Hello everybody, these cookies or Biscuits whatever you want to call them was loved by one and all in my family.., especially my Hubby, I was inspired to make these Biscuits from Ayeesha's blog, but adapted with my changes to bake these, I love Oranges which you must have noticed if you are regular visitor of my blog, I try and use Oranges in most of my baking when I daughter keeps asking for a tangy taste.  Let me get to the recipe or I might start blabbering about loads of other things.

ALMOND BUTTER BISCUITS WITH ORANGE BUTTER CREAM
Makes around 25 cookies

INGREDIENTS:

FOR THE ALMOND BISCUITS /COOKIES
1 Cup  (125gms)  All purpose Flour
100 grms Butter
75 grms Blanced Almonds powdered
1/4 tsp Vanilla essence *
1 tbsp Orange Zest
1 to 2 tbsp of Fresh Orange Extract
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
2 tbsp of hot  milk
Few strands of saffron strands
75 grams Caster sugar

FOR THE BUTTER CREAM
100 grams Butter
200 grams Icing Sugar
A pinch of Orange colour
2  to 3 tbsp of Fresh Orange extract

METHOD:
Soak Saffron strands in hot milk 10 minutes
First let us make Fresh Orange extract 
Take an whole Orange Chop it into thick pieces  pour hot water and drain water, do like this twice, then chop the blanched oranges into thin pieces finely as you see in one of the photos to this add 3 to 4 tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp of water and cook it in a low flame squeezing the juices in the process until it gets completely cooked and becomes soft and thick juicy like.  taste the juice if you find it bitter add a little more sugar in tsps  Increase or decrease sugar content accordingly , making sure the orange taste doesn't disappear. Now Fresh Orange extract is ready.

TO MAKE ALMOND BUTTER BISCUITS /COOKIES:
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees, In a large bowl take Flour, Baking Soda, powdered Almonds, zest of one Orange to this and now add diced butter to this with vanilla extract and squeezed saffron strands until they become like bread crumbs to this finally add sugar and make it into a dough.
Place this dough in the fridge for at least 1/2 an hour.
Roll out the dough between two sheets of baking parchment paper using a cookie cutter cut the cookies/Biscuits to the desired shape.

I made some heart shaped cookies and some round cookies, If you don't have cookie cutter make round balls press it a little bit and bake these cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, according to your oven temperature.
Once they are perfectly baked take them out and cool them on a wiring rack.

Let us make the butter cream:
Take softened butter in a bowl add Fresh Orange extract  and Orange colour then start adding sifted Icing sugar in parts and keep beating it until it smooth and creamy.

To Assemble the Cookies
Take two cookies of the same size once they are cooled sandwich two cookies with  the prepared Orange butter cream between two cookies
Serve these cookies for Tea time snack or you can gift pack these cookies
These cookies really tasted very nice they had the taste of Orange and were really rich with the saffron strands and had a lovely colour too..
Sorry my photos are such a scrap...
Did you like them, try these out and tell if you liked it....
These cookies go to the 3rd day of Bake-a-thon to Champa of Versatile vegetarian and join me to see what others have baked with me...
I too need to check out their blogs for the delicious visual treats... of Champa, Priya, Preethi, Srivalli, Veena and Sumana Deepak.

The post Almond Butter Biscuits with Fresh Orange Extract Butter Cream appeared first on My Veg Fare.

EGGLESS APPLE, CINNAMON AND OATMEAL COOKIES

Hi everybody, how have you all been doing ?, I was down with fever, cough and cold just like the English weather, Drastically weather here has changed to a wet, cold days already, I feel so uncomfortable thinking of all those cold days ahead, but never thought so soon!. My plants do not know how to cope with this silly weather which keeps changing just makes me miserable.

This recipe I made is a last minute decision, I was still looking through her blog wondering what shall i bake, I loved her site and her writing, The first thing I thought about her was hats of to her, with three boys Oh! my God!, how does she manage, I have one son and he is so naughty, these boys don't seem to know how to sit quietly for just a minute. what else do you want to know about her ?, Her hubby is a Chef and they have a resturant which is already a talk of the town!, maybe someday I might visit them!, check it out here for full details and you would really enjoy, The couples are a gorgeous pair.

Bloggers of course you would definitely want to visit her, she has got lot of giveaways and lot of things happening in her little corner as she calls it.
I told lot of things about her, let me introduce you to her she is Cara from Boys made me do it  , you must be wondering what is all this about, well, it is this Monday! SRC Reveal day, Oh! yes it's already a month!, Angela who is co-hostess of The secret Recipe Club assigned me to this blog. Amanda, the fabulous women started this club which has grown like a wild fire is not able to manage on her own has now got co-hosts to help her with this project, She is such a sweet heart, is ready for any help needed, I want to thank both of them to have allowed  me to enjoy this lovely theme with them.

Coming back to the recipe, I chose this as my kids love cookies, and this was a healthy version except for the butter, and I love oatmeal, My kids wanted me to try this so here I am with this recipe...
I have halved the recipe, If you want to check the original recipe is here.
She adapted this cookies recipe from her friend Krystal who in turn adapted from Joy the Baker.

APPLE CINNAMON OATMEAL COOKIES EGGLESS

INGREDIENTS:
1 Cup Oats ( old fashioned quick cooking oats)
1/2 cup
2 tbsp Wheat Germ
1 Apple (I used Royal Gala)

1/2 Cup Brown sugar
1 tsp Vanilla essence
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Ground cinnamon
a generous pinch of nutmeg
10 gms Walnuts
20 gms Chocolate chips
1 tbsp Lemon Juice
1/4 cup Butter
1 Egg ( I just omitted it)

METHOD:
preheat oven to 350 degrees/Gas mark 6
In a large take all the dry ingredients, baking powder, baking soda, salt, two flours, cinnamon, and nutmeg and mix well together.
In an other bowl, beat sugar and butter until fluffy and creamy,( If you are using egg add at this point and beat well together to light and fluffy and do not add lemon juice and apples at this stage add them at the end with nuts and chips but do not forget to add lemon juice to apple and set it aside until use),  then add lemon juice and finely chopped 1 apple mix well together, this is important chop the apples and mix immediately so the apples don't loose colour!
Then to this mix add chopped walnuts and chocolate chips.
Line two baking sheets with butter paper and with a spoon spread the dough on to the sheet with space apart,
and bake them for 15 to 20 minutes I baked mine to 20 minutes as I wanted it to be bit on the crispy side. Even then it wasn't too crispy but tasted great.

VERDICT:
My kids loved it and I felt happy as they were healthy and I had used fresh fruit in it, What else do you need in it 🙂

The post Eggless Apple, cinnamon and Oatmeal cookies appeared first on My Veg Fare.

Biscotti is an Italian cuisine : the Wiki gives you a detailed information on this....check out...

Biscotti (pronounced /bɪˈskɒti/, Italian pronunciation: [bisˈkɔtti]) more correctly known as biscotti di Prato (English: biscuits of Prato), also known as cantuccini(English: corners), are a twice-baked cake originating in the Italian city of Prato. The cakes are large almond biscuits, made dry and crunchy through cutting the loaf of dough while still hot and fresh from baking in the oven.


This is my first time with sweet punch and the september theme was ''Chocolate Almond Biscotti'' from Joy of baking, I had already made a biscotti with different flavours and eggless, I was into this as I love Joy of baking and my kids like these crunchy cakes and eat them as snacks when they come back from school. It's been quite sometime I made anything with egg, so I thought why not 🙂

CHOCOLATE ALMOND BISCOTTI

INGREDIENTS: 
makes about 16 pieces
110 gms (3/4th Cup)  Blanched whole  Almonds
135 gms (2/3 cup) Sugar
2 Large Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
100 gms Plain flour
60 gms whole grain Rye flour
65 gms Oat flour ( Morn flake powdered in mixie)
100 gms Semi sweet chocolate

(Original recipe calls for 225gms/ 1 3/4th cup Plain flour)



My daughter clicked this close up from iphone!

METHOD:
As I had no ready made toasted almonds, I soaked almonds in hot water for 10 minutes, then peeled the skin off and spread it on a baking sheet set the oven to 180 degrees/Gas mark 5 and toasted it for 8-10 minutes until light golden and fragrant, and set aside. Once cool chop them into pieces
Take a baking sheet and line the parchment paper.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/Gas mark 5/350 d F
In a bowl I took all the flours, salt and Baking powder and combined them well together and then sieved them twice, just to make sure they are well mixed.
In a large bowl, I whisked 2 Eggs and sugar until thick fluffy, the batter from the beater should fall in ribbons, at this point beat in vanilla extract.
Now add the flours, combine well then fold in chopped almonds and chocolate.
Transfer this dough on to the parchment lined baking sheet and form into a log, about 12'' long and 3 1/2'' wide, as you can see in my photo, I just dumped on to the sheet and with wet hands I pressed them down into that shape (that's what happens when you don't plan and bake late in the night!).
You have to dampen your hands to form a log as the dough is quite sticky!!
Bake for 25 minutes or until firm to touch, then remove it from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile Reduce your oven temperature to 165 degrees/Gas Mark 3/325 d F, Cut the baked log into 3/4'' slices on the diagonal.  Place these biscotti cut side down, on the baking sheet and bake further for about 10 minutes then turn them over again and bake for another 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from oven and allow it cool and store it an air tight container

These are all the clicks my daughter took, I couldn't bin them as I told until you take photos no eating, she was so upset with me, she couldn't resist broke some pieces though, the smell was making them want to taste it :),  they had no fat at all, such a guilt free recipe.
I had made a Biscotti long back, an eggless one, I will definitely post it soon check out...

The post Chocolate Almond Biscotti - Healthy way ! appeared first on My Veg Fare.