Sunday Baking - Peanut butter choc chunk cookies - inspired by the ice cream sandwich at Brooklyn bar & restaurant

We had dinner at Brooklyn Bar and eatery - which was AMAZING - but then desert came and we were in HEAVEN - Peanut butter choc chip cookies sandwiched with ice cream and a peanutty caramel sauce. I knew I had to try and make my own...

Ingredients:

115gms butter
70gms white sugar
70gms brown sugar
1 egg
1t Vanilla extract
100gms peanut butter
150gms All purpose flour
1t baking powder
200gms chocolate chopped into chunks

Method:

pre-heat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg until well combined. beat in vanilla and peanut butter. Sift flour and baking powder onto butter mixture and stir until mixed through. Mix in chocolate. Drop spoonfuls onto baking-parchment lined trays (the bigger the spoonful the bigger the cookie) and bake until golden and smelling delicious!

This recipe is so easy you cannot go wrong!

I was out for the night with my sister and father for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony with cello solo. What an amazing performance! YouTube it, you may recognize parts if you've ever seen The Witches of Eastwick ;-)

Will you be attempting these cookies? 

They are insanely good.

Yesterday I made a Lemon & White chocolate blondies, I have to share with you all... AMAZING.

Happy Baking

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday Baking - Macarons, those delicious little enigmas. I've got some tips here to demystify their process

Macarons it turns out are not that hard! You just need to follow a few simple methodical steps to achieve a convincingly professional result. I've made this recipe at least 3 times now and always a consistent bake, so feel free to give it a go ♥

Ingredients:

3 Egg whites (always at room temp - never from the fridge)
35gms Caster sugar
Sift together: 200gms Icing sugar +
110gms Ground Almonds
Few drops of food coloring (optional)

Method:

Beat egg whites in a stand mixer until foamy then while beating, gradually add caster sugar until firm peaks form. You're pouring slowly so as to dissolve the sugar. Optional: In a food processor blend your ground almond and icing sugar to a fine powder, almond meal often has bigger chunks of almond in. If you omit this step you may have some chunks of almond.
Fold in your Sifted almond and icing sugar (and food coloring if you like) until combined, about 30 turns. The batter should fall off the spatula in blobs and hold its shape in the bowl for approximately 30 seconds before melting in.
Spoon into a piping bag and pipe out rounds onto parchment/silicone mat lined baking trays and leave out to set - I get my fan out and fan them for half an hour. This stage is important as you want the skin to form on the outside so that when you bake you get the little "foot" along the bottom.
Bake in pre-heated oven at 140 Celsius for approximately* 10-20 minutes rotating the tray halfway through. 

*time really means NOTHING to macarons, what you need is for them to lift off the parchment paper WITHOUT sticking. Depending on your oven (we have a fan forced oven) you're going to want to watch these, they shouldn't brown or color. Do not remove from the oven until they lift off their parchment.

Now to ICE/frost! The best part!

Ganache:


For The Green:
100gms White Chocolate (always eating, never cooking!*)
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
Zest of half a Lime

For the Pink:
100gms Dark chocolate (eating please)
1/2 cup heavy cream
tablespoon Raspberry Jam

Heat cream until scalding. Pour over chocolate and sit aside for a few minutes. Add flavouring and stir until smooth and shiny. Refrigerate until the consistency you desire then sandwich matched up cookies together.
*To make it stable while melting and so you don't have to temper Cooking chocolate doesn't contain ANY cocoa butter - that special fat that gives chocolate that melty, silky mouth feel without sticking to the roof of your mouth. Cooking chocolate is gross, don't go there

Have you ever made macarons?
Do you have any further tips I may have forgotten?
Happy baking everyone.

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday baking - Mini lemon cheesecakes with shortbread cream base - easiest cheesecake recipe everrrr

You know when you read a cheesecake recipe and you're just like, that sounds HARRD. There's so much cream cheese in it, there's maybe mascarpone or ricotta as well, you've got to beat it, cook it in a water bath, TOO HARD!

Well I have the perfect lazy cheesecake for you. Because it's cooked in mini silicon molds it cooks quickly, evenly and won't crack! You can pick them up so cheap, I've seen them at Kmart for $2, have a look online or down your local home ware store.

Feel free to change up the flavours to what ever you like, as long as the basic batter stays the same and you make your base the consistency of wet sand, you'll be right. I've made this 3 times now, one mint version, one black forest version and this one so they're TRIPLE TESTED.

Ingredients:

Base: 250 grams biscuits/cookies, crushed (I used shortbread creams -see note)

40 - 60* grams butter, melted

Zest of 1 lemon

Filling: 250 grams Cream Cheese at room temp ( I like the block of Philadelphia)

1 egg

1 Tablespoon yogurt

30 grams sugar#

1/4 cup lemon curd

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 175 Celsius. spray your silicon molds with oil spray.

Combine melted butter, biscuit/cookie crumbs and zest, mix to the consistency of wet sand, you want it to be able to press into the base of your liners without crumbling too much. Press into your silicon liners (crumb should fill about 1/4 to 1/3 of your liners.

Beat cream cheese and egg together just until smooth, if you over beat your cheesecakes can crack. Stir through yogurt, sugar and lemon curd (or whatever jam/topping/ingredient your'e using) Dollop cheesecake mix onto your biscuit bases. Pop into your heated oven and bake 20-30 mins until they're puffing up (they will calm back down as they cool)

That's IT! I told you it was easy. These are so yummy by themselves but you could further jazz them up with ice cream or melted chocolate?

A super yummy lemon cheesecake I tried at Brooklyn eatery kind of inspired this recipe.

NOTE: You really have no limits here. You could try mint biscuits with a little peppermint essence in the filling. Or Oreo cookie base with Oreo's and vanilla in the filling. What about choc cream biscuits with black cherry filling?

*If you're using a cream filled cookie like Oreo's you will need less butter, just be aware of the consistency as your'e mixing. You can always add, you can never take away.

#depending on what filling you're using you may want to go easy on added sugar. Have a little taste and see how much/little you need.

Do you think you will try this recipe? I definitely recommend you do, knowing as I do how EASY IT IS.

Happy Baking everyone.

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday Baking - Melting Moment Cookies - zesty Lemon with curd buttercream icing

Sorry about the photo guys

the only pic I took... of my MANI!

Ingredients - Cookie:

200g Butter, softened

73g Icing sugar

210g Flour, sifted

1t lemon zest

Ingredients - Icing:

120g butter, softened

200g icing sugar, sifted

25g lemon curd

Beat butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Sift flour several times to aerate, add to butter mix with zest. Stir till a smooth dough forms.

put into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe small rosettes onto lined baking trays.

Bake low and slow - 140 centigrade for 20-25 mins. 

Cookies should be smelling delicious but not yet coloring up.

Cool on trays for 5 mins then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

To make Icing: Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir through curd.

Sandwich cookies together with icing

ENJOY :9

Ginger melting moments with raspberry buttercream

Link here:

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday Baking - Melting moment Cookies - With a hint of ginger and Raspberry Buttercream icing.

Melting Moments with a hint of Ginger

Raspberry buttercream Icing

Ingredients - Cookies

200g soft butter

73g icing Sugar

1t Ground Ginger +

210g flour, sifted together

Ingredients - Icing

120g softened butter

200g icing sugar, sifted

25g raspberry Jam

Method - Cookies

Cream butter and sugar together until creamy and soft. Add ginger and flour sifted together and stir until a smooth batter forms. Don't overmix as your cookies will flatten when baking.

Now, you can either put into a piping bag and make pretty rosettes with a star nozzle or just form into balls on lined baking trays and flatten with a fork (as I have done here in the picture)

Bake cookies low and slow to encourage a melt in your mouth tender result.

140 Centigrade for approx 20-25 mins. Cookies should smell delicious but not be coloring just yet. Cool on tray for 5 mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make Icing: 

Beat/whip butter and icing sugar together until light and creamy.

Stir through jam.

Use icing to sandwich cookies together.

Try not to eat them all in one go!

This recipe for melting moments is so endlessly adaptable, 

you can really try any flavours with it.

Lemon Melting Moments - Coming soon to a blog post near you

Happy Baking all!

♥ ♥ ♥ 

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday Baking - soft, tender freshly baked Lemonade Scones - Ridiculously easy recipe

Lemonade Scones

Ingredients:

512g Flour, sifted

4t Baking powder

Pinch salt

300ml double cream

300ml lemonade or soda water

Method:

Sift flour, Baking Powder and salt together several times to aerate.

Make a well in the center and pour on cream and lemonade.

Mix until a soft dough is formed (never over-mix your scones, they'll be tough)

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and dust with a little more flour.

push out (with your hands, not a rolling pin) the dough to form a rectangle shape. 

Cut into 12 equal sized pieces.

Arrange on lined baking trays and bake at 220 centigrade for 10-12 mins until golden brown.

Remove and cool wrapped in a clean tea towel to keep fresh.

Go nuts!

You could add cheese for cheese scones, or dates, or sultanas.

I served mine with butter and some home-made kiwifruit jam from the local farmers market!

These freeze well - keep in a plastic container, just refresh in the microwave for 20 seconds.

Happy Baking all

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday Baking - Sunday Brunch Edition: Super moist, bananarey, pancakey goodness. AKA - Banana Pancakes

It's Sunday Everyone.

And that can only mean ONE THING:

BRUNCH...

and pancakes!

These are slightly different in that they have mashed banana through them so they're super moist and yummy. I always need recipes to use up spotty bananas! You buy them and you don't always end up eating them.

I got this puppy from Allrecipes.com and just changed and tweaked a few of the ingredients to make them super yummo.

Ingredients:

Sift Together: 1/2cup White flour

1/2cup Wholemeal Flour

1T Sugar

2 t Baking powder

1/4t salt

1t Cinamon

Mix together:

1 cup milk

1 beaten egg

2 bananas mashed

2 tablespoons melted butter

Pour the wet ingredients onto the sifted dry ingredients and stir until just combined (will still have a few lumps, that's good)

Pour or spoon the mixture into a buttered pre-heated saute pan and fry gently until bubbles form on the surface and start to pop.

And et voila! You are now ready for brunch!

These pancakes are so tasty they don't really need any accompaniments.

But you could have bacon and maple syrup.

Or have some lemon zest through the pancakes instead of cinnamon.

This is the view out my window this morning
The Waikareo Estuary and surrounding wetlands.

I love autumn/fall!!

Happy Sunday everyone!

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Instagram Catch up - Baking, Shoes, selfies and the cat. I've got Mondayitis - which IS a real thing

 GORGE shoes... that I DIDN'T But - what's WRONG with me?

 Chocolate Foodgasm Brownie Cookies

Recipe Here

 Pak Choy from the garden - Look at the DETAIL

Charlie's Straight up Cola - tastes like Cola lollies. SO. Good.

Me and Amy getting ready Saturday night to hit the TOWN 

Danced till 3am when the club closed and the lights came on!

Oreo and Dark choc stuffed blondies...

Recipe coming soon to a Sunday Baking segment here!!!

And finally, Norman the cat giving me a particularly dirty look.

I love that his head in ON the pillow - SO LAZY.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram @paulashoefiend

Have a great week all ♥

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday Baking - Foodgasm Fudge brownie..... COOKIES, for when you want something a little more portable/single serving

These are REDDICK! My BF asked me to make brownies but I am SICK of the same old recipe so thought I would try making a brownie cookie...

then just sort of went mental and threw anything in there.

Result: the most moist, fudgy, chocolatey, gooey, foodgasm cookies you may ever EAT

Big statement but I'm very confident. 

Ingredients:                                                     

175gms Butter                                                    100gms Dark chocolate, melted                  

100gms White caster sugar                               60gms Cocoa Powder

110gms Brown sugar                                         170gms flour

1 egg                                                                    1t Baking Powder

1t Vanilla                                                            120gms dark choc, chopped

Method:

Cream butter and sugars until pale. Beat in egg then vanilla. Stir through melted chocolate. Sift dry ingredients together twice to really incorporate the cocoa powder through the flour. Fold into the butter mixture. Fold through the chopped chocolate.

Drop tablespoons of mixture onto parchment lined baking trays and bake in a preheated oven for 10 mins.  They will be setting up on the outside but still squidgy in the middle - this is good. The cocoa powder helps the cookie bake faster and overbaking will mean a bitter result.
LEAVE them on their trays for half an hour then use a spatula to transfer them to a cooking rack. They are very fragile while fresh and hot but over a few days will crisp up... IF they last that long.

These are SUPER FUDGY on the inside and the chocolate never quite sets... in other words

#FOODGASM

I REALLY hope you guys try this recipe - it really is super yum and not at all sweet.

Happy Sunday baking all

I went shopping yesterday to get an outfit for dinner and clubbing.
Ended up buying a purse, shoes and a necklace... and wore none of it out!
#facepalm.

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday Baking - Pear, peach and Almond Tart - not too sweet and just on the right side of rich

Pear and almond tarts are popular and common in the UK - Marks & Spencers do a nice one.

After trying a particularly luscious one in The Barbican kitchen I decided I had to tackle a tart for myself! This recipe is really good as you don't have to blind-bake the pastry case first.  

Ingredients:

Pastry:

170g Plain Flour

85g Butter

30g Caster Sugar

1 Egg

                                              

Filling:

2 Eggs

100 g caster Sugar

Tin of peaches and pears in Juice (400gms approx)

100g Ground Almonds

30g Melted butter

50g Plain Flour Sifted

 1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder

Method:

Make the pastry by rubbing the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix in the sugar and then use the egg to bind the dough together.  If there is not enough liquid to bind add a drop of water or cold milk. Rest the dough in the fridge for at least an hour before rolling.

Roll out the pastry to line a 20 cm fluted flan tin. Prick the base all over and return to the fridge.

To make the filling whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and light. Fold in the ground almonds then the butter and finally the flour and baking powder.

To assemble the tart put some of the almond nmixture into the pastry case then sit the pears and peaches on top. Fill in the gaps with more almond mixture, this will help protect the fruit during cooking.

Bake at 180c for about 40 mins.

If this seems a strange combination of ingredients I would definitely recommend you give it a try, it's super tasty, not too sweet and just on the right side of rich. Mix up some mascarpone cheese with a touch of vanilla to serve if you like!

Thanks to Christine on Allrecipes UK for the original recipe

Or if your prefer something chocolatey...

.

 The most delicious foodgasm brownies everrrr

Choc drop shortbread

Happy Baking everyone!

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday Baking - Lemon Fudge Coconut Slice - Buttery, sweet, coconutty, lemoney GOOD - the perfect treat

Ingredients:

Base: 125g Butter

         100g Condensed milk

         250g Plain biscuits/cookies - crushed to crumbs.

Melt butter and condensed milk together and stir through crumbs.  Press into 6x6 inch lined tin.

Topping:

192g Icing sugar

1/4cup milk

15g butter (I actually forgot this!)

pinch salt

30g Coconut

Zest of 2 lemons

Melt sugar, milk, butter and salt together in a saucepan.  Bring to the boil and boil until the soft ball stage* is reached.  Add coconut and zest and beat till thick.  Pour onto base and chill.  Cut into small squares and EAT - YUM!

* Drop a dollop of mixture into a glass of cold water, if you can roll it into a ball it's ready (112-116 degrees Celsius)

This is seriously yummy - so buttery and sweet and lemoney - try it!
Happy baking.

Have a great Sunday Everyone.

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.

Sunday Baking - Cashew & choc drop cookies

Cashews + White choc + milk Choc = HEAVEN

I adapted this recipe from the trusty NZ stalwart of baking "The Edmonds Cookery Book'.  Their one had peanuts and no chocolate - obvs a serious oversight.

Ingredients:

125g Butter

1T Golden Syrup

110g Brown Sugar

1t Vanilla extract

1 egg

192g All Purpose Flour

32g Cornflour

1/2C Cashews Chopped

1/2C Chocolate (I used White choc and milk choc)

Method:

Gently melt butter and golden syrup.  Stir in sugar and vanilla.  Allow to cool.  Lightly beat egg and stir into mixture.  Sift dry ingredients together and add to syrup mixture alternatively with nuts and chocolate.  Allow mixture to cool completely then roll into balls and bake on lined trays at 170 Celsius for 12-15 mins until golden and crispy.

These cookies are soft and chewy and so yummy.  A little different to your usual choc chip cookie method.

Sure to rise

Other baking exploits you may like to re-visit:

Choc Drop Shortbread

Spice Crisps

Happy baking peeps

♥ Paula Shoe Fiend.