Lavender Biscuits

Along with the melting moments, I made these last night to give as gifts. We have some lavender in the garden which is starting to die, so I thought this was a good opportunity to use some of it for these biscuits. You can either use fresh lavender or dried, but if using dried, you use half the amount.
If you have never made lavender biscuits, and have been put off by thought of them, think again. I have made them before, and liked them, but this recipe is even better.
Mary's recipe involves making the dough, rolling it into a sausage shape, and then rolling in in demerara sugar before chilling. The biscuits are then cut from the roll, meaning that each biscuit has sugar around the edge of it.
I baked mine for the full 20 mins, and they were just golden.
We tried them, and even the kids thought they were delicious. We gave them 9.0.

Melting Moments

I wanted to make some biscuits that we could give to some of the helpers on camp, so I made these melting moments. I have tasted these before as Mum has made them, so I knew they would be nice.
The recipe says to line 2 baking trays, which I did. It also says that the recipe makes 36 biscuits. My advice would be that if you want to make 36 biscuits, you need to use 3 trays. I made 30, and even then, some of them merged slightly.
They were quite messy to make as you had to roll the dough (which was pretty sticky) into balls and then roll the balls in oats. It was quite fun, but took a little while. The best bit was putting the cherry on the top!
I have bagged the biscuits up as gifts, but of course we made sure that there were a few left over for us to try. We gave them 8.5

St Clement Muffins

How quickly a week flies by. Today I am off to pick up Adam and Ben from camp. Nathan lasted until Monday. The rest of us had a few days with Mum and Dad, which was nice. I even did some baking with mum. She wanted to make some bread, so we made granary rolls, as they were successful for me last time. The only problem was that we left them in the conservatory to rise while we went out, and by the time we came back they were very large, but also quite flat! They still tasted good though!
I made these muffins on Thursday when I got home. They are ok, but so far I haven't been particularly impressed with muffin recipes in the book. I would give these 7.0.

Wholemeal Ginger Cake

Today Ad has taken Ben and Nathan camping. He is the chaplain for a camp of young people, and he thought the boys would like to experience it with him. Not sure how much of the week they will last, but it's not too far away so I can always rescue them. Tom, Ellie and I are hoping for a quiet week!
Anyway, I thought that I would give them some cake for the young people, so I made this - also on Thursday - I was pretty tired by the end of the day, three recipes is too much in one day!
This was a typical traybake recipe, and nothing of any interest to report, apart from the fact that the piece that I tasted was very nice. 8.5 I would say. Let's hope it improves with keeping, although if I know young people, it will not last long once it gets into camp.

Lemon Griestorte

Also on Thursday ( it was a bit of a manic baking day), I made this lemon griestorte. I knew that Tom would like this, and I already had cream in the fridge that needed using up.
This recipe is rather like the wimbledon cake and does not use butter.
It was fairly straight forward but did not seem to rise very much - I seemed to remember that happened last time as well. I think the mixture needed to be thicker before adding  the egg whites.
The inside of the cake has cream mixed with lemon curd, and as you can see, I had quite a lot left over. so I decorated the edges as well (I did not follow Mary's measurements as I wanted to use up the cream). I was supposed to put raspberries in the cake, but I forgot, so I served them alongside. The pudding went down fairly well, although some members of the family did not want much as they had been to the cinema and had too many sweets!!! Thankfully it got used up yesterday when some good friends came to visit. We all gave it 9.0, but I don't think I would be in a rush to make it again. I think I prefer and ordinary sponge.
Oh, and I have to say that I did enjoy the Bake Off, but I think it's gone a bit OTT. Everyone seemed to be trying too hard to impress. Less is often more I say - bring back the victoria sandwich cakes! Maybe I am just jealous because its way out of my league now!!

Boozy Fruit Cake

On Thursday Tom got his GCSE results, which we were very pleased with - for those of you interested  2A*s 6As and 3Bs.
As a congratulations, I made him this Boozy Fruit Cake as he likes fruit cake - don't worry, I didn't make it too boozy - only a spoon of brandy over the top!  The only problem is that it has chopped walnuts in! He did like it, but he picked out all the nuts!
From a personal point of view, I thought it was delicious, and so did Ad. It was very easy to make, and I would definitely make it again. We gave it 9.0

The Very Best Shortbread

I have to say that I am very excited, as in less than half an hour, The Great British Bake Off is on!
This year I am looking forward to picking up all sorts of baking tips. I am not yet in the Bake off league, but I am certainly more experienced that I was this time last year!
I thought as it was the start of the Bake Off, I would make a classic - shortbread. I also thought that it would be a nice gift to give  some new neighbours that are moving into our road this week.
The recipe was straight forward and the shortbread turned out well. It certainly has a "short" texture, but I guess that's how it should be. Thankfully there was  enough slices for the kids to have a taste. They gave it 9.0