Saturday 30 November 2013

Snes Controller Cookies

Makes about 12

Ingredients

For the cookies
8oz/225g butter/margarine
5oz/140g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
10oz/280g plain flour

For decoration
3oz/100g chocolate

Method

Beat butter and sugar.
Add beaten egg yolk and vanilla extract.
Sift flour into mixture until dough is formed.
Roll into a ball and put in the fridge for about 20 minutes, as this makes it easier to roll out.

While your dough is chilling pre-heat your oven to Gas Mark 5/190C.

Lightly dust your worktop and rolling pin before rolling out the dough.
The thickness depends on how big you want your biscuits to be, I usually roll mine out to just under 1cm thick so they're quite big.

Now for the tricky bit...

Before cutting out any shape freehand I always draw it out on paper, as I figure if I can draw it then I'll be able to cut it. It also means I can work from the drawing rather than risk covering the real thing in flour. Of course, the good thing about working with dough is that if you really balls it up you can just re-roll and start again.

Gently score a circle on the left hand side

Cut out two small oval shapes to create the lighter colour underneath the buttons.
Alternatively, you could skip this bit and just draw them on in white chocolate.


The cookies themselves will take at least 10 - 15 minutes or if your oven is as shit as mine around 30 minutes. But, you'll need to keep checking after about five minutes so your little button bits don't burn. I know this because I didn't and over baked mine, as you can see in the image above.

While they're baking, melt the chocolate in a jug/bowl over a saucepan of water.

When the chocolate is completely melted, spoon into an piping bag. I use disposable ones from Lakeland because you cut off the tip yourself, so you can make the nozzle whatever size you want. Also, stand it up in a glass with the top folded over, it makes it so much easier to fill.

If you don't have a piping bag you can make a DIY version by drawing round a plate on grease proof paper. Fold into quarters and shape into a cone with three of the sides together. This is a messy way of doing it though, so I would recommend the piping bag.

You'll need to draw a cross on the left hand side, start and select buttons to the middle and a big circle on the right hand side. Add your biscuit ovals and four dobs of chocolate on top of them.

Then nom.




Cookie Soundtrack: The Best of 1992

I believe that having the stereo cranked right up when I'm baking makes for a better biscuit, so here's my recommended playlist to accompany this recipe. As Wiki tells me the Snes came out in 1992 in the UK, I've picked some of the best songs released that year. Some of them (Ugly Kid Joe, Mr Big, Guns n' Roses) I was obsessed with at the time and some of them I discovered later on. Either way, it's a pretty awesome collection.

Sunday 24 November 2013

Tape Deck Heart Cookies

It's rare these days, but Tape Deck Heart was one of those albums where I actually counted down to its release date. It had been a while since we'd had a new Turner fix, so I was pretty stoked when I got home from Record Store Day - after meeting the man himself - to find my pre-order from Rough Trade had arrived early. A reward for shopping indie I like to think. Well, that was back in April and I've played it most days since, so I think it's safe to say it'll be making my top five list for 2013.

When Frank ran a Tape Deck Art competition around the time of its release, asking people to draw their interpretations of the album's song titles, I had a moment of complete insanity. 'Ummm, with biscuit as my medium maybe I could play along with this game...' I thought. Because in my head I believe I can turn anything into a biscuit/cupcake. In the end, I just opted for recreating the tattoo designs from the sleeve, since being arty with biscuits is a challenge in itself.

So armed with a lot of sugar and peanut butter, here's how I turned Tape Deck Heart into Bake Deck Heart...



Ingredients

225g margarine (plus extra for greasing)
225g smooth peanut butter
200g brown sugar
200g granulated sugar
3 large eggs
275g plain flour (plus extra for dusting)
Few drops of red food colouring







Method

Mix margarine and peanut butter until smooth.

Add both sugars.

Gradually add in two beaten eggs and flour.

Once the biscuit dough is formed, divide into three.

Keep one of the dough balls its original biscuit shade. Add a few drops of red food colouring to one to make a pinky shade and add more colouring to the third to create a darker red shade.

Put in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes.

Set oven to 180C or Gas Mark 4 and grease baking trays with margarine.

Dust rolling pin and surface with flour to prevent sticking.

As someone is yet to create a 'Tape Deck Heart' set of cookie cutters - people with 3D printers, come the fuck on... - I cut all of the pieces out by hand and stuck them together using a bit of egg wash (this is where your third egg comes in handy). The only bit I did use a cutter for was the cassette tape, as I treated myself to a rather expensive, but completely essentially cassette cookie cutter.

For each biscuit choose one shade to use as your base and cut out the full outline shape. For the lighthouses and 'Recovery' use the plain biscuit colour as your base and add the darker pieces by sticking them on with your egg wash. For the 'Tape Deck Heart and flower use the darker dough as your base, then add the other colours as before.

Bake for around 20 - 30 minutes, but keep checking them and turning them round. When baked, place on a wire rack to cool and then nom, nom, nom...



My top ten older Turner songs to bake to...