Lemonaded Brownies

 I just rediscovered it today, a chocolate Brownie mix which is 8 months out of date.  So I thought, rather than not waste it I’d bake it. Unfortunately, the recipe required one egg, which I didn’t have, but I searched online for egg alternatives such as Baking powder (which I’ve previously used and found gives a bit of crispiness), ripe Banana (yes I had one but not ripe at all) and finally, carbonated water (I had none of that either although it did give me an idea).  I did have a bottle of lemonade.  Thus additions to the pre-bought mix were :

30ml vegetable oil, 30ml water , 30ml Lemonade.

All the ingredients were whisked together and poured into a few muffin tins and small soufflé bowls.

These were baked for about 20 minutes at gas mark 4/ 180c. They looked OK.

After cooling I tasted one. It was soft , light and airy with no trace of lemonade. I ate most of them with hot custard and the remainder were photographed. Yum,yum!

OO (optional oatmeal) Cookies

I had a surfeit of oats plus some white chocolate chips to use up, so I wondered what I can do with them. I’ve slightly modified this recipe to suit the ingredients, still resulting in some tasty cookies. In fact, with it being so quick and easy and working well, I’m planning to use some of the other options in the future.

Ingredients

• 500 ml Oats
• 2 large Bananas, mashed
• 125 ml Peanut Butter
• 63 ml  white chocolate chips, other options:- brown chocolate chips, raisins, mixed fruit, nuts, various dried berries.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 175C/350F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, add all ingredients and mix very well, until fully combined. If using chocolate chips, stir them in with a spatula.

Lightly wet your hands and form 8 balls with the cookies. Place each ball on the lined mat, and press each ball into a cookie shape. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until slightly golden on the edges. Remove from the oven. 

Allow cooling on the mat for 10 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

George’s Ginger Cookies

Recently I made these 11 gingerbread cookies (plus a gingerbread man) because I wanted to use up some of the many raw ginger roots and cinnamon sticks, I bought earlier in the year.  Lucky for me, this was an easy recipe to follow and quick to cook. After peeling and grating the ginger root plus scraping the cinnamon stick to get the required amounts, I was ready to mix other the other ingredients.
65g butter or margarine
1.1/2 tablespoons honey
90g caster sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon grated fresh root ginger
160g self-raising flour
2 pinches ground cinnamon
I heated the oven to 150 C / Gas 2. Line a baking tray with baking parchment.
The butter/margarine and honey were mixed together in the microwave until they melted together.  Then combined with the sugar, egg and ginger in a large mixing bowl.
The flour and cinnamon was then combined with the mixture, until it became a kind of rubbery texture (you may have to add more flour it it’s too sticky). This rounded mixture was onto a floured board, kneaded lightly and rolled out to about 5mm thick. I just used a beer glass to cut out circles and placed on the prepared tray.
Baked 6 to 8 minutes in the preheated oven until lightly golden. Once baked, they were left  on a wire tray to cool. Later, tried one with a cup of tea and it melted away in my mouth.  Very nice. Then ate the man, head first!