Afghan biscuits and Golden Cinnamon biscuits - quick and easy baking

Afghan Biscuits & Golden Cinnamon Biscuits

It's overcast and cloudy here today so I thought it would be a good day to do some baking.  I had a little helper too!

I used the Afghan recipe from the Edmonds Cook book.  The Golden Cinnamon recipe is from the Australian Womens Weekly "Biscuits, Brownies and Biscotti" book.

I hadn't made the Golden Cinnamon Biscuits before but it is a great little recipe and makes 30 cookies.  It's one of those recipes for which you would probably have all the ingredients in the cupboard already.

I made afghans to use up some cornflakes.  My daughter always has great intentions when she chooses a new cereal, but the shine goes off it pretty quickly and she always goes back to cheerios.  So I was glad to use up 2 cups of the cornflakes and put them into something everyone would want to eat.

Here are the recipes:

Golden Cinnamon Biscuits

60 g butter
1/3 c (115 g) golden syrup
2 T brown sugar
2 T caster sugar
1 1/4 c self raising flour
3 t ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius.

Combine butter, golden syrup and sugars in a saucepan.  Stir over a low heat until butter is melted.   Cool for 5 minutes.

Stir in flour and cinnamon.  Roll rounded teaspoons of mixture into balls and place about 2 cm apart on baking tray lined with baking paper.  Flatten with a floured fork until 1 cm thick.

Bake for about 10 minutes or until brown.  Stand biscuits 5 minsutes before lifting onto wire racks to cool.

Makes 30 cookies.


Afghans

200 g butter
1/2 c sugar
1 1/4 c plain flour
1/4 c cocoa
2 c cornflakes.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Sift flour and cocoa.  Stir into creamed mixture.  Fold in cornflakes.  Spoon mounds of mixture onto a baking tray lined with baking paper, gently pressing together.  Bake at 180 degrees celcius for 15 minutes or until set.  When cold, ice with chocolate icing and decorate with a walnut if desired.


Cookies in a jar - a yummy and thoughtful gift

I love making gifts in a jar, so for my afterschool class, I decided the students would make 'cookies in a jar' to give to someone as a Christmas present.  It's a lot of fun layering all the ingredients in the jar and then decorating the jar to make it look Christmassy.

I got this recipe from http://www.taste.com.au/ and it was a bit more interesting than the standard chocolate chip cookies in a jar recipes.  Enjoy!

 Abby's Cookies in a Jar
 
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Makes 24 cookies

Equipment

You'll need a 1L glass jar with a lid

Ingredients

Jar ingredients

½ c plus ¼ c (110g) plain flour
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1/4 t salt
1/3 c (75g) firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 c (75g) caster sugar
3/4 c (65g) rolled oats
½ c craisins (dried cranberries)
½ c white chocolate chips Extra ingredients for making cookies


125g butter, melted and cooled
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 t vanilla essence


Method

1. Sift flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl. Whisk to mix.

2. Spoon the flour mixture into a 1L (4-cup) capacity glass jar.

3. Top with brown sugar, then caster sugar.

4. Add oats, then craisins, then chocolate chips. Seal jar. Give as gift.


To make cookies:

 Preheat oven to 190ºC.

 Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

 Empty jar into a large bowl.

 Add butter, egg and vanilla. Stir until well combined.

 Shape tablespoons of mixture into balls and place on baking trays approximately 5cm apart.

 Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, swapping trays halfway during cooking, or until edges are lightly browned.

 Turn biscuits onto a wire rack to cool.

 Serve.

A place for teachers blogs

I was just checking out my blog traffic and found a link to Interface Magazine.

If you are a teacher with a blog, check out http://www.interfacemagazine.co.nz/teacherblogs/ and add your blog. 

It's a great way to increase your traffic and get your blog seen by other teachers :)

Christmas Gifts for teachers - Chocolate Christmas cupcakes

 I'm a bit late posting this since it is now late January, but here are the gifts I made for my son's teachers at childcare this Christmas (2010).

I used a Donna Hay cupcake recipe (http://www.donnahay.com.au/) and decorated themwith green and red 'ready to roll' icing from Gilmours and silver cachous.  I love the really bright red and green colour.

I bought Christmassy plates from Farmers (http://www.farmers.co.nz/) to put the cupcakes on, so the teachers had a lasting gift as well as an edible one.

The cellophane and silver string was from the $2 shop.  Gift tags were from Whitcoulls (http://www.whitcoulls.co.nz/).