Chocolate Swirl Cookies

You probably know and I've mentioned that I rarely bakes cookies or biscuits. We do tend to buy cookies / biscuits that have something to with chocolate. We ran out of bought snacks and since I have all the ingredients for this recipe, I quickly whip this up. I would be relying this as my go-to chocolate based cookies going forward. The quantity of sugar have been reduced to my taste which resulted in a more intense chocolate bite. For special occasions and a more decadent version, I intend to sandwich with chocolate butter cream!

Chocolate Swirl Cookies
via BBC Good Food

**I halved this recipe and yield around 24 medium-size cookies

Ingredients 
200g softened butter 
300g soft brown sugar (in my halved recipe, I reduced from 150gm to 75gm)
2 tsp vanilla extract 
2 eggs 
300g self raising flour (used regular plain flour)
80g cocoa powder 
1 tsp baking powder 
300g choc chips (eliminated)

My additions
++ rum, to taste
++ pinch of salt,  if using unsalted butter

Method

1. preheat oven to 180 c/ gas 4
2. cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in vanilla extract and eggs
3. in a separate bowl sift flour, cocoa and baking powder together
4. add flour mix to the creamed mix in stages( a third at a time) mix well. fold in choc chips until just combined.
5. spoon a tablespoon of the mixture on to a baking tray and just let it drop off the spoon, repeat until you have used up all the cookie mixture.
6. bake in preheated oven for 12 minutes, when you remove the cookies from the oven they will still be soft, leave to cool completely on the baking tray, where they will continue to cook slightly,when completely cold move to a cooling rack. then enjoy!

Marble cake

A favourite teatime cake of mine; which I finally successfully recreate. The buttery smell and crumbly but not dry textures is just as I remembered.

My notes :-
1) Halved the recipe and baked in loaf tin.
2) Roughly divided the cake batter, keeping vanilla batter the most. Added rum to pink (red food) batter.

Marble cake
via BBC Good Food

• 225g butter, softened
• 225g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 225g self-raising flour
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/gas 160C/gas 4. Grease a 20cm cake tin and line the bottom with a circle of greaseproof paper. If you want to make life easy, simply put all the ingredients (except the cocoa powder) into a food processor and whizz for 1-2 mins until smooth. If you prefer to mix by hand, beat the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Fold through the flour, milk and vanilla extract until the mixture is smooth.
2. Divide the mixture between 2 bowls. Stir the cocoa powder into the mixture in one of the bowls. Take 2 spoons and use them to dollop the chocolate and vanilla cake mixes into the tin alternately. When all the mixture has been used up (and if young kids are doing this, you’ll need to ensure the base of the tin is fairly evenly covered), tap the bottom on your work surface to ensure that there aren’t any air bubbles. Take a skewer and swirl it around the mixture in the tin a few times to create a marbled effect.
3. Bake the cake for 45-55 mins until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool. Will keep for 3 days in an airtight container or freeze for up to 3 months.