Baking with Elliott

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Biscuit

Chocolate Chip Shortbread Hearts

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Left a Valentine’s Day treat until the last minute? Don’t you worry, I have you covered!

Today I’ll be sharing my recipe for a batch of chocolate chip shortbread hearts, buttery with the perfect amount of chocolate. Although what’s not to love?

These are ideal to make as a last minute snack or as part of a bigger gift. Feel free to change the chocolate, I went with milk but dark or white would work well too!

If you’re looking for other Valentine’s Day recipes don’t forget go check out macarons (Italian meringue method), pink velvet cupcakes, red velvet cupcakes and chocolate valentines day cake.

Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?

Ingredients:

175g Plain flour.

120g Butter.

60g Granulated sugar.

Pinch of salt.

100g Chocolate chips (I opted for milk).

 

Method:

Before you get into the recipe, you’ll want to do some prep work. Weigh up the ingredients, line a baking tray with parchment paper and get any equipment you may need like a mixing bowl or food processor ready.

When it comes to making the dough, you can do it one of two ways. One will be suing a food processor and the other is by hand, I went with the food processor method for convenience and I have really warm hands, nevertheless, which ever method you choose will work just as well.

Method one (by hand) – into a large mixing bowl, place the flour, salt and butter. In-between your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until they are combined. It will resemble a sand like consistency, this is what you’re looking for.

Add in the granulated sugar and start to form dough, because of making the dough by hand you have the advantage of not over-mixing the dough.

You can then go ahead and add in the chocolate chips and work them into the dough.

Method two (food processor) – into the door processor place the the flour, salt and butter. Then pulse until they have combined and the mixture should have a sandy look about it, this is perfect.

Go ahead and add in the granulated sugar and pulse until the mixture starts to come together, try your best not to let the dough develop too much!

Lightly flour your work surface and transfer the dough onto the floured surface. Add the chocolate chips and briefly work them into the dough, the less you work the dough, the better.

Regardless of the method you chose, you will want to take the dough and get into a thick disk shape, then wrap it in clingfilm and place in the fridge for about an hour.

Once the hour is up, flour your work surface and remove the dough from the fridge. Take your rolling pin and proceed to roll the dough out until its around 1cm in thickness. It’s also the ideal time to preheat your oven to 190˚c/375˚f.

Take a 1.5-2 inch heart cookie cutter and cut out as many as possible from the first roll. I recommend that you only re-roll the dough only once, as after that the dough becomes overworked.

Now you can take your lined baking tray and place the cut outs onto it, I managed to get 15 on my tray but that amount will vary for you. In saying this, my baking tray is just a standard size, yours may be bigger or smaller.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minute or until they start to go a nicely baked colour around the edges.

That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below.

Millionaires Shortbread

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If you’re here looking for a super simple recipe on how to make millionaires shortbread, I’ve got you covered.

If you don’t know what millionaires shortbread is, its basically a layered traybake. The layers consist of a shortbread biscuit base, which is topped with a rich caramel layer and finished with a chocolate layer on top. What’s not to like about it? 🤔

Anyway, I’m going to share my recipe on how to make the millionaires shortbread. It’s quick, easy and doesn’t require many ingredients, which is always a good thing!

The process of making the different parts isn’t exactly hard, nor do they take a lot of time to do. Making the shortbread will vary, depending on the method you use. There are two ways to make the dough, method 1 is using a food processor and method 2 is making it by hand. Both methods will work equally as well but method 1 is quicker than method two, however, method 2 is ideal if you don’t have a food processor or prefer to be hands on when making doughs.

Before you get into making this, you’ll want to do a small bit of prep. Measure out all of your ingredients in advance, this just saves you making mistakes and faffing about. Also, don’t forget to preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f. The baking tin I’m using is 11×7 inches but feel free to use a 9 inch square.

To make the shortbread layer, place your flour, sugar and butter into either your food processor or mixing bowl and pulse/rub in until its combined. Once you see a clear dough has formed, stop mixing and set aside while you prepare your tin, lining it with some greaseproof paper. Place your shortbread into your prepared tin and press it out until you have a level layer, I found using my hands and a small cup measurement really helps to spread it out and get it level. Do whatever works best for you. Bake in your preheated oven for 20-22 minutes (or until slightly coloured around the edge. While your shortbread is baking, feel free to make the caramel layer.

To make the caramel layer, it’s really easy. Get a small-medium saucepan and place the butter, sugar, golden syrup and condensed milk and place on the hob over a low-medium heat and continuously stir it until it melts, it will then become darker in colour, it should be a golden brown colour, no lighter or darker. Once you’ve achieved the right colour, pour the caramel over the baked biscuit base and level it off as best you can using a silicon spatula or cranked palette knife. Place this in the fridge until its cooled down, it should be firm to the touch. This doesn’t take very long.

The final layer is the chocolate layer. This is probably the easiest and most simple layer to do plus you can customise it to suit you. I chose to use dark chocolate (as it was all I had in) but feel free to use milk chocolate, if you’d prefer to. All you need to do is melt your chocolate, my preferred method is to melt the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stirring it often until melted. If you don’t like using this method, feel free to microwave the chocolate on 20-30 second intervals, stirring well in-between each interval, be careful not to burn the chocolate. Pour the chocolate over the top of your cooled and firmed caramel and level the chocolate off as best you can using a offset/cranked palette knife, place the baking tray back in the fridge and allow the chocolate to firm up.

Once the chocolate has firmed up, remove the millionaires shortbread from the tin (you may need to run a knife down the sides) and cut it up into slices, I cut mine into squares but feel free to cut yours into slices that suit you best.

 

Ingredients:

Shortbread:

115g Butter.

175g Plain flour.

55g Granulated sugar.

Caramel Filling:

175g Butter.

115g Granulated sugar.

45g Golden syrup.

400g Condensed milk.

Chocolate Topping:

300g Chocolate (dark or milk, whichever you prefer best).

Methods:

  1. Do some prep work now, weigh up your ingredients, this saves you making mistakes later on and stops you faffing about later.
  2. Preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.

Shortbread:

  1.  When it comes to making the shortbread, you can do it 2 ways, using a food processor or by hand. Either method will get you the results you’re looking for, I used the food processor method.
  2. Place the flour, sugar and butter into your food processor or mixing bowl of choice and pulse/rub them together until a clear dough forms. Be careful not to over-mix it at this stage, otherwise your shortbread will be tough once baked.
  3. Line your baking tray with a piece of baking paper/parchment and place the shortbread dough into the prepared tin, feel free to do this by using your hands or a small cup measurement, try and get the layer of shortbread as level as possible.
  4. Once level, place your shortbread into the preheated oven and bake for around 20-22 minutes or until slightly coloured around the edge.

Caramel Filling:

  1. I recommend making your caramel filling once your shortbread has been in the oven for round 10-15 minutes.
  2. The caramel is really easy to make, get yourself a small-medium saucepan and place the butter, granulated sugar, golden syrup and condensed milk into your saucepan and place on the hob over a low-medium heat, once it starts to melt, you’ll want to continuously stir the mixture. You’ll notice it goes from a yellow-ish colour to a golden brown colour, this is when you know it’s done.
  3. Once your caramel filling is done, pour it over the baked shortbread base and level out the caramel using a spatula or cranked/offset palette knife then place in the fridge to set completely cool and firm up. This doesn’t take very long.

Chocolate Topping:

  1. Once your caramel layer has set, you can melt your chocolate. For the chocolate, feel free to use milk or dark chocolate, choose your preference.
  2. You can melt the chocolate 2 different ways, method 1 is placing the bowl of chocolate over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring often once it starts to melt. Method 2 is placing the chocolate into a microwave safe bowl and microwave the chocolate in 30 second intervals until melted. Either method will work, I chose method 1 as this is my preference.
  3. Pour the chocolate on top of the firmed caramel layer and spread it out using a cranked/offset palette knife or the back of a spoon and level out the chocolate as best you can.
  4. Place back in the fridge and allow the chocolate to firm up completely.

 

  1. To finish the millionaires shortbread, all you need to do is to remove it from the tray and cut it up into slices, I chose squares but feel free to cut them up however you like.

Cream Tart Recipe

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If you’ve come looking for a recipe on how to make these interesting biscuit tarts, look no further, I certainly have you covered.

After seeing these all over Instagram, I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and make one. When I was researching what exactly these were and to be honest I didn’t get very far. I could’t find the exact name or a basic recipe for them, normally when something like this trends you can find the name and a recipe pretty easily, but I had my work cut out for me on this one. After about 3/4 day’s on Instagram I found the most common name/tag was ‘cream tart/s’ and I was amazed at how artistic some of the people had got with these.

The best thing about making these is that they don’t require a lot of time or ingredients and can be fully customisable to suit you and your occasion. You can decorate them using just one thing like chocolate or mix it up by using

After seeing all the creative and over the top varieties online, so I opted to keep mine simple. I decided that a linzer biscuit would be ideal for this recipe, it’s a simple biscuit but it has a great taste and a softer crumb than most other biscuits. For the filling, I went with what was most common but with a little twist. In place of the standard whipped cream I opted for a sweetened version instead, I know for sure that this would compliment the biscuit and fruit very well. For the decoration I kept it simple, just fruit, I chose with strawberries, blueberries, kiwi and lime.

 

Before you get into making the biscuits, make sure you have all your ingredients weighed up in advance and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f. To make the biscuit part of the tart, you’ll want to place the butter and icing sugar into your mixing bowl and beat the two together over a medium-high speed until they are well combined. Once combined, scrape down the bowl and add in the egg and vanilla and mix them in on a medium-high speed until well incorporated, then scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl again to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in. Sift your flour into the mixing bowl and mix on a low-medium speed until a clear dough has formed. *Be careful not to over mix at this stage, otherwise your biscuits will be tougher in texture.

Seeing as the dough doesn’t require chilling before use, split the dough in half and roll it out until it’s about 1cm thick and cut out the shape, I opted for a 6 inch/15cm round. To get the shape, I used the base of a cake tin and used a small, sharp knife to cut around it. I repeat that stage one more time and then transfer the cut outs onto a line baking tray and bake in your preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before finishing. Talking of finishing these tarts, you’ll want to prepare your filling, which is a sweetened whipped cream. Place the double cream, icing sugar and vanilla into a bowl and whip it up until you achieve stiff peaks, then place into a piping bag with a 1cm plain tip nozzle and keep it in the fridge if you don’t intend on using it straight away.

Finally, depending on what you’ve chose to decorate with, you’ll want to get it prepped and ready to use once you’ve piped your cream on. This is best eaten on the same day as it’s made or the following day.

Biscuit Layers: 
• 300g Plain flour.
• 200g Butter.
• 100g Icing sugar.
• 1 Egg yolk.
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla bean paste/extract.

Filling:
• 300ml Double cream.
• 100g Icing sugar.
• 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste/extract.

Decoration:
Feel free to use whatever you’d like whether it be fresh fruit, flowers, chocolate or macarons. Feel free to mix it up and use a variety of different bits and pieces

Method:

Biscuit:

  • Before you get into making, you’ll want to do some prep. Weigh up all of your ingredients, preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and line your baking tray.
  • To start the biscuit dough, place the butter and icing sugar into your mixing bowl of choice and beat them together for around 2-3 minutes over a medium-high speed until it comes together and is well combined.
  • Scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl, to incorporate any bits that wasn’t fully worked in.
  • You will then like to add the egg and vanilla, incorporate them over a medium-high speed just until they are incorporated.
  • Scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl again, just to incorporate any bits that wasn’t fully worked in.
  • Next you’ll want to add in the flour, making sure that you’ve sifted it first. Add all the flour in and mix over a low-medium speed until a clear dough has formed. *Don’t over mix your dough at this stage*.
  • Seeing as there is no need to chill the dough, cut the dough in half and roll it out on a floured surface until the dough is roughly 1cm thick.
  • Once your dough is rolled out, you’ll want to cut out the shapes. To make your cut outs, place a 6 inch/15cm circle shape on top and cut around it, I used the base of a cake tin and cut around it with a small sharp knife.
  • Move the cutouts onto your lined baking tray and use a smaller cutter to removed a hole in the middle of each cutout.
  • Then place the baking tray in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes (or until they start to colour around the edges).
  • Once baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before using.

Filling:

  • To make the sweetened whipped cream, place the double cream, icing sugar and vanilla into a bowl of your choice and whip it until stiff peaks form.
  • Transfer the whipped cream into a piping bag which has a 1cm plain tip nozzle. Place in the fridge if you aren’t using it straight away.

Decoration:

Depending on what you have chosen for your topping, you may need to prepare it. If you have decided to use fruit, feel free to cut/shape it however you like. These can be fully customised to suit your occasion or the person who’ll be receiving this.

Then place whatever you’re using on top, either following a pattern or making it look decorative, whichever you choose. Whatever you do use on top can add a lot of colour to these.

If you do use flowers, please make sure you’re using flowers that are safe for human consumption, double check that they won’t have any harm to yours to others health.

Don’t forget, if you make anything using my recipes, feel free to share your creations with me over on Twitter and Instagram!

Viennese Whirls

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I have the the best and most straightforward recipe for viennese whirls you could possibly need.

If you’re from the UK then you probably recognise these from a well known cake brand, which is available in in most supermarkets. Forget about those, once you make a batch of these up for yourself, you will not look back!

The biscuits themselves only require 4 ingredients, so they are cheap, quick and easy to make. They can be enjoyed on their own or with the vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam fillings, which compliment the biscuits pretty nicely and the other thing to know about theses that they are fairly bigger than the ones you’d get in the box from the supermarket (I’m a greedy git), so feel free to lower the amount of filling compared to what I used.

The mixing process is easy, it doesn’t matter if you’re using a wooden spoon, electric hand mixer or a stand mixer. It’s the piping that can be a bit difficult and this is because of the amount of flour which is used in these biscuits, it’s a lot. The dough can easily be handled with your hands but to get the signature piped look on top you need to use a piping bag and star tip nozzle, I recommend using a open/wide star tip as to a closed star. If you find your dough hard to pipe out, use the warmth from your hands to warm the dough through the bag (if you try and pipe the dough while it’s too stiff then you will be pushing too much pressure towards the bottom of the bag and it will more than likely split open plop a good amount of the dough out of the bag).

So to get started, you’ll always want to prepare your baking tray, I drew around a circle cutter so my biscuits would be roughly accurate in size to one another, this is ideal if you’re not sure on sizing them. Also, don’t forget to weigh up your ingredients and preheat the oven to  190˚c/375˚f. Now you can start by placing the butter and icing sugar into your mixing bowl of choice and beat the two together until well combined. Then add in your first weight of flour and mix that until well combined, scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl, then add in the second weight of flour and mix it in until well combined and thats the dough done. Place a open star nozzle into a piping bag and add around about a handful or so of the biscuit dough. If the dough isn’t piping well, use the heat of your hands to warm it up just enough to pipe out your rosettes. These don’t really spread in the open so feel free to pip quite a few onto one tray and place them in your preheated oven and bake for around 18-20 minutes (or until they start to colour around the edge.

As for the filling, I have recommended using vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam but feel free to replace those if you don’t like my choice.  Make your buttercream while your biscuits are baking, start by placing the butter into a bowl and beating until lighter in colour and consistency. Scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl and place roughly half the amount of icing sugar and beat until fully incorporated, repeat this stage with the remaining icing sugar. Once all the icing sugar is fully incorporated, add in the vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste an mix until well combined, if your buttercream is a little too thick, add a splash of milk just to get it to a more spreadable consistency. As for the jam, feel free to use whatever you’ve got, homemade or shop bought will work well here.

For the assembly of these biscuits, pair your biscuits up and onto one half of them, pipe on a good amount (or a generous amount if you have a sweet tooth) and then pipe on a small amount of jam in the centre of the buttercream and gently place the other biscuit on top of the filling, sandwiching them together. Just before you tuck into one, you’ll want to give them a justing of icing sugar to finish them off, now sit back and enjoy one of these.

Ingredients:

Biscuits:
225g Butter.
45g Icing sugar.
115g Plain flour (1).
145g Plain flour (2).

Bake them in your preheated 190˚c/375˚f for 18-20 minutes.

Filling:

Buttercream:
150g Butter.
300g Icing sugar.
1 tsp Vanilla extract/bean paste.
(optional – milk).

Strawberry jam (but feel free to switch this to a jam or spread you might prefer).

Method:

Biscuits:

  • Weigh up all of your ingredients, preheat your oven to 190˚c/375˚f and line your baking trays with greaseproof/parchment paper.
  • Start the biscuits by placing the butter and icing sugar into your mixing bowl of choice and beat them together until well combined and lighter in colour.
  • Scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl, to incorporate any bits from earlier on. Then add in your first weight of flour in and mix that in until just combined.
  • Scrape down the bowl again to incorporate any bits that have worked up the bowl. Add in the second weight of flour and just mix that in until its just combined.
  • Prepare a piping bag by placing a 12mm open star nozzle at the end and place a good amount of the dough into the piping bag.
  • Pipe out the dough onto your lined tray (draw some templates if you want to get your biscuits more uniform), these don’t spread very much while in the oven so leave a small space in-between each biscuit. Place the tray in your preheated oven and bake for 18-20 minutes (or until they start to colour around the edges).
  • Once fully baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes on the baking tray, then transfer them over to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Buttercream:

  • Weigh up your ingredients in advance.
  • Place the butter into a mixing bowl an beat it over a medium-high speed until lighter in colour and consistency.
  • Once lighter, you’ll want to add in around half of your icing sugar (make sure you’ve sifted it first, to remove any big lumps) and beat that on a low speed working it up to a high speed, scrape down the bowl and repeat this stage for the other half of the icing sugar.
  • Add in the vanilla (and milk if the buttercream is too stiff, this will help loosen the buttercream down) and mix until well incorporated.
  • Place the buttercream into a piping bag with a 12mm star nozzle and set aside until its needed.

Assembly:Pair your biscuits up with