PB&J Bars

This recipe for Peanut Butter and Jelly bars is courtesy of The Boy Who Bakes, Edd Kimber. I tried it, and it works - a treat! The photos are of my attempt at his fab recipe!

450g Plain Flour

300g Unsalted Butter

150g Caster Sugar

1/4 tsp salt

150g smooth peanut butter

250g jam (choice up to you) (I used strawberry because it was on offer!)

1. Press a piece of foil into the base and up the sides of a 9×13 baking pan. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.

2. Place the flour, butter, sugar and salt into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade and pulse until the ingredients form a dough. (I used my Braun Multiquick Handblender with the big jug attachment, and it worked well).

3. Tip the dough out onto the worksurface and lightly knead until it becomes uniform. Remove a third of the dough and wrap it in clingfilm and refrigerate until needed. Press the remaining dough evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 mins or until lightly golden around the edges. leave to cool for 20 mins.

4. Spread the peanut butter evenly on the cooled base then repeat with the jam. Remove the third of dough from the fridge and crumble into pieces and scatter evenly over the jam. Bake for a further 25-30 mins or until the crumbled dough starts to colour a little bit. Cool completely before cutting into 12 large squares.

Here's Edd's website if you want to try more of his lovely recipes. 

Margarita Cookies

My friend and colleague, Matt, showed me a recipe book a few months ago - it had lots of different types of cookies and biscuits to try, and one that stuck in my mind was Margarita Cookies, so I thought I'd give them ago. I didn't have the recipe book to hand today when I was making them, so I sort of made it up as I went, following the principle of lime biscuits with tequila icing.

So here's what I did...

For the biscuits:
225g butter
110g caster sugar
275g plain flour
Zest of 1 lime

For the icing*:
115g icing sugar
2 tablespoons of tequila
Splash of lime juice

1. Cream the butter so it's light and smooth
2. Cream together the caster sugar and smooth butter
3. Mix in the lime zest
4. Work in the flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until a dough is formed

The first batch of these I did had quite a dry dough - the second was more moist even though I used the same quantities. It's worked out nicely with both consistencies - so long as it's not sloppy and you can mould it with your hands you should be ok!

5. Roll these into small balls, about the size of a walnut, and place on a baking tray, lined with baking paper.
6. Squash the balls down with your fingers to make rough circles about 8mm thick. They don't need to be smooth - in fact the bumpier they are the easier they are to ice. You should end up with 25 biscuits.
7. Bake at 170 degrees celcius (fan assisted oven) for 13 minutes, then transfer onto a wire rack for cooling.
8. Mix in the first tablespoon of tequila to the icing sugar, to make a paste. Then mix in the next tablespoon which should loosen the mixture even more.
9. Add a splash of lime juice if you think the mixture needs loosening further - but remember it's got to stick to the biscuits and dry, so you don't want it too sloppy.
10. Dip a spoon into the icing, and drizzle it over the biscuits. To do mine I put all the biscuits close together and shook the icing over a bit like a cobweb.
11. Allow to dry for an hour (but they're ok to try before they're dry!).

*this much icing was enough to cover a batch and a half of cookies