The White Ramekins

food & photography

Peanut Butter Cookies

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Last weekend, while cleaning up my inventory, I found this old jar of crunchy peanut butter, which I last bought for baking those gorgeous golden peanut butter and white chocolate blondies. Voila!!! that jar was still alive and I had a long due request of baking some cookies for my office mates. So I ended up baking these classic crisscross patterned peanut butter cookies. Their sweet and salty flavor was simply so irresistible, that they were a hit among my colleagues.

To make these you need:

140 gm plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
1/2 tsp salt (can skip if your butter is salty)
115 gm butter
165 gm brown sugar (powdered)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
200 gm peanut butter

All you need to do:

Sift together salt, flour, bicarb of soda and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer or hand whisk until light and fluffy. In another bowl, mix egg and vanilla and then gradually beat into butter mixture. Stir in the peanut butter and mix. Stir in the dry ingredients and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a baking tray. Spoon out rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough and roll into balls. Place the balls on the prepared sheets and press flat with a fork into circles making a crisscross pattern using the tines of the fork. Bake until lightly colored, 12-15 minutes. Transfer them to a wire rack to cool.
And you are ready with a batch of around 30 cookies.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

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The memory of cookies dates back to my childhood, when we used to spend our Sunday morning watching animated series on tv, where in,  a mama gummy bear would be baking chocolate chip cookies for her kiddies. And the ever curious mind of a child remained with an unanswered question, What exactly are these cookies? Are they anyhow having some resemblance to what we call biscuits in India? but, sadly no clue. And those were the days, when we didn’t have The Mighty Google. That question got burried somwhere deep down my memories. And the time came, when I first saw a cookie in an american sandwich chain, Subway. Eureka !!! It appeared to me same as, a biscuit, a small flat baked treat. Cookie is american or Canadian name for a biscuit in britain or for that matter, any english speaking country outside north america. And it set on to my heart for writing a recipe for a cookie as what else could be better than to relive those joyous and magical moments of a childhood. 

Ingredients

115 gm butter at room temperature
50 gm caster sugar
110gm brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
170 gm plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
1 pinch of salt
170 gm chocolate chips
55gm nuts of your choice

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Grease the baking sheet. With an electric mixer cream the butter and two sugars together until light and fluffy. In another bowl mix egg and vanilla and gradually beat into butter and sugar mixture. Sift over flour, bicarb of soda, salt and mix. Add chocolate chips and nuts and mix to combine well. Place heaped teaspoonfuls of the dough on the prepared sheets. Bake until lightly colored, 10-15 minutes. Transfer to rack to cool and your chocolate chip cookies are ready to be enjoyed with a nice cup of hot simmering coffee.

The Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

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This old fashioned chocolate cake is kind of everyone’s favorite in my family, so much so that my brother called me up on Friday afternoon and asked me to bake this one for him and bring that home when I visit my natives on weekend. This is so luscious and the fact this is scarcely any harder than baking a cake mix out of a box. This one’s so simple that everything goes into the processor and the processor does the whole thing for you. Obviously, you can make this by hand if you prefer the harder way. But I personally take the easiest and shorter route.

To bake this cake, you need…….

250 gm all-purpose flour
125 gm superfine sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
50 gm best-quality unsweetened cocoa
100 gm soft unsalted butter
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons good-quality vanilla extract
2/3 cup sour cream

2 (each 8-inch diameter) layer tins with removable bases, buttered

Frosting:

100 gm good-quality dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
2 tbsp unsalted butter
100 gm confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon good-quality vanilla extract

Take everything out of the refrigerator so that all ingredients can come to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Put all the cake ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, cocoa, butter, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream into a food processor and process until you have a smooth, thick batter. If you want to go the long way around, just mix the flour, sugar and leavening agents in a large bowl and beat in the soft butter until you have a combined and creamy mixture. Now whisk together the cocoa, sour cream, vanilla, and eggs and beat this into your bowl of mixture. Divide this batter, into the prepared tins and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, which should be about 35 minutes, but it is wise to start checking at 25 minutes. Remove the cakes, in their tins, to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before turning out of their tins. Don’t worry about any cracks as they will easily be covered by the frosting later.

To make this icing, melt the chocolate and butter in a good-sized bowl either in the microwave or suspended over a pan of simmering water. While the chocolate and butter is cooling a little, sieve the confectioners’ sugar into another bowl. Add the sour cream and vanilla and then when all this is combined whisk in the sieved confectioners’ sugar. You may need to add a little boiling water, say a teaspoon or so, or indeed some more confectioners’ sugar, depending on whether you need the frosting to be thinner or thicker. It should be liquid enough to coat easily, but thick enough not to drip off. Sit 1 of the cakes with uppermost side down. Spoon about 1/3 of the frosting onto the center of the cake-half and spread with a knife or spatula until you cover the top of it evenly. Sit the other cake on top, normal way up, pressing gently to sandwich the 2 together. Spoon another 1/3 of the frosting onto the top of the cake and spread it in a textured way. If you prefer, you can also go for a smooth finish. Spread the sides of the cake with icing and leave for few hours in refrigerator to get cooled.