Hellooooo,
ADashOfBecks here!
I'm sorry its been a while guys, I really am. I've had a lot going on the last few months because I'm now in year 11 at school and I have LOADS of work to do. I've pretty much just been revising solidly for the last 3 months or so due to mock exams, coursework and improving my grades to the best they can be, to try and get an apprenticeship or get into college! I will be trying as hard as I can to get back to my normal blogging self and trying to upload weekly. However, here comes the bad news :( I might only be able to upload one post a week and it will most likely be on a Saturday. If its not up, just follow my twitter (@ADashOfBecks) and turn on my tweet notifications to be notified every time I tweet the link to a new post!
I hope you all can forgive me for the inconvenience of school (boooooo!) and enjoy the return of my blog!
I thought to kick it of the "relaunch" of my blog, as it is nearly Christmas (yayy!) I could share my favourite Christmas Cookie recipe!
This recipe is from the BBC Good Food website and it is how to bake Sparkling chocolate orange Christmas cookies! (My alternative to the Sparkling vanilla Christmas Cookies) If you are a child you may want parental supervision!
Ingredients
140g of icing sugar, sieved
2tsp of squeezed orange juice
100g cocoa butter (add more or less depending on how chocolatey you want it!)
75g of melted chocolate (optional)
1 egg yolk
250g of butter (cut into small cubes)
375g of plain flour, sieved
2tsp water (optional if the mixture/dough is too thick)
To decorate
200g of icing sugar, sieved
edible food colouring (optional)
edible gold and silver balls (optional)
Chocolate, white, dark, milk (optional)
How to make!
- Tip your icing sugar, squeezed orange juice, egg yolk, melted chocolate and butter into a mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon or electric whisk or mixer until the mixture is well combined.
- Add the flower and cocoa powder and mix all of the ingredients together until a firm dough is formed (add optional water at this point if the dough is too thick.)
- Shape the dough into 2 flat disks and wrap in cling film. Chill them for 20-30 minutes. whilst pre-heating the oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas and line two baking trays with non stick baking paper.
- Roll the dough out on a lightly flowered surface with a lightly flowered rolling pin to about the thickness of 2 £1 coins (around 1cm) and cut out Christmassy shapes. Place them on the baking trays.
- bake for 10/12 minutes until lightly golden.
- Dance while you are waiting for the cookies to cook! *Dancing* *Dancing*
- Remove the cookies from the oven and place them onto a wire cooling rack or something similar.
- Whilst you are waiting for the cookies to cool, mix the icing sugar with a few drops of cool water to make it thick, but still runny icing and add edible food colouring if you wish.
- Once the biscuits have cooled, add icing and decorations (gold and silver balls and chocolate)
- When the icing has dried, the eating commences!
There you have it! Sparkling Christmas Chocolate Orange Cookies, I hope you enjoyed this recipe and have tried it out yourselves, it is personally one of my favourites! If you do attempt it be sure to tag me in your pictures on Twitter (@ADashOfBecks) and Instagram (@ADashOfBecks, I am going to make an account right now!) with the hashtag #ChristmasBakingWithBecks I'd love to see your attempts!
I hope you enjoyed this post, it is something different, if you did be sure to leave a comment and a follow and ill be sure to reply and follow as many of you back as I can!
New blog post due Saturday!
Much Love,
ADashOfBecks
xoxo