Sunflower and Parmesan Biscuits

I wanted something else savoury to go with the sandwiches and quiches but really struggled to know what to choose. In the end, with mum's help, we decided on these Sunflower and Parmesan biscuits from "A Step by Step guide to Cakes, Biscuits and Slices", which I can't find on any book website so can't be very available anymore!!

As this book isn't available I'll give a little more detail than usual on how to make these, in case anyone is particularly interested.

The first step is to beat the butter (150g unsalted butter) until it is creamy, to this add parmesan (3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese) and chedder cheese (1/3 cup grated chedder cheese), beating until combined.

I then poured in the flour (1 1/4 cups plain flour) and sunflower seeds (1/4 cup sunflower seeds). The recipe states that you should add some seasoning at this stage, 2-3 tsp lemon pepper seasoning, however, I couldn't find this in the shop so I just ground a little plain black pepper into the mixture.

This mixture is then combined well by hand and turned out onto a lightly floured surface and kneaded to 2-3 minutes. Mum then rolled out the dough and cut into round circles, you can use whatever shape you fancy. Placed them on greaseproof paper on a baking sheet and sprinkled with a little more parmesan cheese. This was then placed in the oven for around 10-15minutes at 180oC until they were golden.

Verdict: This is the one recipe, out of all that I made, that I'm unable to give a verdict on. I don't really like cheesy biscuits and so I didn't try these as the smell was enough to put me off. Many people in the room really liked them and they were happily taken home in doggy bags so I would have to assume these were nice. Maybe those that tried them can leave a mark out of 10 in the comments to give people an idea?

Interestingly I also don't have a single picture from the process of making them or the end product, I obviously wasn't interested!! So I'm sorry but the closest I can get is showing you the 3 tiered stand they were displayed in and say they were on the top!!

On the left at the top of the 3 tiered stand

Bakewell Cheesecake

Whilst browsing afternoon tea recipes I came across this idea, a Bakewell cheesecake, and I couldn't resist. I do like Bakewell tarts, however, I usually find that they are a little dry and I struggle to eat them, however, I really enjoy the flavour combinations.  

I found this recipe on BBC Good Food website. I'm so glad I did, as you'll see from the verdict, this was an outstanding success. 

First step is to make the biscuit base, this is made by crushing almond biscuits and flaked almonds before adding melted butter and almond extract. I struggled finding the almond biscuits as they didn't have them in the usual supermarkets but fortunately my sister found them in M and S and was able to get us some. I'm glad she did as I think they probably really added something to the base. Definitely worth investing in some if you can. 

Once the base was all mixed together this was placed into a loose bottomed tin and baked for 10 minutes. I've never baked a biscuit base before so this was a novel idea. This was then left to cool whilst I made the filing. 

Biscuit base filling

I made the filing by mixing the cream cheese until it was soft, to this I added in the sugar until it was combined. Finally I added the flour, vanilla, eggs and soured cream until the whole mix was fully combined. 

Creamy Cheesecake Mixture

To make up the cheesecake I added spoonfuls of the cheesecake mixer onto the base with spoonfuls of cherry jam placed in the middle. I tried to add these so they were scatter throughout the cheesecake so there were lovely clumps of jam amongst the mixture. 

Spoonfuls of Jam Amongst the Cheesecake

The made cheesecake was then placed in the oven and baked for 10 mins at 200oC, the temperature was then turned down to 110oC and baked for a further 35 mins. The oven was then turned off and the cheesecake was left in the oven for a further hour to cool. The recipe states that you should leave the cheesecake where it is with the oven door open, however, we just didn't have time for this as well so we took the cheesecake out at this point. The cheesecake is then left to cool at room temperature before placing in the fridge overnight to set. 

Scattered with Almonds and Baked

The cheesecake needed to stay in the fridge until it was time to serve it, we did try and get it out sooner, but it started to melt so it went back into the fridge. I served the cheesecake as a whole piece and on a cake stand. 

Cheesecake placed on Cake Stand

Inside View of the Cheesecake

Verdict: This cheesecake was delicious, the combinations of flavours was really tasty and balanced. I liked that the cheesecake mixture balanced nicely with the strong flavour of the biscuits and the sweet fruitiness of the jam. I gave the cheesecake 10/10. Gary also gave it 10/10 as did my mum. So in total this recipe got 30/30. There is nothing that needs to be changed and the flavours are just perfect. This is certainly a recipe I'll be keeping and I'm looking forward to enjoying my final 2 pieces that are left of the current one. Would definitely recommend this recipe. 

Afternoon Tea Baby Shower

For my "baby shower" I decided that I wanted to invite all of the female members of our family over for afternoon tea and some games. I wanted it to be a relaxed environment giving people a chance to catch up and nibble on some good food. 

I've spent time planning and choosing some yummy recipes for the gathering. I knew there'd be loads of food for the number of people but I wanted there to be lots of choice and plenty of each item so should something be more popular there was enough. I hadn't made any of the recipes before, which was part of the fun, so everything was new and exciting. It took 12 hours of baking but we ended up with a great feast of food and I think it was all very nice. I will be making posts of all of the individual baked items over the coming weeks so more detail will follow, however, I'll add in a little teaser that one of the items got 30/30!! 

All the goodies ready to be eaten

To plan and pick all the recipes I did some google searches for afternoon tea recipes, I found that the BBC food website was really helpful and gave me plenty of ideas, in fact, most of the recipes I ended up using came from there and they worked well. 

So let's start at the beginning, my first thoughts went to what savoury items we should include. I wanted a traditional tea so we couldn't have any of the pizza or crisps ideas that my mum suggested!! So we had to think a little harder. Of course sandwiches were essential but what flavours? After some thought we decided to keep it simple and go with some tried and tested fillings:

• Tuna and Sweetcorn
• Ham
• Cheese and tomato
• Smoked salmon and cream cheese

We made all the bread fresh so on Friday, using a bread machine borrowed from my mum, which was baking away producing 3 loaves for us. I cut off the crusts and made them into neat little squares, originally I was thinking of making sticks but this would have resulted in tiny sandwiches so it wasn't worth it. 

Tuna and Sweetcorn

Ham on the left and Salmon on the right

So to go with the sandwiches I wanted a couple of other items. Years ago I remembered making some mini quiches that my mum liked, I didn't still have the recipe and I haven't made them since but I thought they would be a good addition. To go with these we looked through the recipe books and chose parmesan and sunflower biscuits. 

All afternoon teas have to have scones so of course these were a necessity along with some kind of fruity cake. We decided on a a fruit tea loaf which could be neatly sliced up. 

Finally the cakes element of the meal, and this is where we had the most fun, I looked through the lists and my "short" list ended up being quite long :-\ so then came the process of narrowing it all down. I wanted a balance of fruits and chocolate so we didn't have too many similar items but I also wanted things that could be made in bite size pieces. So we finally narrowed it down to:

• Chocolate tarts
• Lemon tarts
• Double Chocolate Loaf Cake
• Bakewell Cheesecake
• Pineapple and Coconut Cupcakes

I hoped this would create a nice mixture of items and have something to suit everyone. 

The food went down very well and I only received nice comments on it all, as I said, I will be writing about each item and marking them all separately with links to the recipes. There was lots of food left over, as expected, so my guests also got to leave with goody bags of their favourite items. Poor Nanna had 2 bags of salmon sandwiches as no one else wanted those!! 

Now a quick diversion off of baking to show some of the other things we also had going on. Last minute this week we decided that some bunting might look nice around the room, so my mum rushed out on Wednesday to try and find some that we could personalise. We ended up with 3!! 

Firstly the fabric bunting, we got a fabric one from Lakeland, which was a lovely mix of colours in checks and strips. To personalise this she purchased some stickers and iron on pictures to put on each flag. She chose some baby designs and some tea party designs along with Mia's name (our expected baby). 

Fabric Bunting in room

She also got some paper bunting as back up but we decided to put these up as well. The first was a flowery design and the second had bears, horses and solid colours to mix it up. 

Flowery Bunting

Bear and Rocking Horse Bunting

These made a nice difference to the room and made it feel a little more partyish!! 

Finally I'll finish with a big thank to my mum, who worked SO hard to make my vision come to life; my husband, who was lumbered with all the cleaning and tidying up; and to my guests who came with wonderful gifts, lots of chatter and provided fun. 

Overall a great day was had, hopefully, by all. :). 

Ginger Snaps P477

Whilst having a baking day, I attempted to make these ginger snaps from Mary Berry's complete cooking book. My husband is very good at making ginger biscuits so I was curious to see how this recipe compares to his famous ones. 

The recipe requires melting butter and golden syrup together and then add this to the dry ingredients. The final mix should be a dough that is "soft but not sticky", unfortunately mine couldn't even be described as a dough but a lovely smooth batter, like a cake mixture.

Cake like batter

I added several more spoonfuls of flour to try and make it more dough like. I didn't succeed in achieving a dough firm enough to handle but it was more a dough. I used a spoon to place spoonfuls on the tray, with plenty of space between them to spread out. 

These were baked in the oven for 15 minutes, the recipe didn't tell me what these should look like when you get them out of the oven so I wasn't really sure what I was looking for. I got them out and hoped they'd be ok. When they first came out these were very soft but cooling down they gradually harden up to create a lovely crunch on the biscuits. 

Ginger snaps ready to eat

The verdict, once cooled these had a lovely crunch. I added slightly more ginger than the recipe stated but I liked the extra kick this gave the biscuits. My mum tried these biscuits for me and she says that she can't think of any way of improving them and they were very good. The marks.. I gave the biscuits 8/10, I think having to alter the recipe as much as I did to make it a dough this means I have to knock some marks off, however the final product were very nice. My mum mark is 10/10.. this is the first recipe that has achieved full marks out of anyone!!