Mary Berry Lavender Shortbread Biscuits

The area around where I live in Surrey is known for its lavender – in fact, it was once known as the lavender capital of the world. In the summer there are beautiful purple fields stretching into the distance. Apparently Yardley, a British toiletries brand that is known for lavender talcum powder, ties back to the area but eventually cheaper French lavender flooded the market and a lot of the lavender fields in Surrey were given over to housing estates.

 

Now, there are two main operators of the lavender fields, at least that I'm aware of. Mayfield Lavender is a commercial enterprise, but still a family-run farm; they are open every day through June, July and August where you can buy lavender plants and products. I've never been and it's not clear to me from their website whether you can actually pick your own lavender or not - I would assume so, but can't be sure!

The place that I've preferred to go to over the last couple of years is the non-profit allotment run by Carshalton Lavender. It's a volunteer-led project and they have an annual harvest one weekend a year (this year it was at the end of July) where you can go and pick your own lavender. They charge a reasonable £5 for a large bunch and £10 for a bucket-ful, and there are stands selling food and drinks, cakes and lavender products. That's me in the photo above picking lavender.

My husband and I went with some friends who live locally and I picked a large bunch of lavender, as I was planning to do various things with it from baking to making lavender bags (if I ever get around to using my sewing machine!).

It was my father-in-law's birthday not long after and he really likes shortbread, so I decided to make him some lavender shortbread with local lavender, and parcel a few pieces (as he isn't meant to be eating much sugar) up as a gift.

I used this Mary Berry recipe - lavender shortbread seems a very Mary Berry thing to make. It was very easy to make though you do need to factor in chilling time for the dough - I actually did mine overnight.

Here's the lavender that I picked:

I made up the dough and added the lavender

Make into a cylinder, roll in brown sugar, wrap in foil or parchment and chill in the fridge until firm.

Slice into rounds and bake in the oven

The finished product

 

 I'm sharing these with Treat Petite, hosted by Kat at the Baking Explorer and Stuart at Cakeyboi.

Shortbread Squares with Chocolate Fudge and Marshmallow Topping

I decided I would take part in this month's Random Recipes, hosted by Dom and Belleau Kitchen - and because it was the 30th month of the challenge, he asked us to choose the 30th recipe book on our shelf and turn to page 30, and cook whatever was on that page. Simple, right? Unfortunately the first recipe I picked in this way was baked eggs in wild mushroom tartlets, from Delia Smith's Winter Collection. Aside from the fact that it is the hottest day of the year and not really a time for winter recipes, I absolutely hate mushrooms, and my boyfriend won't eat them either - so there was really no point me making this recipe. Rather than turn the page or choose another recipe, I decided the best way to stick to the spirit of the random choice was to pick the next recipe book from my shelf, and turn to page 30 in that book. The next book was called Quick and Easy, and on page 30 I found... mushroom soup. I wonder if someone is having a laugh at my expense?! I was pretty sure there would be no mushrooms in the next recipe book along, as it was Tea with Bea... and page 30 offered up rocky road fudge bars. So with apologies to Dom for not quite sticking to the letter of the challenge, here's what I made!

I have changed the name because I left out the nuts (as my boyfriend doesn't like them) and adapted it a bit and I didn't feel like the resulting bake really was a rocky road. It did taste very nice though! Also, the quantities given in this recipe make a lot; I would halve the quantity if I made this again.

You need:
For the shorbread base:
120g caster sugar
500g butter, softened
500g plain flour

For the fudge:
150g butter
100g golden syrup
150ml double cream
150g plain chocolate
500g caster sugar

Mini marshmallows to decorate
You will also need a sugar thermometer.

Beat the butter and sugar the fold in the flour. Then transfer the mixture to a greased and lined brownie pan or rectangular baking tray with deep sides; press down to cover the base and refridgerate for 10 minutes.

Then bake in a preheated oven for 30-35 minutes until the top is golden brown and the mixture is cooked. Leave to cool in the pan.

In a large saucepan, combine all the ingredients for the fudge filling and melt over a medium heat.

Then turn up the heat and using a sugar thermometer, cook until the temperature reaches 120C. Be careful as you give it an occasional stir as this really is very hot!

The fudge will start to thicken as it reaches the right temperature.

Carefully pour into a bowl - the recipe stated to use a metal bowl, but I didn't have one, so I used pyrex instead. Stir carefully and allow it to cool a little but not too long as you don't want it to set.

Pour over the shortbread base

Sprinkle over mini marshmallows. I found that the fudge cooled very quickly and I had to press down the marshmallows with the back of a wooden spoon to get them to stick.

Remove from the pan - here you can see the deep sides

Cut into squares - the shortbread is a bit crumbly but these do hold together pretty well.

I'm sending these to Random Recipes as I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

I'm also sending these to Alphabakes, the challenge I co-host with Ros from the More Than Occasional Baker. Each month we choose a letter at random and ask for submissions where the name of the bake or the main ingredient begins with that letter. This month I am hosting and have chosen the letter F, so the chocolate fudge on these shortbread squares makes this bake eligible.

I took these along to a barbecue at my boyfriend's house, where they went down very well, so I am also sending these to Four Seasons Food, as their theme this month is barbecue and barbecue side dishes. Which to me includes dessert!

Christmas Cinnamon Shortbread - Low Sugar, suitable for diabetics

As you may have seen from previous blog posts in the past few days, I've been making lots of edible Christmas gifts. I found out at the last minute however that one of my boyfriend's relatives isn't meant to be eating sugar at the moment, which means the shortbread I'd planned to make him would be no good! I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out a low sugar recipe and even though the planned recipient isn't diabetic, I found what looked like a good recipe on the Diabetes UK website.

You need:

250g plain flour
175g butter or marg
grated rind of 1 orange
2 tsp ground cinnamon
to serve:
2 tsp icing sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix the flour and the butter until you have a breadcrumb-like texture

Add the orange rind, cinnamon and sugar

Mix everything together

The recipe says to add 2 tbsp water to form a dough but I found my mixture was sticky enough already so I didn't do this.  Next roll it out on a surface lightly dusted with flour or icing sugar and cut out Christmassy shapes.

Place on a greased and lined baking sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness of your biscuits. The recipe I used doesn't actually give the oven temperature so I guessed and did them at about 160C (fan).

Leave to cool on a wire rack then mix icing sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top.

I packaged these up in another of the cute cake tins I bought from Ikea - they were three for £5 featuring a large rectangular tin, a medium sized square tin and a small round tin.

I hope the recipient likes them!

I have already sent poor Ros countless entries for this month's Alphabakes as everything I've been baking seems to begin with the letter S... and this shortbread is no exception! Sorry Ros, you're probably getting fed up with me now.....

I expect Calendar Cakes has had a lot of entries this month too as their theme is Christmas! So I am also sending this to the challenge hosted by Laura of Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel of Dolly Bakes.

 

I am also sending this to the Spice Trail's cinnamon challenge.

Millionaire's Shortbread

I wanted to make an edible gift for a family friend of my boyfriend's and decided on millionaire's shortbread, as it's easier to give as a gift than a whole cake, and I wasn't sure how much the make recipient would like cupcakes. So I was thinking about some sort of biscuit or tray bake and remembered it had been a while since I had made millionaire's shortbread - and handily for this month's Alphabakes challenge, it also begins with the letter M!

I found a generic recipe on the internet, so essentially it went like this:

Mix 250g plain flour, 75g caster sugar and 175g softened butter in a bowl to make breadcrumbs.
Press down into a lined square cake tin and cook in the oven at about 190 degrees for 10 minutes or so until it turns golden brown.

For the caramel, I heated a small tin of light condensed milk, 55g butter and 55g brown sugar until just boiling, then removed from the heat and allowed to thicken. When the base was cooked and cooled, I poured over the caramel, and put that in the fridge to set.

I then melted 200g of dark chocolate and poured that over the top, and put it back in the fridge to set.

The shortbread was a bit crumbly and the chocolate was quite thick, so some pieces broke a little when I tried to cut it into squares, but my boyfriend was more than happy to eat the offcuts!

I rooted around in the cupboard until I found a pretty box to pacakage it up in. It looks quite homemade but I think that is one of the nice things about it!

I am entering my millionaire's shortbread into this month's Alphabakes - just a few hours ahead of the deadline! Speaking of which, I can't wait to see which random letter Baking Addict comes up with for April - based on the bakes I am already planning, I'm hoping it's C, S or P.... but it truly is random!