Tag Archives: biscuit recipe

Ninjabread men! Chocolate, cherry and ginger dairy free biscuits

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Gosh it’s been a long time since i’ve had time to bake – sorry! Real life has got in the way (in good and bad ways!), but oh how i’ve missed it!

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Thankfully I had an excuse to bake again 🙂 yippee! I wanted to make something yummy to celebrate (or rather commiserate) the last body combat class with a very special friend of mine. What better way to mark the occasion than by baking some funky little Ninjabread men! I used ginger, dark chocolate and dried cherries in mine but you could flavour the biscuits any way you like 🙂

For the biscuits you need:

2 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

1 cups Unrefined Icing sugar

6 oz Dairy-free margarine (get the best quality you can)

2 tsp ground Ginger

handful of chopped dried Cherries

handful of dairy free chocolate (I used Willie’s chef’s drops)

Ninja cutters (available online) or just use normal ginger bread man cutters 🙂

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour, icing sugar and ground ginger in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Add the cherries and chocolate and combine well. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins. If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.

Once chilled, roll out and use the biscuit cutter to cut out your little ninjas. Use a palate knife to transfer them carefully to a greased baking tray. Sprinkle with a little raw sugar if you like and bake for 8 – 10 mins, or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray.

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Decoration

Once the biscuits are cool you can have some fun! I used a variety of ninja designs. For the dark icing you can get black food colouring or use melted dark chocolate. Unleash your best ninja using skills!! 🙂

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Dark chocolate cherry cookies (dairy and gluten free! :) )

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You’d think I’d be bored of biscuits by now …but no, I just keep thinking of new scrummy flavour combos! Today it’s dark choc and cherry – a winning combination. The tartness of the cherries works so well with the rich, dark chocolate 🙂

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These use the same basic ingredients as my choc and ginger biccies but just replace the ginger with a handful of dried cherries! Simple! 🙂

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Yummy mummy! Dark choc and ginger cookies (low gluten and dairy free!)

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You may have noticed a certain penchant for cookies and biscuits lately? what can i say? I just love this simple recipe and how easy it is to customise it with whatever flavours you like 🙂

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So this weekend Mother’s Day and the return of my lovely friend from holiday inspired me to bake some more biscuits for both of them 🙂 Both are fans of the combo of ginger and dark chocolate and they work brilliantly with these cookies. I also had some fun with a cool set of letter cutters (I’m such a child!).

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You will need:

2 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

1 cup Unrefined Icing sugar

6 oz Dairy-free margarine (get the best quality you can)

A handful of crystallised ginger

A handful of dairy free chocolate (I used Willie’s chef’s drops)

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Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and icing sugar in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Chop the ginger and chocolate into small pieces and add to the mix. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins (optional). If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.

Roll the dough out and use cutters to cut your biscuit shapes and transfer to a greased baking tray. I found that this dough worked best as a thick biscuit (about half a cm). If you don’t want to roll it then take small balls and flatten on to the baking tray. Bake in the oven for 10 – 12 mins or until as brown as you like them (I like my biscuits bordering on burnt so I kept them in a little longer! 🙂 ).

If you have some letter cutters (or you’re handy with a knife and can freehand them) then you can have fun spelling stuff in biscuit form! 😉

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Lemon Drop Shortbread Biscuits (gluten and dairy free and oh so yummy!)

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As we move from winter in to spring my thoughts turn to lighter bakes and lemon always features highly in my list of spring and summer baking yumminess!Once again this is the result of a little seed planted in my head by my good friend Colette (anyone would think she had a bit of a thing for these biscuit recipes… 😉 ).

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This is super-easy and fun – perfect to make for the kids and can be done pretty quickly after school or on a sunday afternoon. Equally yummy for adults too though! 🙂

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You will need:

2 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

1 cup Unrefined Icing sugar

6 oz Dairy-free margarine (get the best quality you can)

zest of 2 small Lemons

1 tbsp fresh Lemon juice

Dairy- free (or non dairy free if you want!) Lemon curd – it will depend how much you use but less than half a jar should do it 🙂

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and icing sugar in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Add the zest and lemon juice and combine it well. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins (optional). If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.  Once chilled, make small balls of dough (approx 1 inch diameter) and pop them on a greased baking tray. Push them down to flatten them and use your thumb to create a deep hollow in the centre. Prick the bottom of the hollow with a fork.

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Bake for 8 minutes. Then remove from the oven and spoon in a small amount of lemon curd in to each hollow.

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Bake for a further 2 minutes or so, or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray. Be very careful when you remove them from the oven as the curd will be molten! Avoid the temptation to eat them straight away (trust me on this one!), just allow them to cool a little before you tuck in! 🙂

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Cherry, macadamia, coconut and white chocolate shortbread biscuit recipe :)

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Ok, I think I need new friends, or maybe I need ones that don’t have such great ideas…. Once again I find myself in my kitchen, baking biscuits at nearly 11pm….Definitely worth it though (thank you my lovely friend Colette from Colette’s Fitness Kitchen for planting yet another seed in my head for some scrummy biscuits!).

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So it’s the same biscuit recipe as before but this time I’ve added in:

approximately 100g Dried cherries

approximately 75g Macadamia nuts

100g of good quality white chocolate (omit this if you want it dairy free – or better yet replace with dairy free dark chocolate! yummo!)

a handful of dessicated coconut!

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Chop the cherries, nuts and chocolate fairly small and then add all of the ingredients in to the dough at the end and ensure they’re mixed well throughout. You can just make little round dollops of these, or you can roll them out (gently!) and use a cutter as I’ve done.

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They will be bit thicker so may need longer in the oven. Enjoy! 🙂

Oh and I should say… they are also yummy with the raspberry icing on…! 🙂

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Give the gift of yumminess this valentine’s day – quick gift idea!

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These valentine’s biccies would make a fab present for the one you love 🙂 Whip up a batch of normal or coconut biccies, with or without icing and pop a load in a cellophane bag. Tie with a pretty ribbon and voila! One lovely home made gift of love! IF you can bear to give them away! 🙂

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Coconut Dairy-free Valentine’s day shortbread biccies! :)

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Apparently I’m very suggestable… which is why I found myself in my kitchen at 11pm on a Monday night making more biscuits! What, I hear you cry? has she not made enough biscuits already! Well no, apparently not! A very dear friend, who shall remain nameless (though her name begins with a C, has an o, two l’s and a couple of e’s and t’s in it…….) suggested to me this evening that those valentine biscuits would be even better with some dessicated coconut in them… now I’m a massive coconut fan and though it pains me to admit when she’s right… she was right, in fact she was damn right!

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I went straight home and whipped up a batch! (well after a trip to the local shops for some ingredients!)…. and wow are they good! Seriously you need to try this! I think they’ll work brilliantly with the raspberry icing too – I just ran out of icing sugar so couldn’t ice them tonight!

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So it’s the same recipe as before  ( i halved it this time) with some dessicated coconut added

2 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

1 cups Unrefined Icing sugar

6 oz Dairy-free margarine (get the best quality you can)

Approx 1/2 cup (to be honest I just shook a load in from the tub but just try a little at a time and keep working it in until it’s evenly spread throughout the dough!)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and icing sugar in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Add the dessicated coconut as the dough starts to come together and ensure it’s evenly distributed throughout. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins. If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.  Once chilled, roll out and use a biscuit cutter to cut whatever shape you have. Sprinkle with a little raw sugar if you like and place on a greased baking tray and bake for 8 – 10 mins, or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray.

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A host of Valentine’s treats! Dairy-free shortbread biccies with natural pink raspberry icing

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I got a little over-excited in the biscuit-cutter section of the cake shop and end up with a loast of new valentine’s cutters! So here, for you, is a feast of valentine’s biccies for the one you love (in my case, that’s me! ha ha!) 🙂

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All the biscuits are based on the same biscuit recipe which I’ve posted before – here but here it is again for ease. This makes LOADS of biscuits so you may want to halve the amount to start with.

4 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

2 cups Unrefined Icing sugar

12 oz Dairy-free margarine (get the best quality you can)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and icing sugar in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins. If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.  Once chilled, roll out and use a biscuit cutter to cut whatever shape you have. Sprinkle with a little raw sugar if you like and place on a greased baking tray and bake for 8 – 10 mins, or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray.

Cutting and Decorating!

You can use any cutters you like but I had the pleasure of trying out all my new valentine’s ones! It was such fun! For most of the biccies I just sprinkled with raw sugar. I had a wonderful set of hearts that decrease in size so I had a lot of fun with those.

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Then I also had some with lovely little messages stamped in them.

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Those were all plain, but for other’s however I made some pink icing using raw icing sugar and raspberries. Simply pop a handful of raspberries into a fine mesh sieve and using the back of a spoon crush them through the sieve. You will end up with a lovely raspberry puree. Don’t throw away the seeds and pulp left in the sieve, you can whack this in to your next smoothie! 🙂 Use this, instead of water, to make your icing. I simply used raw icing sugar (you can use normal icing sugar if you prefer) and the raspberry puree. I added a little at a time until I had the consistency I wanted. If you want it runnier, add a little water, if you want it less pink then add more icing sugar and water down the puree a little and just experiment!

For these adorable ‘his and hers’ jigsaw hearts I used a piping bag to pipe a thin line of slightly darker icing around the edges and then filled the middle! You could use white icing to pipe names on each half. Allow to set and then share with the one you love 🙂

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I then had a go at just smothering the little hearts in icing – yum!

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And finally (for the icing fun) I had a go at filling in the messages on the shortbreads. This was super fiddly but I think it looks fab! I used a cake skewer dipped in the icing to fill the letters!

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Valentine’s day wouldn’t be valentine’s day without a bit of chocolate! So I had a go with that too! I just melted some high quality, dairy free chocolate and filled the letters with it in the same way as the icing. This was messy and didn’t work out quite so well but I think with a bit of practice it will! 🙂

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Finally I made some little double hearts. Once again I piped an icing border around them and then I filled the centre with chocolate.

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Nothing says homemade like…. homemade dairy free shortbread hearts!

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Home is where the heart is and it’s certainly where these little hearts are going to stay!

A very dear and thoughtful friend gave me some lovely biscuit cutters for christmas and I’ve been dying to try them out so I thought I’d have a go at a shortbread-type of biccie. My dairy free, spelt shortbread won’t work for this as it’s not “rollable” so I’ve had to come up with something else. I usually try to avoid dairy-free margarine but in this case I’ve compromised and used it… just this once! 🙂 These are not too sweet so if you have a very sweet tooth then you may want to add a bit more sugar, but I like them just as they are 🙂

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This makes LOADS so you may want to halve the recipe!

4 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

2 cups Unrefined Icing sugar

12 oz Dairy-free Margarine (get the best quality you can)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and icing sugar in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins. If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.  Once chilled, roll out and use a biscuit cutter to cut whatever shape you have. Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 8 – 10 mins, or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray.  Enjoy!

Lemon Chia seed cookies (dairy free, low gluten)

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I know I know – not ANOTHER lemon and chia seed recipe but I’m really loving this combo at the moment and having fun trying out some recipes with them 🙂

This cookie recipe is a departure from my normal suite of ingredients as I’m using some Soya yoghurt. I’ve seen it in recipes before but never used it so thought I’d have a go! It can be substituted for silken tofu if you can’t have soya though.

These need to be flattened out really thin before you bake them otherwise they end up cakey and not crispy (but if you like your cookies like that then go for it!)

1 1/4 cup Coconut palm sugar/ raw unrefined sugar
3/4 cup Olive oil
3/4 cup Soya yogurt (natural or lemon flavoured works best)
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
2 1/2 Cups Spelt flour or gluten free flour blend
3/4 tsp Himalayan rock salt
3/4 tsp Bicarobonate of soda
Zest of 1 large Lemon (plus juice of half a lemon if desired)
1/3 cup Chia seeds

For decoration: Raw golden icing sugar and a few drops of lemon juice

Pre-heat oven to 175 degrees.

Mix the oil and sugar together until well combined. Add the Soya yoghurt and vanilla extract and stir well. Sieve in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt and mix well. Finally stir in the lemon zest and chia seeds, and the lemon juice if you like your biscuits lemony!

The batter will be quite sticky and not like a traditional biscuit dough but don’t worry. Drop small spoonfuls onto a greased baking tray. Using the back of a fork flatten these out until they are only a few mm thick (unless you like your cookies cakey in which case don’t!). Bake in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes. Keep an eye on them, if they start to puff up then just flatten them a bit with a fork. Bake until they are golden brown. Remove and allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Once cool you can ice them if you want to – just mix up the icing sugar with a few drops of lemon juice or water until you get a thick consistency then pipe over the biscuits 🙂