Blogmas Day 11 : The Perfect Christmas Cookies

This Blogmas post for me is probably one of my favourites. Nothing beats baking during the festive season, especially if the outcome is the most perfect Christmas cookies ever! I wouldn't call myself a great cook, but one thing I do love to do is bake. I have made these Christmas cookies for the past couple of Christmas' for my family and its definitely something that we all look forward to eating with our cup of tea throughout December. (Although, I really should just make them throughout the year!) 

I believe initially that this was a Mary Berry recipe, although I have made so many little changes throughout the past couple of years it's not really the same anymore!

So to make these cookies you will need:

• 140g Icing Sugar
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 Egg Yolk
• 250g Butter
• 375g Plain Flour

You also need to set the oven to 190 Degrees for Fan ovens (170 degrees/Gas Mark 5)

•  First you mix all of the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

•  Secondly you add in the butter and mix until creamy.

•  Then add in the egg yolk and vanilla extract. After this is mixed in, form a dough that you are able to pick up and move in your hands

•  Split the dough into two and wrap in cling film. Place this in the refrigerator to chill for 30 minutes. (This makes it easier to roll out and cut shapes out of!)

•  After 30 minutes roll out the dough until it is flat and smooth. 

•  Then use any cookie cutter, I have used my Christmas ones, and cut shapes out of the dough.

•  Place these shapes on a lined baking tray and place in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. I find that these timings often change when I make these cookies, so make sure you keep an eye on them when they are baking! 

• Finally take the cookies out of the oven and allow to cool. Once cool sprinkle some icing sugar on top for a 'snow' effect. 

I love how simple these cookies are to bake. I swear anybody would be able to do it! I will be honest though, these aren't exactly the healthiest thing for you. But boy do they taste good! 

Let me know if you decide to bake these for yourself! Send me a picture if you do! 

Happy Christmas!

Lemon Drizzle Cake!

Todays post is going to be a little different from my usual fashion/beauty posts. I have been LOVING baking recently and after seeing Tanya Burrs video with Zoella it made me rekindle my love for baking Lemon Drizzle cake! I got out my trusty Mary Berry cookbook and made the lemon drizzle tray bake.

This recipe is pretty much the easiest thing you can make and you can't really go wrong. The only thing I found helpful was an electric mixer as it makes the cake have a smooth texture when cooked.

First things first you need to set the oven to 160 degrees. You may also want to grease a tin or line it with greaseproof paper as the overall preparing of the cake happens very quickly.

All you have to do is put everything into the mixing bowl and mix it all together until it becomes a smooth and silky texture. You then put it into the container and put it in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until you can put a knife in and take it out without anything being on the knife. Whilst you are waiting for it to cook you can then make your topping by mixing together what you need. I would like to add I used icing sugar instead of granulated!

I find the next step better to do whilst it is still in the container. You need to use your knife or a skewer to create a line of holes from the top to the bottom of the cake. You will then pour your icing all over the cake so it can get inside and add some extra 'lemonness' to the taste.

Once the cake has fully cooled then you can take it out of the tray and cut into small squares and then enjoy!

It is such a great smaller cake to enjoy with a coffee or tea! 

Hope you liked this post and let me know if you make this tray bake too! 

Twitter- @Bellamomentox

Blogmas day 18!

Today I have decided to do something very different. Over this past weekend I have been baking some festive treats for my family. The cookies that I cooked are called 'Sparkling vanilla christmas cookies'.

 1. First things first you need to get out all of the ingredients.

• - 140g icing sugar, sieved
• - 1 tsp vanilla extract
• - 1 egg yolk
• - 250g butter, cut into small cubes
• - 375g plain flour, sieved

 Then you mix together the Icing flour, Vanilla essence, egg yolk and butter until it is smooth.

Finally you need to add the flour to the mix to form a dough. 

Once you have the dough you need to kneed it until it is thick and split it into two. This then needs to be flattened and wrapped in cling film. Place the two pieces of dough in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes to harden a little. 

 While waiting for the dough to harden you need to pre heat the oven to 190c/ fan 170/ gas 5. You can also line two baking sheets with non stick greaseproof paper.

You can also dust a surface in flour in preparation of rolling out the dough. 

 Once the 30 minutes is up you need to roll out the dough and choose whichever christmas cookie cutters that you want to use. I decided to use a small star, Bell, Snowman and holly. The dough needs to be rolled out to about two pound coins on top of each other. Once you cut them out these need to be placed on top of the greaseproof paper. This needs to be placed in the oven for 12 minutes, or until the top of the cookie is golden brown.

Once they have come out of the oven place on a cooling rack and enjoy! 

You can add some icing to the top of the cookies but I thought that they were perfect the way that they are. They taste gorgeous and are perfect with a coffee/tea/hot chocolate.

Let me know whether you made these cookies and I would love to see the results on your blog!

xoxox

The recipe I followed was from (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2798/sparkling-vanilla-christmas-cookies)  although I adapted it slightly.