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Gift Week: Parmesan and Black Pepper Biscotti

Posted on 13-12-2011 | By: Lucy

Category : Biscuits & Cookies, Bits & Bobs

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This week we’re focusing on homemade gifts, something to give for Christmas or Hanukkah (or any other holiday of your choice!) This is pretty good timing for me as this coming weekend I will be in the kitchen making tons of homemade gifts so they are at their freshest for giving!

Whenever I’m deciding what gifts to make I automatically think of sweet things: there are so many different types of biscuits, cookies, muffins, brownies, blondies etc to bake and these all make wonderful gifts. My young cousins would be furious if I didn’t include plenty of sweet things for them. But not everyone loves sweet things all the time. In my experience thinking of savoury things to include can be a bit of a challenge so I’ve tried to focus on the just as delicious savory angle this week.

Parmesan and Black Pepper Biscotti (from the ever wonderful Smitten Kitchen)

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The Great Food Blogger’s Cookie Swap

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Posted on 13-12-2011 | By: Shannon

Category : Biscuits & Cookies, Bits & Bobs, Desserts

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Earlier today I posted the recipe I used for the Food Blogger Cookie Swap, Millionaire’s Shortbread. But I thought I’d give some link love to the people who sent me their cookies!

Fashioned by Grace sent some wonderful Cowboy Cookies:

Vaikai ir Vanile sent some delicious (and appropriately named) Crack Cookies:

And Chirky made Norwegian Delicacies, which I’d never had before but fell in love with:

 

They were all so delicious, I highly encourage you to pop over to each site and bake a batch yourself! Maybe not all in one day, but, you know, eventually!

If you want to play along next year, sign up for the swap.

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2011

All images in this post are from the bloggers who baked them.

 

 

 

 

 


Blogger’s Cookie Swap AND Gift Week: Millionaire’s Shortbread

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Posted on 12-12-2011 | By: Shannon

Category : Biscuits & Cookies, Desserts

Tags: , , , , ,

The Scots love their sweets. I mean, not as much as I do, but I’ll give them credit for trying. One of the most popularly Scottish sweets is shortbread. Everyone’s seen the tins or boxes with the red tartan on it. Shockingly, I actually don’t really like plain shortbread. I don’t know what it is, too buttery for me maybe. However, I LOVE Millionaire’s Shortbread, which is shortbread bars with caramel and chocolate. Can’t be missed. And if you add a little fleur de sel on there? Heaven in bar cookie form.

So, when I signed up for the Blogger Cookie Swap, I figured this recipe was the way to go. It says a little about our blog, and it’s delicious, and while it takes a little while, it’s pretty easy. And pretty. And packs pretty well. So Christina at Stracciatella, Esme at Chocolate and Croissants, and Carrie at Clever Mommas all received some Millionaire’s Shortbread and get to discover how deliciously disastrous it can be to your waistline. But that’s what Christmas is for! And the cookies I received were completely delicious too, I’ll post links to the recipes later!

ALSO this kicks off Gift Week on Double the Sugar! This year we’re looking at homemade gifts, because we’re skint! But we’ll also give you other gift ideas in each post, so stay tuned!

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Amaretti

Posted on 10-12-2010 | By: Shannon

Category : Biscuits & Cookies, Desserts

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It’s Christmas cookie time!

There’s these little Italian amaretto cookies that a friend of mine fell in love with a couple years back. So this year, I found this recipe that I think is more or less the same cookie, and made them for her…but I got sick and had no means to deliver them, and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want coughed-on cookies anyway, so we’ve been bravely eating them ourselves. The sacrifices we make for friendship.

The recipe is almost just the same as macarons: meringue-based, add almond flour/ground almonds and powdered sugar. The resulting texture is pretty similar, but you add a considerable amount of almond extract, so the taste doesn’t rely on sandwiching something in between them. And, also, since you aren’t making sandwiches out of them, they don’t all need to be the same size, so I didn’t bother piping them. They aren’t quite as pretty that way, but I am a disaster with a pastry bag, and I’d already made a huge mess, so it seemed safer if I just spooned them on to the baking sheet.

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Ginger Biscuits

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Posted on 09-03-2010 | By: Lucy

Category : Biscuits & Cookies

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Don’t tell my mother but a box of these biscuits are on their way to her as I type. It’s Mother’s Day in the UK this Sunday so why not spoil your Mum a little? Even if you don’t live over here where spring is trying to push it’s way through the frost, it’s a good way to earn some brownie points.  These biscuits not only taste great but they also travel well. For this reason they were my christmas present to loads of people. Well, people in the UK, they travel well but not well enough to reach Shannon. I know this because her christmas card arrived in February. I have made these again and again and they never cease to impress me with how easy they are to make and how gorgeously tasty they are. Especially with a cup of tea. Lovely. Continue Reading