Sunday 7 December 2014

Citrus Snowballs

Here is another sweet recipe for cold, winter evenings at home. These snowballs are surprisingly tasty, sweet, orange, crunchy cookies which will be a good match for hot tea/cocoa, blanket aaand book or dreams ;)
Also, if you're running out of time, they're very easy and quick to make which gives them another big +. 
Sprinkled with powdered sugar or glucose, look like a snowball on a table :) And children will love them! Just make sure they're not using them as snowballs ;)
There original recipe is here, though I've made quite a lot of changes, such as replacing butter with margarine which I tend to do very often recently.


Ingredients:

  • 250g of margarine
  • 100g of powdered sugar (+ more to sprinkle the cookies)
  • 1 teaspoon of orange extract
  • 100g of chopped walnuts
  • 100g of candied orange skin
  • 375g of flour

Preparation:
  1. Prepare a baking tray and put baking paper all over it.
  2. Start preheating the oven to 180C.
  3. Take a mixer and its bowl. Put margarine and powdered sugar inside and beat till bright and fluffy (around 10 minutes).
  4. Add orange extract, walnuts, candied orange skin and mix till well combined.
  5. Add flour and mix (or knead) again till well combined.
  6. Start making balls (around 2 teaspoons of dough for 1 ball) and place on previously prepared baking tray (they might be placed close to each other as they won't grow).
  7. If the oven is ready, bake for 10-15 minutes till golden brown.
  8. Cool down on a wire rack.
  9. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
  10. Bon Appetit!

Friday 5 December 2014

Reindeer Cookies


If you ask me what kind of sweets do children choose most often during Christmas (among many on the table) the answer is: reindeer cookies from this recipe :) I baked them for my kindergarten party and they disappeared with a blink of an eye! Why? Well I guess because of a reindeer ;) plus - children enjoy 'plain' or 'clean' sweets with no additional ingredients. And here they are - basic vanilla dough plus decoration - chocolate + M&M's. They're really wonderful, what's more - it is possible to prepare the dough a couple of days earlier and store in the fridge/freezer! :)
I do recommend! :)



Ingredients:
  • 180g of margarine, cold
  • 200g of sugar
  • 350g of flour
  • 1 big egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
  • a pinch of salt
Decoration:
  • 2 small packs of M&M's
  • around 50g of chocolate (preferably dark) for eyes and horns
  • around 30g of margarine (or more if neccessary, to melt with the chocolate - to make it smooth)
  • icing sugar - to glue reindeers' noses (the easiest one - 1/3 glass of powdered sugar and 1-2 teaspoons of water)

Preparation:
  1. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and knead or mix till the dough is soft.
  2. Put in the fridge for 40 minutes.
  3. During that time prepare a surface, sprinkled with flour as well as baking tray with baking paper on it.
  4. Start preheating the oven to 180C.
  5. Take half of the dough and roll it out (3-5 mm thick), cut out the circles (preferably with a tumbler ;) ).
  6. Put circles on a baking tray, leaving little space between them (they won't grow much).
  7. Bake in previously preheated oven for around 10 minutes, till gold.
  8. Cool down.
Decorate:
  1. Make icing, put a little on a cookie, glue the nose.
  2. Put chocolate with butter (just a little, not all) in a heatproof small pot, heat till it melts and you get a smooth mixture.
  3. Using a toothpick, make eyes and horns.
  4. Bon Appetit! ;)