Nutella and Peanut Butter Stuffed Cookies

During my long summer holiday, I have been baking almost three times every week. I have baked my classics like shortbreads, butterscotch chip cookies and red velvet crinkle cookies and have even made a three course meal for my family, (asparagus in an almond and parmesan crust with guacamole, homemade aubergine pasta sauce on jacket potatoes and mug cakes.)

However, I have also tried many new recipes. Now a days majority of my recipes are adapted from instagram videos or I have simply searched a basic recipe on the internet and adapted them or made them more complicated. Recently, I said to my brother "if i could bake you anything, what would it be?" His instant response was "something with peanut-butter and Nutella. Although I have baked with peanut-butter many times before I tend to not usually use Nutella, especially for biscuits as it changes the texture of the biscuits making them harder to mould. I usually use cocoa powder in order to get a chocolaty flavour. 

I remembered once, when at Selfridges with my friends, that another way to incorporate flavours into biscuits is to "stuff them with it." A recent trend in cafes and bakeries is to make plain cookies or mildly flavoured cookies and then make a truffle to put inside the cookie before baking it. Therefore when you bite into the cookie you still get the flavour you wanted. Although i have tried this before with Oreos and it went down a treat i have never actually made truffles as I have been told they are very hard. In order to make the actual cookie I decided to follow a basic biscuit recipe and adapt it. I then made the truffles, which although require time, are not that difficult to make. Here is my recipe for Nutella and Peanut Butter Stuffed Cookies.

Ingredients (makes 21)

truffles:

• 1 cup of Nutella (or any chocolate spread of a similar consistency)
• 1/4 of a cup of creamy peanut butter (crunchy peanut butter works but not as well)

cookies:

• 1/2 cup of unsalted softened butter
• 1 cup of creamy peanut butter
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1 and 2/3 cup of plain flour
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1/4 cup of caster sugar

method:

1. to make the truffles start by lining a baking sheet with wax paper
2. place the Nutella and Peanut Butter in a bowl and heat in the micro-wave for a minute or until smooth
3. put in the fridge for about 15 minutes taking it out every 2 minutes to stir
4. continue this until the mixture is thick enough to scoop
5. scoop the mixture into tablespoon sized balls and place them on the baking tray
6. leave in the fridge until ready to use
7. to make the cookies heat the oven to 175'c and line 2 baking sheets with baking paper
8. mix the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl until light and creamy
9. beat in the eggs and vanilla
10. add the flour baking soda and salt  and continue to mix until a dough is formed
11. to assemble the cookies place the granulated sugar in a small bowl
12. scoop out about 2 tbs of your dough and flatten then place the truffle in the middle
13. wrap the dough around the truffle making sure it is secure and fully sealed
14. roll the dough around in the sugar, place on the baking tray and flatten SLIGHTLY
15. repeat with all the dough
16. bake the cookies for 10 minutes or until they looked cooked
17. Make sure they have cooled before putting them on a wired tray as they will be heavier than a normal cookie
18. ENJOY!!

I hope you have enjoyed my recipe for Peanut Butter and Nutella Stuffed Cookies. If you have any other ideas for me to bake or talk about then don't hesitate to comment below. I would really appreciate it.

Lottie X

instagram-@eat.teen

stereotypes around food

A couple of weeks ago my friend made the comment “all girls in this school have some problems with food.” Although this comment was met by a great deal of defence by many people in my friendship circle. Although I am in a very specific type of school and the comment made was very innocent, it made me think: Is this really true and are there other stereotypes towards certain people liking and disliking food. I became very interested in the ideas, myths and stereotypes about different foods. Human beings make assumptions assuming ideas, such as all children are fussy and picky eaters or teenage girls are always on a diet, turning an opinion by one person into a stereotype.

The first stereotype I am going to write about is “All children are fussy eaters.” Firstly, I would like to start by giving stating the difference between a fussy and a picky eater. A picky eater is someone who is selective about what they eat. They only like certain foods. Scientists call this “food neophobia.” On the other hand, a fussy eater is someone who likes a food one day and then will reject it the next day. In a survey taken only 34% of parents say that their kids are fussy. Although, this number may seem high, the UK has the fussiest children in the world therefore the statistic is at the maximum it can reach. As over half of children in the UK clearly are not fussy the stereotype is unfair and untrue. In response to picky eaters after asking some of my friends, many of them said that both them and their siblings do no act like this. In all truthfulness, they said the opposite which I have also seen when helping with cookery courses. Many children will say they don’t like a food and then try it and eat it therefore the stereotype is totally incorrect.

Another stereotype is towards dieting especially in teenagers. Many people assume that all teenage girls are constantly dieting in order to lose weight. People believe that due to social media girls have a desire to be thin therefore ALL of us try various ideas to lose weight such as ketos and no sugar diets. However, although many of us will try different ways to lose weight, not everyone does and in actually fact, most do not.

Stereotypes about dieting within the genders are also unjust. People assume that only girls go on a diet with the desire to be thin. However, in the US 25% of men are on a diet which is only 8% less than the female study, American statistics show. Therefore, it is also an unfair judgment to say most men do not diet. Around 25% of people diagnosed with anorexia in the UK every year are men and in the US 25% of people diagnosed with bulimia are men. Therefore, I do not understand where the idea about only girls having problems with food. Furthermore, I’m sure many of you reading this are thinking that all of the 25% are a very certain kind of man. Yet another stereotype that the men with eating disorders are all ballet dancers and models. However, men from all ethnicities, ages and backgrounds can have an eating disorder. Male actor, Russell Brand, struggled with bulimia from the age of 11.

As you can see there are many stereotypes within food and eating habits that need to be stopped. So, next time you are with a friend or family member and they say something you do not think is fair or true, tell them the truth, tell them that they should really know in order to break the stereotypes around us

If you enjoyed reading tis post or have an idea for another topic for me to write about then do not hesitate to ask me in the comments section as I would love to hear what you have to say

Instagram- @eat.teen

Does your ability to bake a certain treat depend on how much you like the taste?

Recently I have been doing a great deal of baking as I find baking a great way to relieve stress and anxiety which I get when revising. As baking is a common break for me during the exam-period I end up making many different baked goods, some of which I have never tried before. Although I tend to enjoy most of the food that I bake obviously there are some flavours that just aren’t for me. Although, obviously, you can’t have marmite or pepper in a cookie, there are some flavours I despise that are actually a frequent ingredient in baked goods. For example: I have never enjoyed ginger (not great for the dozens of gingerbread men I bake at Christmas!) or other foods that many people will definitely enjoy. Especially peanut-butter.

Peanut butter is, actually, an ingredient I use quite a lot as most of my family find this spread very appetizing. Therefore, I am frequently making peanut butter mug-cakes and other nutty bakes. However, as we definitely had enough baked goods in the house for me, I decided to make a full batch of peanut-butter cookies. As I don’t like peanut-butter I did not taste whilst I was mixing the dough, or rolling out the mixture, as I normally would. Although everyone enjoyed the peanut-butter biscuits, which I was not surprised about, I couldn’t help noticing that they had clearly enjoyed the other food I make that I also enjoy such as my butterscotch cookies or red velvet crinkle cookies.

I began to wonder whether taking a sneaky taste of the mixture before you bake it or mould it actually has its benefits. Clearly for me it does as my biscuits and cakes are definitely a great deal more popular when I taste while I bake the batch. I decided to test my point further. Without telling anyone what I was doing when I recently made peanut-butter cupcakes (there is always a lot of peanut-butter in my house, so I like to make sure none of it goes to waste!) I decided to bake them but make sure there was someone with me at all times to taste and say, “that needs to be sweeter” or “there’s too much peanut-butter.”  Although no one in my family would ever complain about too much peanut butter I actually found that the cupcakes were a great success and also looked great. I even tried one and, in all truth, didn’t find it that bad.

Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that in order to bake something to you best possible abilities you must enjoy the what you are making. Don’t try to bake something you don’t like just because it is healthier or less calories than your original choice as the chances are you won’t enjoy it as much as you will not know if you are baking it right or wrong. Furthermore, cooking something you don’t like is like cooking something for the first time as you clearly don’t like it so you therefore will find it hard to remember if what you are tasting in the mixture is right or wrong.

Below is the recipe for my peanut-butter cookies, if you like peanut-butter more, let’s see if you can make these treats better than I did. Comment below how you got on

Peanut butter cookies: (makes 24)

Ingredients:

·       225g unsalted butter

·       250g crunchy peanut butter

·       200g caster sugar

·       220g soft brown sugar

·       2 eggs

·       300g plain flour

·       1 teaspoon baking powder

·       1/2 teaspoon salt

·       1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

Method:

1.     Melt the butter and peanut butter together in a big bowl

2.     Mix in the sugars

3.     Beat in the eggs

4.     In a separate, smaller bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt.

5.     Stir the dry mixture into the butter mixture and mix until a you form a dough ball

6.     Wrap the dough in cling film and leave it in the fridge for at least an hour (better longer than less than an hour, but no more than 24 hours)

7.     Heat the oven to 190’c, gas mark 5

8.     roll the cookie dough into 2.5cm balls and place on each baking tray (have them reasonably spaced out as they will get bigger)

9.     flatten each ball with a fork making a criss-cross pattern

10.  bake in the oven for ten minutes or until the cookies start to crisp or go brown

11.  let them cool and the enjoy

if you enjoyed this post or would like me to try out any more baking experiments or have any ideas in general then please comment below.

Lottie X

Insta- @eat.teen

Not so vegan, vegan s’mores cookies:

When I was vegan I attempted many recipes my favourite of which was published within my last post. Another recipe I enjoyed actually tastes a great deal better when it is not vegan therefore I adapted the recipe in order to make it a little tastier. The recipe is based one of my favourite “kid’s” food.

Although I enjoy gourmet food from Michelin star restaurants or very specific biscuits and cakes with the most unique or random of ingredients (my friends call it being a “food snob”) I do enjoy the occasional simple snack or processed junk. I may not like pizza or coke, but I still enjoy Oreo, Doritos or S’mores. For anyone that is unaware s’mores are campfire treats which are simply chocolate chunks and marshmallows sandwiched between two chocolate digestives. One cannot even imagine the calories and if you don’t have a sweet tooth I would highly recommend staying away from them. However they are a great combination for a biscuit and when in biscuit form certainly not as messy and do not fall apart as quickly. They are great after school snack and not to sweet or calorific.

Ingredients: (makes 12)

·         100g of light brown sugar

·         150g of butter*

·         180g of self-rising flour

·         6 lotus biscuits

·         50g of mini marshmallows*

·         90g of milk chocolate chips*

*As said above this recipe was adapted from being vegan and is can be vegan by using vegan marshmallows, dark chocolate chips and margarine instead.

Method:

1.       Heat the oven to 180’c, gas mark 4

2.       Crush the lotus by putting them in a zip-lock bag and bashing with a rolling pin

3.       Set aside

4.       Melt the butter for 1 minute until almost melted

5.       Pour in the light brown sugar and mix until creamy

6.       Sift the self-rising flour and mix

7.       Pour in the crushed biscuits, marshmallows and chocolate chips and mix until a dough is formed (you may want to add a little Milk if the dough is too crumbly or a little more flour if the dough is too wet, make sure to do it in TINY amounts at a time to avoid making a mistake)

8.       Take a bit of dough and roll it into a ball and place on a greased tray

9.       Make sure the dough balls are evenly spread out as they will spread more than expected

10.   Cook for 13-15 minutes

11.   Set aside to cool and then enjoy!!

Although not the healthiest they are still very enjoyable I highly recommend trying the recipe. If you have any other recipes then please comment below or if you want to see more posts like this

Lottie X

Instagram- @eat.teen