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A Nutty-Nut day

Today was a day for nuts. I don't know how it ended up that way, but that's just the way it is. Since I did nothing yesterday I guess I was trying to kill it with some over-productive bakeathon.

Since I've stopped buying cookbooks for my new year's resolution (it's July now and I'm holding strong!) I've been hitting the library. A few wonders in there, and an opportunity to try out some books that I refuse to buy.

The above are Peanut Butter Biscuits from Baking - Delia Collection. It has the simplest recipe ever. My substitution was a poor one I think, not that it tasted bad - we ran out of bicarb and so we used baking powder. It didn't come out as a dry dough like the recipe suggested, but was quite greasy. When they were baked the edges weren't as cookie cute as the picture in the book, but they were definitely yummy. On my list for make again favourites :)

Peanut Butter Biscuits
Makes "20" according to the book, 12 plus 4 small ones by my count.
Ingredients
110g crunchy peanut butter
75g butter
110g light brown sugar
175g plain flour
1 egg
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
a little demerara

Method:
1. Mix everything apart from the demerara together. (Told you it was easy!)
2. Shape into walnut sized balls and dip into the demerara.
3. Put onto greased baking sheet and press down a little.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes at Gas Mark 4



My other little experiment was from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. It's a non-repeat from me I think, although using nutella might be a new ingredient of choice. It's all a little sweet and brings new meaning to the word "yeet-hey". At the same time it is overwhelmingly chocolatey without being rich. The sponge is light and just functional as a vehicle for the piles of frosting and the filling.

For those who are interested, the translation of "yeet hey" is "hot-air". Chinese wise, food is split into types, the ones we usually focus on are "yeet-hey" or "lerng" which means sort of refreshing or cooling. Either one, yeet-hey or lerng can cause you problems so you need to balance with the other. Peanuts, crisps, all that jazz are under yeet-hey. Melons, fruit and veg tend to fall under lerng.

Hazelnut and chocolate cupcakes
Makes 12 in muffin tins
Ingredients:
100g plain flour
20g cocoa pwder
140g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
40g butter
120ml milk
1 egg
120g chocolate spread

Method:
1. The method in the book says mix all the dry with the butter and then add milk. Personally I find this weird so I did my usual - cream butter, sugar then the egg, then the rest, then the milk.
2. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at Gas Mark 3.
3. Cool and cut out little cones from the top.
4. Fill with teaspoons of nutella.
5. Cover with frosting

Frosting ingredients:
250g icing sugar
80g unsalted butter
25ml milk
80g hazelnut and chocolate spread

Method:
1. Mix the ingredients together, adding the chocolate spread last.

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