hour

Form little balls of dough, about 2-3 cm and roll these generously in icing sugar

Place the balls (about 6 per sheet) on a baking sheet lined with baking paper

Bake the cookies for about 10 min in the preheated oven.

Let cool for a bit on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack

Notes

It could do with a bit more lemon flavour so next time I will probably add a teaspoon of fresh lemon zest or lemon extract to the mixture.

Cookies & Biscuits

Chocolate Salami

A quick chocolate no-bake recipe. It is very similar to the Dutch ‘arretjescake‘.

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Ingredients

200 gram digestives biscuits
200 gram dark chocolate
1 teaspoon instant espresso coffee powder (or to taste) (optional)
70 gram butter
1 egg
50 gram brown sugar
a pinch of salt
icing sugar

Instructions

Melt the dark chocolate, butter and instant coffee powder in a bowl on top of some hot water (bain marie).

Crush the biscuits in to small pieces (not too small).

In another bowl, beat the egg and sugar with a pinch of salt until foamy.

Whisk in the melted chocolate mixture and whisk until combined to a thick mixture

Stir in the biscuits.

Place a piece of baking paper on top your work surface and pour out the chocolate mixture on top of it.

Roll the baking paper around it, wrap it in some plastic wrap and then roll it into a sausage shape.

Let the chocolate salami cool in the fridge for at least 3-4 hours

Rub the chocolate salami in with icing sugar until it looks like a real salami.

Enjoy!

Notes

I halved the above recipe to make the chocolate salami shown on the photo.

Cookies & Biscuits/ Dutch Recipes

Speculaasbrokken

‘Speculaasbrokken‘ are another Dutch cookie that I love, the taste is SO addictive. It is baked as one big slab and you break it up in big crunchy chunks afterwards. They are basically a thick version of the speculaas cookies. The ‘speculaas’ spices are a mixture of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, cloves, white pepper, ginger, cardamom and aniseed.

Speculaasbrokken

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Ingredients

200 gram all purpose flour
100 gram brown sugar
100 gram butter, diced
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon egg, beaten (save the rest for the egg wash)
4 teaspoons 'speculaas' spices (or to taste)
1 teaspoon baking powder
milk (optional)

Instructions

Sift flour, baking powder and speculaas spices in to a bowl.

Add the rest of the ingredients, except the milk

Knead the ingredients together until it forms a dough and it comes away from the sides.

If the dough is too dry, add milk. One tablespoon at the time (my dough only needed 1 tablespoon milk).

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius and line a baking sheet with baking paper.

After 30 minutes, roll out the dough until it's about 0.5 cm thick. You can roll out any shape you want.

Glaze the dough with the egg wash (you can decorate it with almonds if you like).

Bake for 25-30 minutes in the preheated oven.

Leave on the baking sheet until cool.

Break the speculaas slab into big chunks.

Cookies & Biscuits/ Dutch Recipes

Spritsen

This delicious buttery cookie is called a ‘sprits koekje‘. A Dutch cookie that people have been making and eating since the 16th century (according to Wikipedia). You use a piping bag to pipe the cookies on to the baking sheet. You can pipe them in any shape, like I did today. I made some Christmas trees because it’s December. The cookies are super tasty and easy to make. Perfect cookie to go with your tea or coffee.

Spritsen

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Ingredients

250 gram butter, room temperature
150 gram sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
300 gram all purpose flour
a pinch of salt
200 gram chocolate for decoration (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius

Beat the butter and sugar light and fluffy (a few minutes)

Add the vanilla extract and the egg and mix till a smooth batter

Add flour and salt and mix until combined and you don't see any white streaks of flour.

Scoop the batter in a piping bag and pipe any shape cookie you want (google 'spritsen' to see the most common sprits shape) on baking sheet lined with baking paper.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.

Leave the 'spritsen' on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cook completely.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl above hot water and dip the cookies in to the chocolate.

Let cool/harden on some baking paper.

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