Cherry Bakewell Cookies

Marks & Spencer picnics used to be a staple of the summer holidays for my friends and I. An indecisive bunch, we’d spend ages at each section: the sandwiches, the fruit and drinks, the crisps, the baked goods. Only once everyone had finally chosen would we move to the next aisle and begin the deliberations all over again there. A staple of the picnics would be a packet of M&S cookies. We took this decision in particular overly seriously (bad biscuit selection can ruin a picnic): games of heads or tails and ip dip doo being employed to gradually narrow down the choice. When I was in a Marks and Spencer recently, I noticed the selection of flavours in this range has more than tripled since we last went – I’m not sure we would have had any time for the actual picnic if this had existed when I was younger. But one flavour in particular caught my eye: the cherry bakewell cookie. I’ve made mini cherry bakewell tarts before but I really liked the idea of changing this classic dessert into cookie form. I was also feeling inspired after watching the first episode of Great British Bake Off (side note – I’m fully obsessed with Norman) where they made a cherry and almond sponge. These biscuits have exactly the same flavours but none of the ‘will the cherries sink’ stress – it’s a win win! The M&S version I saw didn’t have icing but I couldn’t resist. I was really happy with the result considering I’d pretty much made up the recipe – buttery shortbread, decent level of almondy flavour and sweet glace cherries are a dangerously addictive combination. I’ll admit that the cookies did spread a little in the oven so I trimmed off the edges to make them all the same… an unnecessary OCD step probably but then cookie trimmings = chefs perks! You can find the recipe below, I’m off to dream up other cookie versions of classic desserts. Tiramisu cookies anyone?

Cherry Bakewell Cookies
Makes 8 large cookies

• 125g unsalted butter
• 60g caster sugar
• 120g plain flour
• 60g ground almonds
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 50g glace cherries, quartered
• 100g icing sugar, sieved
• 1/2 lemon, juiced

1. Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the almond extract and mix to combine.

2. Add the flour and ground almonds to the mixture and stir to incorporate. As the dough begins to come together, add the glace cherries and continue to mix until they are evenly distributed throughout the smooth dough.

3. Tip onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to just under 1cm thick. Stamp out with an 8cm cookie cutter and place on the baking sheets. Chill for 20minutes. Preheat the oven to 180’C.

4. Meanwhile, sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the lemon juice and stir to a smooth paste.

5. Bake the biscuits for 10-15minutes, until lightly golden. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack, then drizzle over the icing. Enjoy!

Easter Currant Biscuits

I don’t have a very good track record of themed baking. Christmas I can cope with, as it’s basically stretched over a whole month and padded out by lots of days off. Other than that, I’m never good at remembering to bake for specific occasions – Halloween, St Patricks Day, Shrove Tuesday and Valentines Day (aside from the odd brownie) all come and go every year before I’ve had a chance to get the scales out. I wanted this Easter to be different so this post is the first of two fab Easter bakes!I didn’t know why currant biscuits are so tied in with Easter and the research I did gave several different suggestions – that they were given after Church on Easter Sunday in packages of 3 to represent the Holy Trinity, that the rich ingredients marked the end of Lent and fasting, that the tradition originated in the West Country – who knows! Recipes also differ with variations from county to county, so I stuck with Mary Berry. They turned out softer than I was imagining and slightly different to the crunchy Fruit Shortcakes you buy in shops but moreish and perfect with a cup of tea nonetheless. The only changes I made were to do half currants, half sultanas instead of all currants and I realised just after putting them in the oven that the zest of an orange would be a nice addition. You can find the recipe here (I only made the fruited half) – enjoy!`

Almond Shortbreads

After a brief break, I find the easiest way to get back my baking mojo is to look to favourites for inspiration. Favourite flavours – anything almond. Favourite bake for quickest gratification – cookies. Favourite author for recipes that always work – Nigel Slater. These shortbreads couldn’t fail!These may look like fairly standard cookies, but they’re hiding a fairly delicious secret in the form of a soft marzipan filling. I’ve seen this concept before with shortbreads stuffed with chocolate or caramel but visions of leaking biscuits and dough soldered to trays with mounds of burnt sugar meant I’d never tried it. However I trusted Nigel and figured that a firmer filling like marzipan at least would not be anywhere as messy if spillage did occur. Luckily the recipe didn’t let me down and the result was delicious! The filling was not massively distinguishable from the rest of the cookie but ensured they all had a really soft, almost cake like centre. The only changes I would make if I were to make these again would be to leave out the lemon and add a few drops of almond essence to the shortbread mixture so that the flavours weren’t competing and the almond could really shine. Other than that, I can’t complain as these were very moreish and did not last long! You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Party Rings

Hello and welcome to 2014 on Teen Baker! I feel it’s appropriate to start the year with something healthy, like a colourful salad, as so many people go on a New Years diet. Or something that uses up the Christmas and New Years party leftover bits and bobs that are currently cluttering up people’s cupboards everywhere. But… well… all in good time. Party rings are just so much more fun!Party rings have been on my baking agenda since I started doing the homemade classics challenge but for one reason or another they kept falling to the bottom of the list. I don’t know if party rings are available outside the UK but (as the name suggests) they are a kids birthday party staple here with their pastel colours and pretty swirly pattern. Essentially they are just a vanilla ring biscuit with glace icing topping, but there is something addictive about them!I thought party rings would be a bit of a kerfuffle to make and certainly previous recipes I’d seen for them had been more fiddly, involving piping, icing borders, intricate patterns and other things I’m not very good at. However when I saw this recipe from the Oh Comely magazine blog I knew it wouldn’t be long until party rings graced my kitchen counter! Turns out party rings are super easy – dipping each biscuit in bowls of icing creates the base layer, and a quick drizzle of icing off the end of a teaspoon creates the signature swirly pattern. My tips would be to make your icing a bolder colour than you think – the beauty of party rings is their pretty pastels but you need them to show up and not look watery on the biscuit. Also after doing all the base layers, thicken your icing slightly for the drizzle – I thought thinner would be easier to drizzle but thicker icing holds the pattern better. See you next week for that healthy new years dish…or maybe some more baking. We’ll see!

White Chocolate & Raspberry Dipped Cookies

You might remember back in May I told you I had been interviewed all about this blog and baking for a podcast on Podium.me. Well, today is the start of a new 3-part podcast series with me over on Podium, called ‘Lucy’s Recipes’ where I bake and chat through a different recipe each week. I am super excited about it, I really enjoyed recording it and it was a really fun new challenge. These white chocolate and raspberry cookies are the first recipe in the series and were a big hit in my house!As well as talking through the recipe for these cookies on this weeks podcast, I also chat about my future plans now that I have finished school. I haven’t mentioned them on here before as I was waiting until everything was confirmed and I had solid plans to announce. But since exams results day was yesterday here in the UK I can finally be sure of exactly what I’m doing for the next four years. At the start of October, I am starting cookery school! I know it will be a massive challenge going from a fairly relaxed Sixth Form schedule at school to an intense year of learning everything there is to know about food but I am so excited! In case you are interested, I will be doing this Leiths Professional Diploma for a year. After that, I will be starting a History degree at Cambridge in October 2014. This blog will of course keep going and I’m hoping to be able to write posts about my time at Leiths and updates on cookery school as well as my normal content, if people would be interested? Now, back to the cookies!This is my fourth white chocolate cookie on my blog and they are always super popular but I wanted to do something slightly different with this version. I adapted a Dorie Greenspan sable recipe, meaning that the cookies are super sandy and buttery. This was the first time I have used freeze dried raspberries and I really liked them – they are super pretty and their burst of intense raspberry flavour helps cut through the richness of the thick layer of white chocolate! At first, I wasn’t sure if these cookies would be too rich but judging by the speed at which the cookie tin emptied I think we managed! You can find the recipe below, and head over to the podcast here to listen to me chat through the recipe and discuss cookery school a bit more. I hope you enjoy!
White Chocolate and Raspberry Dipped Cookies
Ingredients: 225g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 egg yolks
2 cups plain flour 250g white chocolate, chopped into small chunks freeze dried raspberries
1. Cream the butter and sugars in a stand mixer or with a wooden spoon until really light and fluffy.
2. Add the yolks and salt and mix until combined.
3. Pour in the flour and 100g of the white chocolate and stir until the dough comes together and looks uniform.
4. Shape the dough into a log and wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least 3 hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 180’C. Unwrap your log of cookie dough and slice into 1cm thick cookies. Place on a lined baking tray, leaving 1inch between them.
6. Bake for 15minutes until golden, then let cool.
7. Melt the remaining white chocolate in the microwave (stirring every 30seconds) or in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
8. Dip the cookies halfway into the white chocolate and place on parchment paper. Sprinkle some freeze dried raspberries over the white chocolate and leave to set. Enjoy!

Custard and White Chocolate Cookies

These cookies came about because of two previous recipes I’ve blogged:
1) These white chocolate cookies which are the biggest hit on my blog. I was surprised, because whilst I remember the cookies and they were delicious, it’s still a pretty unassuming recipe.
2) These custard creams adapted from a Marcus Wareing recipe. I really enjoy doing biscuit challenge posts and so there was quite a lot of pressure when I tried making these as they are my favourite shop-bought biscuit. The results were also a hit.

Therefore, when I saw this recipe for Custard and White Chocolate Biscuits, combining the best of both recipes, I knew I had to give them a try! The result did not disappoint! They have a surprisingly large amount of custard powder in them, which gave the cookies quite a sandy texture and also a slightly orange tone. The amount of white chocolate didn't seem generous in the recipe but I think suited it well because otherwise, combined with the custard powder, they would be too sweet. I think they were nicest straight out of the oven when they were still soft in the middle and the chocolate was melting, as the biscuits became quite solid after a few days. This didn’t stop them being moreish though, particularly as I made them fairly small meaning the recipe made a large batch! They went down a treat with my friends too, despite already having had a bowl of tomato soup, ramekin of jelly and slice of pie each!

You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Orange Highlanders

Recently I’ve got into a baking routine of doing all my baking at the weekend – one bigger, main recipe such as a showy cake or elegant tart, and then one recipe for happy snacking during the week. Muffins, flapjacks, tablet – something to fill the 4pm sugar dip. More often than not, this recipe is some sort of biscuit.A simple recipe I can make when I’m not completely awake on a Saturday morning and that will be out the oven by the time my sister wakes up. Bright citrus flavours are perfect for February and for a trusty cookie recipe I turn to my Granny’s old WI Book of Biscuits, which led me to these Orange Highlanders. I was confused about the name but essentially these biscuits are an orange version of these so the link must be due to shortbreads origins in the Scottish Highlands. I loved the crunchy demerara coating and the crumbly, buttery shortbread centre – they definitely didn’t last the whole week!Orange Highlanders, adapted from WI Book of Biscuits
Makes about 20 small shortbreads
100g butter
50g icing sugar
75g plain flour
75g self raising flour
zest of 2 oranges
25g demerara sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 180’C/350’F. Cream the butter, orange zest and icing sugar until light and fluffy. Sift the flours together and fold in to make a dough.
2. Shape the mixture into a sausage. Sprinkle the demerara sugar over a piece of cling-film and roll the dough in the sugar, pressing it to make sure it sticks. Wrap in the cling-film and chill for 1hour.
3. Cut the dough into slices (5mm-1cm thick), place on baking sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove to a wire rack and leave to cool. Enjoy!

Coffee Break Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for the people in my office on my last day of my internship at the start of August, as I had wanted to make something a little bit more special than muffins for my last bake. I had found these on the always perfect blog, raspberri cupcakes, a few weeks before and bookmarked them on the off chance I would find a situation where they would be suitable. With a few adaptations they became the perfect treat.Originally, I stayed pretty faithful to the recipe on raspberri cupcakes. I made both the condensed milk icing and the cookie dough…and used neither. The condensed milk icing was gorgeous, but insanely sweet. Properly sweet. I don’t normally find things too sweet, but even I could only manage a miniscule spoonful. It was probably as close to eating pure butter as you can get! It still tasted good, but I thought it would be pretty over powerful to pile it on top of a chocolate chip cupcake. Bearing this extreme sweetness in mind, I also chose not to stuff the middle with cookie dough and baked this into cookies another day instead. So in the end I had: coffee cupcakes with dark and milk chocolate chips, coffee buttercream, mini HobNobs and milk bottles. I couldn’t find mini chocolate chip cookies, and the HobNobs seemed appropriate after an embarrassing day at the office when the the rest of the team noticed how I ate a ridiculously large amount in one day… These are fun to personalise too: I swapped in cola bottle sweets on one cake for my boss with the Diet Coke habit, and added an extra shot of coffee to the cake of the boss who drank copious amounts of black coffee throughout the day. They went down a treat at the office – I hope you like them too :)

Triple Chocolate Cookies

My friends always complain that I hardly ever bake for them. If they come round to my house they know I’ll definitely bake something for them, but I hardly ever take bakes into school. Even on birthdays it tends to be someone else who brings the cake in. I’m not sure why – I think it’s the pressure? And all the different tastes, likes and allergies to bear in mind! With my four week internship this summer, I wanted this to be different and so every Friday I’ve taken something in for the office. Blueberry and lemon cupcakes one week, nectarine and coconut muffins last week, and these triple chocolate cookies the week in between. There is definitely less pressure and fear that people won’t like something when it involves chocolate!The original recipe is from Dan Lepard’s Short and Sweet book, a fabulous book and one where my list of ‘To Make’ recipes is pretty much the whole book. I feel like I can trust Dan Lepard’s recipes too – I’ve made many of his ones from the Guardian and they’ve always gone down well. I did make a slight change to this recipe – just making half the chocolate chunks white chocolate rather than all dark as I simply love white chocolate and thought it made more interesting. And triple rather than double chocolate can never be a bad thing!I loved how these turned out – they were so perfectly round! They had those moreish crispy edges, a soft middle, plenty of cocoa flavour and a generous helping of chocolate. I overuse this word so much but seriously – these really are addictive. I may or may not have eaten one for breakfast. Or even more than one…Anyhow! The office liked them, I liked them, my family liked them. The only people still waiting are my friends! You can find pretty much the same recipe here – the only difference is the book had 300g of chocolate and I didn’t freeze them. Enjoy!

Rose Pink Macaroons

I’m kind of in love with almond this year, it seems. This is my third almond dish of 2012 and I actually made it a while a while ago now but felt that I should spread out the almond-based desserts a bit as obviously not everyone is a fan (you crazy people) and some people will be allergic. I also have several more almond recipes that I really want to make but ground almonds aren’t the cheapest of ingredients so I’m going to hang on to those ideas for a bit. Are there any ingredients you can’t stop using? These macaroons are a little bit different, at least, due to a secret ingredient…  I’m not a big fan of desserts which are really artificially coloured, because sometimes this takes away from the natural flavours in the food and just clearly looks very fake. Sometimes they can look really pretty, but generally I avoid desserts dyed bright green or blue if there is no reason. With these macaroons the secret ingredient adds a pretty pink colour that is easily controllable and contains no crazy ingredients that you can’t pronounce or contains numbers as well as letters. The ingredient? Beetroot.I admit I was a little bit scared when I first saw this recipe. I like beetroot, but I’m not a massive fan and I didn’t want the lovely almond and delicate rosewater flavours to be overpowered by this crazy hot pink vegetable. The idea is that you whizz up a few chunks of beetroot with the sugar before adding the ground almonds, egg whites and rosewater. Due to my apprehension, I used a very small amount of chopped beetroot and this meant my macaroons had a very gentle blush pink colour as the colour fades slightly whilst baking – you can’t even really tell in the pictures. There was no beetroot flavour (great!) so in the future I’d be braver and add a larger chunk, like the recipe suggests, just to make the pink slightly more noticeable but still pretty and not brash. The final cookies were so cute and very difficult to stop snacking on. The rosewater flavour was definitely there, perhaps a little bit too strong for some tastes but I quite liked it. The whole almond on top added some necessary crunch and the nuttiness nicely distracted from the very sweet macaroon. The tin disappeared very quickly and I have to admit that was largely down to me! The recipe is here, it’s another Dan Lepard one from the Guardian – like the coconut meringues and cherry chocolate cookies. These recipes always work and it’s taking a lot of resistance not to buy his new book! Enjoy :)

Sour Cherry Amaretti

I’ve made a cookie with dried cranberries. I’ve made ricciarelli. Before this weekend, I’d never thought of combining the two ideas – sour dried fruit, soft almond biscuit – but the Ottolenghi book showed me differently. Sour Cherry Amaretti. The original separate biscuits were delicious, but when combined and altered slightly they become something even better.As you bite into these, you initially get the chewy outer edge of the cookie before the really soft, melt-in-the-mouth texture and intense almond flavour of the inside. Then you hit a chewy, tart sour cherry to stop the amaretti becoming too sickly and the two flavours work really well together.Making the amaretti uses a really similar technique to the ricciarelli and similar to macarons except you don’t have to worry about being really gentle as you fold the ground almonds into whisked stiff egg whites. There is also a twist in this recipe: you use your fingers to rub in lemon zest to the ground almonds and sugar mixture before you add it the to the egg whites. This really enhances the citrus flavour and means you can still taste it in the final product even with the other strong flavours competing, giving it a bit of freshness and zing. The result is extremely moreish and as they’re quite small it’s difficult to stop having just one more, then another, then another…
PS – hope you like the new blog design! Finally took the plunge and mixed things up after three and a half years of the same design.

Cherry Chocolate Snow Cookies

I’m back! And just in time for Christmas – only two days to go! Cookies come in to their own at Christmas, I think, as part of cookie exchanges, gifts for party hostesses, decorations for the Christmas tree or simply as a last minute and simple festive bake. There are a never ending amount of recipe variations and cookies are a great way to incorporate many Christmassy flavours into one mouthful – such as in these cookies. With chocolate, sweet dried fruit, a snowy icing sugar covering and a little bit of virtue from oats, these make the perfect holiday treat. If you’ve left a present last minute, or have a unexpected visitor now coming for Christmas lunch, these cookies will make the perfect gift – everybody else will be jealous! The dough is really quick to make because you add the egg, butter and sugar all at once, saving you time in the busiest period of the year. The recipe comes from Dan Lepard who originally uses dried cranberries – obviously a very appropriate flavour for Christmas. However we didn’t have any so I used dried sour cherries instead which have the same chew and sour taste and so were just as delicious. The cherries worked nicely with the dark chocolate – all coming together to make a perfect Christmassy bite. Enjoy!

Brandy Snaps

One of my major weaknesses as a baker is baking times. As my Mum will happily tell you, I burn things. A fair bit. Mainly cookies. I like to blame it on my oven, but I’m not too sure what the reason really is. Generally I start by putting whatever it is in the oven for 5-10 minutes less than suggested, but then I just spend the last ten minutes putting the timer on for two minutes more, then two minutes more, then two minutes more etc etc. So I knew when I attempted brandy snaps it would be a good challenge for me because they rely so much on perfect timing. And yes, I did burn the first mini batch – but who’d want to break a tradition?Before last weekend, I’d seen but never eaten a brandy snap, let alone made them, so it was definitely a learning experience all round! I was inspired to make them after seeing them on the Great British Bake Off and then thoroughly explained on a follow up programme, the Masterclass. The idea of crisp, caramelly biscuit filled with softly whipped cream definitely appealed so it wasn’t long before I started baking.I was nervous about making them but once you’ve started the process is fairly simple and repetitive so you can get a little system on the go. My mixture went very strange and not at all like what it was meant to be like – you’re meant to drop it off a teaspooon in to the baking tray whereas mine was pretty solid and had to be rolled into balls. However, I don’t think this affected the final product and was probably down to inaccurate liquid measuring because I think digital scales are really important in this recipe and I don’t have any – yet! Overall, despite the mishaps, I was pleased with how these turned out for my first time. I flavoured my whipped cream with Cointreau which worked really well with the crisp biscuit. Definitely a bit of a fancy biscuit – perhaps for a treat with coffee after a dinner party – but the taste is well worth it! You can watch the masterclass and get the recipe here – enjoy :)

White Chocolate & Raspberry Cookies

I wrote quite a deep, honest starting paragraph for this post. Then I looked at it and figured – this post is about a cookie. An almightily delicious and irresistible cookie yes, but a cookie nonetheless. So whilst there maybe a time for deep opening up, today I’m keeping it simple (I have a very delicious post coming up towards the end of the week) and just saying: you really must make these cookies.I don’t know how I originally came across this recipe as it is, rather embarrassingly, from the Carnation website. I have had the recipe saved for ages and every time I checked my ever growing list of links stored in my Recipes to Try file I’d remember them and remind myself to make them. Then I would promptly forget. Until one very rainy day last week when I got a huge craving for these – so much so that I was willing to go out in the rain to buy condensed milk, the key ingredient for these cookies as it ensures their really soft centres.These are rich – because of the sweet melting white chocolate and the rich dough – but that doesn’t stop them being moreish. Plus, the raspberries are nicely tart and if it’s pouring with rain in the middle of July then who doesn’t deserve a delicious cookie?! Or three. The actual dough was very quick to make but the repetitive process of making all the balls of dough, flattening them and adding the halved raspberries does take a little time. Beware – these cookie spread a lot. For my first batch (luckily only four or five) I made normal sized little balls of dough and the cookies turned out huge: over saucer sized. The recipe makes a lot but that really will not be a problem because like I say, they are very addictive. There will be fights over who gets the biggest one, trust me! Enjoy :)

Triple Chocolate Oreo Fudge Cookies

I’m not the best cookie maker. Sometimes they cook quicker than expected, occasionally they might spread out into each other, sometimes the eggs might look like they’ve curdled the mixture before you’ve added the flour. However, with a cookie title like this I doubt you can ever go too wrong. And the delicious results of this bake certainly proved me right.Green&Blacks dark Cocoa powder. Double chocolate stuffed Oreos. Butterscotch pieces. White chocolate chips. These cookies had them all. These may not be complicated, elegant or top notch gastronomy but they sure are good. There are moments for clean, healthy, simple foods and then there are days like this that call for pure treats!

The original recipe called for caster sugar, but at the friend’s kitchen we were baking in there was only dark muscovado sugar. We ran with it, despite the drastic difference between the two, and the cookies turned out great. The dark sugar added more of a deep caramel flavour and I think made the centre of the cookies softer and more brownie/cake like. The edges of the cookies were satisfyingly crunchy and each bite filled with a little nugget of chocolate goodness. Despite their richness, when paired with a tall glass of milk these just become rather addictive. So grab a film, curl up on the sofa, relax and….enjoy.

Nutmeg Custard Creams

When I began my Biscuit Challenge here on the blog, a long time ago, I constantly refrained from attempting the infamous custard cream. Bourbons, digestives, snickerdoodles and most recently ricciarelli, amongst others, have all been made as part of the Biscuit Challenge and have all been tasty. They haven’t been exact replicas of the shop bought original, but when baked with regular ingredients and care – plus with delicious results – does this really matter? When I finally attempted custard creams, I decided to step a little bit further away from the original.Marcus Wareing, a Gordon Ramsay trained and Michelin-starred top chef, is renowned for his nutmeg custard tart, which has been served to the Queen. Taking this success and running with it, he’s adapted his recipe to create what he calls Nutmeg Custard Cream Yo-yo’s. The biscuits were easy to make, and the final product was ultra rewarding. The nutmeg makes the final cookies spicier and warmer than your standard custard cream and when I make these next (which I definitely shall do) I think I’ll add even more. The biscuit itself had the best texture – sandy yet crisp and very moreish.  When I made bourbons I missed the firm square of chocolate cream filling – which I think now you can only properly get with shop bought biscuits which can use preservatives and E-numbers – but with these the soft and creamy custard filling was delicious and perfectly flavoured. Mmm. Just right to fill that 4pm biscuit craving :) The only change I made to the recipe was that instead of forming a log of cookie dough and slicing it up, I found the dough much easier to roll out and cut with a cookie cutter. I also added more custard powder to the biscuit dough, as I wanted to be sure the flavour would clearly some through which, happily, it did. You can find the recipe here, and I hope you do attempt the British biscuit tin favourite – and enjoy!

Ricciarelli

In the Biscuit Challenge so far, I have tackled widely known biscuit tin favourites. This time, I wanted to try something different – just as irresistible, just as moreish, still something I have regularly bought from a supermarket, but just a little bit different. The most famous Italian biscuits would probably be amaretti, biscotti and cantuccini. Whilst all these are delicious, I think my favourite now has to be this – the ricciarelli. A soft and chewy macaroon, with a truly intense almond flavour and a tiny touch of lemon. Also slightly addictive.  You have been warned! These are not particularly complicated, but you do need to start the day before so they have plenty of time to dry out which will lead to their scrumptious chewy texture later on. Whilst I am not a hugely patient person and the no instant gratification was different, I think the wait just makes the reward even more tasty. And you end up with freshly baked ricciarelli for breakfast through no effort! Splendid.

You can find the recipe here (scroll down!) – I hope you enjoy :)