Recipe | Chocolate, Bay Leaf and Spelt Oat Cookies

Chewy, chunky cookies. Add ice cream to make it a pudding, or keep for whenever the need arises. You’re never too old for a midnight snack, after all.

Serves 1

125g salted butter

2 tbsp honey

70g light brown sugar

3 fresh bay leaves, very

finely chopped

1 egg, beaten

50g plain flour

100g spelt flour

½ tsp baking powder

85g jumbo oats

75g dark chocolate

60g blanched hazelnuts, chopped

1 Preheat the oven to 190C/Fan 170C/Gas 5. Place the butter, honey, sugar and bay leaves into a saucepan set over a low heat and allow everything to melt together. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 5 mins, then whisk in the egg.

2 Combine all the other ingredients in a separate bowl, then pour over the butter mixture and stir together to make a stiff dough.

3 Spoon tablespoons of the dough – as many as you want to eat now – onto a lined baking sheet, leaving plenty of space between them, then bake for 10-12 mins, or until just golden on top. Leave to cool and harden a little before serving.

Cook’s note: The dough freezes well, so make as many as you want for yourself, then come back for the rest whenever the need strikes.

This recipe is just one of the ideas from our feature ‘Please Yourself’ in which Kathy Slack devises a seasonal menu to cook and enjoy alone. You’ll find the rest of the recipes, which include cauliflower, leek & mushroom bean bake, bitter leaves and fennel with hazelnut dressing, and malted turmeric milk, in our January issue, out now.

More sweet things best enjoyed alone…

More from our blog…

Recipe | Marigold shortbreads

Flecked with petals and dusted with marigold sugar, this is a floral twist on shortbread to fall in love with

MARIGOLD SHORTBREADS

Makes 16
175g plain or spelt flour
40g caster sugar
6 tbsp (14g) marigold (calendula) petals* 
110g cold butter

FOR THE MARIGOLD SUGAR
Marigold petals
50g caster sugar

1 Preheat oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 4.
2 Put the flour, sugar and marigold petals into a bowl, then rub in the butter as for shortcrust pastry. Gather the mixture together and knead gently on a lightly floured surface.
3 Roll out the pastry to 7mm thick, then cut into rounds with a 6cm cutter or into heart shapes. Bake for 15–18 mins until pale brown, depending on the thickness of the biscuits. Remove and cool on a wire rack.
4 While they cool, make the marigold sugar. Blitz the marigold petals in a blender with the sugar for a minute or two until just broken up. 
5 Serve the biscuits with fruit fools, or compote and ice-cream, and sprinkle marigold sugar over the top.

Cook’s note: Watch these biscuits really carefully while they are baking, they burn easily. They should be a pale golden – any darker and they will be bitter.

Taken from Grow, Cook, Nourish by Darina Allen (Kyle Books).

* The petals of the pot marigold (calendula) are edible. Be sure to use this variety in your
cooking as many varieties of the French or African marigold plants (from the tagetes family) aren’t.

Cake in the House is our monthly recipe feature - get a cake recipe every month in The Simple Things!

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Recipe | Olive oil, rosemary & apricot cake

If you’re not keen on an oversweet cake, this one’s for you. The Mediterranean mix of olive oil, rosemary and lemon is sensational

Olive oil, rosemary & apricot cake

5 eggs, separated
165g caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp to sprinkle
1⁄4 tsp salt
185ml olive oil
Juice & finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
150g plain flour, sifted
10 apricots, halved & stones removed (or tinned apricot halves, drained)

to serve (optional)
300ml soured cream or crème fraîche
30g icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract/essence or vanilla bean paste

1 Preheat oven to 170C/Fan 150C/Gas 3. Grease the ring of a 20–22cm springform tin, then turn the base upside down, so it no longer has a lip. Place a piece of baking paper over it, then clamp the ring around it to secure.
2 In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium speed until just foamy. Add 55g of the caster sugar in two batches, whisking well between each addition, until soft peaks form. Set aside.
3 Combine the egg yolks, remaining (110g) caster sugar and salt in a medium mixing bowl, and whisk with an electric mixer on high speed until pale and thick. Gradually drizzle in the olive oil, whisking on high speed until all of it has been used. Add the lemon juice and zest, rosemary and flour, and stir with a whisk until just combined.
4 Whisk in one-third of the egg whites to loosen the mixture, then add the remainder and stir very gently with the whisk until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin, and arrange the apricot halves in concentric circles on top, working from the outside in.
5 Sprinkle the extra tbsp of caster sugar evenly over the surface, and bake for about 50 mins, or until an skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
6 To make a vanilla cream, if using, combine the cream, icing sugar and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl and whisk by hand or with an electric mixer until floppy peaks form.
7 Once the cake is cooked, rest it in the tin for 5 mins before releasing the ring and sliding the cake onto a wire rack to cool. Leave to rest for about 30 mins before slicing and serving – warm works for this cake – with your choice of dolloping cream!

Recipe from Poh Bakes 100 Greats by Poh Ling Yeow (Murdoch Books).
 

Cake in the House is our monthly recipe feature - get a cake recipe every month in The Simple Things!

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View the sampler here.

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Recipe | Brown butter and toffee cookies

The addition of browned butter gives these cookies a rich, nutty edge, making them all the more moreish. The recipe also works well with white chocolate

BROWN BUTTER & TOFFEE COOKIES
Makes 16
150g unsalted butter
1⁄2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1⁄2 tsp mixed spice
300g plain flour
1⁄2 tsp salt
150g light brown soft sugar
100g caster sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp whole milk
150g chocolate-covered toffees, such as Fazer’s Dumle*, or white chocolate, chopped
Sea salt flakes (optional)

1 Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat until it starts to bubble noisily. Eventually the bubbles will become smaller and stop. Swirl the pan – you will see and smell the change from yellow butter to brown. Immediately remove from the heat. Transfer to a bowl and leave to cool a little.
2 In another bowl sift together the bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice, flour and salt.
3 Mix both sugars into the browned butter until well incorporated. Add the egg and egg yolk, syrup, vanilla extract and milk. Add the dry ingredients, then the toffees or white chocolate and stir to combine. Cover the bowl or wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for a few hours.
4 Preheat oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 4. Line two baking sheets with baking parchment. Form egg-sized rounds of cookie dough using your hands and place on the lined baking sheets. These cookies spread a lot during baking, so leave a minimum of 8cm between each round.
5 Sprinkle with sea salt flakes, if using. Bake for around 8 mins until slightly brown at the sides but not entirely puffed up. Remove from the oven and let cool (if using Dumle, let cool for a bit longer before eating).

Recipe from ScandiKitchen Summer by Brontë Aurell (Ryland, Peters & Small).

Cake in the House is our monthly recipe feature - get a cake recipe every month in The Simple Things!

Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

View the sampler here.

More from the April issue:

More Cake in the House recipes: