I think traditions, particularly the ones surrounding this time of year, provide us with such a sense of nostalgia, joy and comfort. I have never spent a Christmas away from home, so all of our family traditions are deeply entrenched in my idea of what Christmas means and entails. I wouldn’t have it any other way though- I know that one day, Christmas will morph and change into something else for me, new traditions will be made and different experiences will be had, but, for now, there is something so peaceful about the idea of experiencing that familiar magic all over again.

In honour of Christmas Eve being tomorrow, I thought today I’d pay homage to the idea of traditions, and write a little bit about our Christmas Eve ones. Perhaps this post will help get you into the mood for the next few days of festivities, encourage you to remember your own Christmas Eve traditions over the years, or even just remind you, as we rush headlong into the festive frenzy, that Christmas is more than the stress and the turkey-basting and the family-wrangling. It’s memories and magic- a reminder that it’s okay for things to change, because that’s how the best traditions are made.

Table of Contents

• Last-Minute Wrapping
• Christmas Eve Ham
• Christmas Films
• Christmas Cookie Decorating
• Hanging the Stockings
• The Night Before Christmas
• Final Thoughts

Last-Minute Wrapping

This one isn’t strictly a tradition (or at least one any of us wants to be a tradition), but despite all of our best intentions, there always seems to be some last-minute wrapping left to do on Christmas Eve!

In fact, when I was little, my parents used to wrap most of our stocking presents after we went to bed on the 24th, which always ended up being quite late. This made for quite a funny chain of events when they were just a little bit tipsy after some particularly strong mulled wine one year! They were perhaps not quite as stealthy as they thought they were…

Christmas Eve Ham

On Christmas Day, we usually have a turkey for dinner (though I do remember a few years when we had a goose instead). On Christmas Eve, though, we have ham. In particular, we have Nigella Lawson’s Ham in Coca Cola. Honestly, we have converted SO many people to this ham- it is truly delicious. I know that it sounds kind of weird (and also kind of gross?) to boil a ham in Coca Cola- honestly, it probably is, but oh my, does it taste good. I’m not the biggest fan of turkey, so I end up eating lots of the leftovers from the ham on Christmas Day, and it makes me so happy.

We tend to serve the ham with Dauphinoise potatoes- which we, inevitably, have problems with. I think we’ve found a recipe that works for us now, but there were a good few years there where we just could NOT get the potatoes cooked. It was always a whole thing.

Christmas Films

We always save our favourite Christmas films for Christmas Eve. For a good long time now, the film of choice has been Arthur Christmas. However, more recently, we’ve all become obsessed with both the 2018 version of The Grinch and the film Klaus (which served as inspiration for my December bullet journal setup this year!). Watching Arthur Christmas on Christmas Eve is a given, but as time has gone on, we’ve also been known to throw the other two films into the mix as well, for extra festive cheer (and time relaxing before the big day!).

Christmas Cookie Decorating

This one is definitely a more recent tradition, to the point where I’m not even really sure if it counts as a tradition yet, but it is something that we sometimes do on Christmas Eve, in the evening. Having said that, we don’t do it every year, so maybe it hasn’t quite reached ‘tradition’ status yet! Basically, my mum and I make a batch of cookies, which we cut out into all sorts of shapes: either Finnish Spiced Biscuits, classic gingerbread (though I’m still looking around for a perfect recipe), or the plain butter dough I used for the 5-Ingredient Iced Star Biscuits from yesterday’s post.

We put on some Christmas songs and make some glacé icing, then I bring out my extensive collection of sprinkles and all of the leftover sweets from making the gingerbread house, and we let everyone loose on the cookies. We end up with all sorts- while I tend to gravitate towards reindeers, my brother has been known to turn a snowman cookie into a lightbulb and a snowflake into an atom. Very festive, no?

Hanging the Stockings

I feel this is probably a pretty universal Christmas Eve tradition, but we always hang our stockings up on Christmas Eve. There’s always a last-minute scuffle when we can’t find the stockings, but we always seem to locate them eventually! We don’t actually hang them over a fireplace, or at the foot of our beds, but on the chest of drawers on our landing. We have these decorative golden hooks that spell out ‘NOEL’ (+ a Christmas tree, because there are 5 of us!)- they sit on the edge of the dresser and we hang our stockings on them. We also have a little tree that sits on top of the chest of drawers all season long, which lights up with rainbow colours and is so pretty and festive.

My mum made our stockings back when we were young. Neither she nor my dad ever had one though, so one year I knitted one for my mum (of course!) and sewed one for my dad. Their stockings have become part of the tradition now, which is lovely. We open the stockings on Christmas morning, while we eat pastries and drink coffee (followed by a Buck’s Fizz) for breakfast.

The Night Before Christmas

After we’ve hung the stockings on the landing, we all go into my parents’ room to read The Night Before Christmas. We actually have two versions that we read: the first is the classic story (we have a very old and battered, but much-loved, edition from Sainsbury’s) and the second is the Carol Ann Duffy poem, ‘Another Night Before Christmas’. The latter has always been my favourite- I love the poem, but I love the illustrations even more. It’s can be tricky to locate the edition we have (we got it a long time ago!), but I did find it on Amazon– whether it stays available for long, I can’t be sure!

I can’t be trusted to read the original one, because some of the drawings make me laugh so much that I can’t get my words out. Every time, I think to myself, I’m going to do it right this year, and every time I am felled by this particular image:

Final Thoughts

So those are our Christmas Eve traditions. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about them, and I hope they help to get you into that Christmas Eve mindset ahead of tomorrow. I think the best part about traditions is that there are inevitably hiccups along the way- something always goes wrong, whether that’s losing the stockings, or even some mulled-wine induced chaos. The great thing, though, is that those hiccups are what make the best stories, which preserve the magic of those traditions when they are told over and over again every year. I’ve always had a rather unhealthy dose of perfectionism, but, when it comes to traditions, I almost enjoy a little mishap here and there.

What are some of your Christmas Eve traditions? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx

Today’s post is the final recipe of Blogmas At Home 2023, which is kind of sad, but also not that sad, because these Iced Star Biscuits are the dreamiest, easiest Christmas Cookies ever. I’ve been making these biscuits in all shapes and sizes for YEARS because they are so simple (I mean, they only require 5 ingredients, one of those ingredients is literally WATER and the dough is made in the food processor!), but they are also so delicious. In the original recipe, they are called ‘Birthday Biscuits’, so we still call them that, but I’m making these star shaped ones for Christmas- they’re really a year-round cookie! Also, the possibilities for decorating them are ENDLESS. I’ve just done plain, white glacé icing on these, to keep things simple, but you could use royal icing, fondant, chocolate, buttercream, literally ANYTHING. It’s such a versatile recipe!

Table of Contents

• Ingredients
• Making the Biscuit Dough
• Cutting out the Cookies
• Baking the Cookies
• Decorating the Cookies
• Storing the Cookies
• Recipe

Ingredients

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, these cookies only require 5 ingredients:

• Plain flour

Don’t use self-raising flour, because this will cause the biscuits to puff up, rather than bake into nice even biscuits- not what you want!

• Caster sugar

I use golden caster sugar, because it gives the cookies a lovely depth of flavour, but you can use white caster sugar, if that’s what you have.

• Unsalted butter

The butter needs to be cubed and at room temperature, so that it incorporates into the other ingredients properly.

• Icing sugar

You only need icing sugar and water to make glacé icing, which is what I used to decorate these biscuits.

• Water

Does water even count as an ingredient? I have no idea, but my brother threw a fit when he heard I was calling these ‘4-Ingredient Iced Star Biscuits’ and I was guilted into changing the name. I’ll forgive him, because 5-Ingredient sounds better anyway.

You will also need a star-shaped cookie cutter. The one I used was 5.5cm across. You can use any size/shape cutter you would like, but be aware this will affect the quantity of cookies this recipe makes, as well as the baking time.

Making the Biscuit Dough

Start by preheating the oven to 180°C (as usual, I am using a conventional oven) and line 3 baking trays with baking paper, then set aside.

To make the dough, put the flour, sugar and softened, cubed butter into the bowl of a food processor.

Blitz the mixture until it forms crumbs…

…then pulse until it comes together in a ball. That’s it! That’s the dough! Bring it together with your hands (after removing the food processor blade, of course), then it’s ready to roll- no chilling necessary.

Cutting out the Cookies

Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and tip the dough onto it. Dust both the surface of the dough and a rolling pin with a little more flour, then roll the dough out until it is about 5mm thick.

Cut out the cookies using the star cutter, carefully transferring them to the lined baking trays as you go. Re-roll the dough as needed.

Baking the Cookies

Once all of the dough has been used up, bake the cookies. They will need about 10 minutes in the preheated oven and should be a pale, golden colour when they are ready.

Allow the cookies to cool for about 5 minutes on the trays, then carefully transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely, before decorating.

Decorating the Cookies

First, make the glacé icing. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl (this is important to get rid of any lumps), then add 2 tbsp of the water and stir to combine. Sometimes it can be a little tricky to get the perfect consistency of glacé icing, so it’s best to start with some of the water, then gradually add more until the perfect consistency is achieved. You want it to be thick enough that it doesn’t all slide off the cookies, but not so thick that it doesn’t have a smooth, shiny finish.

Once you have made the icing, spoon it onto the cookies and spread it out, so that it fills the star shape. Place the cookies back onto the wire rack to set- glacé icing will never set completely solid, like royal icing does, but it will form a delicate crust after about 20 minutes.

Storing the Cookies

Store the cookies in an airtight container, at room temperature. Like this, they will keep for 2-3 days. Ideally, store them in a single layer, to prevent the delicate icing from being smushed (or, you know, be like me and completely disregard that suggestion…).

I hope you’ve enjoyed this recipe- these cookies really are the simplest treatsntil your desired consistency is achieved- to make, but they are completely delicious, so really it’s a win-win! Let me know if you try this out- I’d love to hear what you think!

Gemma

xxx

Recipe

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5-Ingredient Iced Star Biscuits

You only need 5 ingredients to make these simple and delicious festive biscuits (and one of them is water!). While these are perfect as Christmas cookies, they can be made in any shape and decorated in a multitude of different ways to fit any occasion year round!

Course Dessert, Snack

Keyword 5 ingredient, Cookie, glacé icing

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Setting time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour

Servings 50 cookies

Equipment

• 1 5.5cm star cookie cutter

Ingredients

For the cookie dough:

• 250 g plain flour
• 85 g golden caster sugar
• 175 g unsalted butter, cubed and at room temperature.

For the icing:

• 250 g icing sugar, sifted.
• 3-4 tbsp water

Instructions

Make the cookies:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (conventional). Line 2 baking trays with baking paper and set aside.
• Place all of the cookie dough ingredients into the bowl of a food processor. Blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, then pulse until it forms a ball.
• Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour. Tip the dough onto the work surface and bring it together into a smooth ball with your hands. Dust both the dough and a rolling pin with a little more flour, then roll out the dough, until it is about 5mm thick.
• Use the star cutter to stamp out as many cookies as possible from the rolled-out dough, then re-roll and stamp again, carefully transferring the cookies to the lined baking trays as you go.
• Once you have used up all of the dough, bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until pale golden. Once baked, allow the cookies to cool on the trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.

Make the icing:

• When the cookies are cool, make the icing. Place the sifted icing sugar into a bowl. Add 2 tbsp of water and mix to combine. If needed, add more of the water until the desired consistency is achieved- the icing should be thick enough that it will not run off the cookies, but not so thick that it does not look smooth and shiny.

Decorate the cookies:

• As soon as the icing is ready, start decorating the cookies. Spoon a small amount of icing onto a cookie, then use the back of the spoon to spread it out over the surface, so that the whole star shape is filled. Repeat for the remaining cookies, setting them back onto the wire rack to sit while the icing firms up. This icing won't set as hard as royal icing, but it should form a delicate crust after about 20 minutes or so (if they last that long!).
• Store the cookies in an airtight container, ideally in a single layer, to prevent the icing from smushing, at room temperature. Like this, they will keep for 2-3 days (or longer, if they are left un-iced). Once kept for 24 hours, the icing will be significantly firmer and less likely to smush (though it will still not be as hard as royal icing).

Notes

 

Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food.

Confession: I am… not a big travel person. I mean, this whole blog is literally called Gemma at Home because of the sheer amount of time I spend not travelling. However, I do think witnessing, experiencing and making an attempt to understand cultures other than your own is incredibly important. While travelling to different countries and immersing yourself in their respective cultures is the most obvious way of doing this, it’s not the only way. I think, sometimes, people look down on the idea of learning about other cultures via less ‘real life’ methods- things like reading books and articles, watching videos or even engaging in certain activities. I know these techniques can’t provide as comprehensive an understanding of a culture as firsthand experience, but that doesn’t mean they are not effective sources in their own right- especially for those who aren’t in a position get that firsthand experience for themselves.

The point of this whole spiel, ultimately, is to introduce a new series on the blog: Baking Around the World. Food is such an intrinsic part of so many cultures- I love hearing about the stories and traditions surrounding food across the globe. In Baking Around the World, I want to explore some new recipes, try some new tasty bakes and learn about the history of each one as I go. I may not be much good at travelling, but I do love to bake. This is my own, more accessible version of experiencing new cultures (and testing out some tasty snacks that I have never tried before!).

Before we begin, let me just throw out a few disclaimers: obviously, I will not be any sort of expert on any of these recipes- I’m just giving them a try. As part of the process, I will be doing lots of research on the recipes- I’ll list the sources I have referenced for the bakes at the end of each post, as well as sharing some of what I have found in my research throughout. While I will be providing the final recipe I end up using in the posts, I am (obviously) not going to be claiming the recipes as my own- just sharing the ingredients/methods I used to make my version of them. Finally, my bakes are unlikely to be super authentic- recipes vary based on region, my research may go awry, I might be limited by the ingredients available to me here in the UK. Please, go easy on me! I’m just a girl who loves sweet snacks.

Right then, let’s get into our first bake, shall we? We’re heading to Sicily for this one…

Table of Contents

• Pizzicotti: Explained
• Pizzicotti Ingredients
• Making Pizzicotti
• Final Thoughts
• Recipe
• Sources Used

Pizzicotti: Explained

In my research, I was surprised to discover that pizzicotti are not actually a flavour of cookie, but a shape. Pizzicotti means ‘little pinches’ in Italian and these cookies are shaped by, quite literally, pinching the dough- hence the name. The cookies themselves are almond cookies, known, in their unshaped form, as pasticcini di mandorla (or mandorle – I’m fairly certain that mandorla is the singular form of ‘almond’, while mandorle is the plural. Which one is grammatically accurate in this context- I am unsure).

I actually stumbled upon some cookies with the same scalloped shape as pizzicotti in a (quite fancy) farm shop recently- you can see them in the photo above. These cookies are labelled as amaretti, though they look more like the pizzicotti/pasticcini di mandorla than the amaretti I have seen. Upon further research, I think pasticcini di mandorla are a Sicilian variation of amaretti– made using sweet (as opposed to bitter) almonds and no apricot kernels. If you have had the amaretti that they sell in stores here in the UK before, these pizzicotti are very different- they are much paler in colour and have a much softer texture.

Pizzicotti Ingredients

To make pizzicotti, you will need the following ingredients:

• Clementine

Pizzicotti are often ‘scented’ with citrus (though you can also use alcohol, vanilla or something else along those lines), so I decided to use clementine zest, like in Giuseppe Dell’Anno (of Bake Off fame)’s recipe (see the end of this post for source references). Honestly, I’m still not sure what makes a clementine different from a satsuma or a tangerine, but I’m pretty sure any of them will work in this recipe. You could even use orange zest, just make sure to only use the zest of about half an orange (clementines/satsumas/tangerines are much smaller!)- otherwise the flavour might overwhelm the almond taste.

• Ground almonds

There is no flour in these cookies, just ground almonds. This means that the cookies have a lovely almond-y flavour and, as a bonus, they’re also gluten-free!

• Caster sugar

Some recipes use icing sugar for their pizzicotti, but the majority seem to use caster sugar. I’ve gone with caster sugar here.

• Egg whites

This recipe doesn’t use the yolks, so you can save them for a different recipe.

• Almond extract

This is just to amp up the almond flavour a little- I’ve actually decreased it slightly from the original recipe because I felt it was fighting a little too much with the clementine flavour, but you can use the original amount (1 teaspoon) if you prefer.

• Honey

I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of the honey is in the recipe, but it seems to be a fairly standard edition across the pizzicotti recipes I’ve found. I’d love to know whether it helps to bind the mixture or adds sweetness/flavour- or maybe even both?

• Icing sugar

This is what gives the pizzicotti their iconic snowball-esque appearance- the balls of dough are rolled in icing sugar before baking, making them all snowy (and extra tasty).

Making Pizzicotti

The traditional method of making pizzicotti involves a bowl, a spoon and good old-fashioned elbow grease. When I first tried these out, I followed Giuseppe Dell’Anno’s recipe, where he uses a food processor instead. I’ve tried both methods now, and I actually prefer the food processor method for a couple of reasons:

• While pizzicotti are by no means taxing to make by hand, energy is not something that I have a lot of. I love recipes that I can make in a stand mixer/food processor, because I can still enjoy making them when I’m feeling particularly tired.
• Processing the sugar and almonds helps to break them down a little, making your pizzicotti a little smoother. I found that the pizzicotti I made by hand were a little grainier, which wasn’t unpleasant, but was noticeable.

Basically, you can make these either way. I do prefer the texture of the pizzicotti made in the food processor, but I also wonder if the grainier texture of the handmade cookies is more authentic? Nevertheless, it’s up to you which method you choose.

Start by preheating your oven to 180°C and lining a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Then, make the dough…

To make the pizzicotti in the food processor, place the clementine zest, ground almonds and caster sugar into the bowl of a food processor. Blitz for a few seconds until well combined.

Add the egg whites, almond extract and honey, then pulse until the dough comes together.

Tip the dough out onto a clean work surface, lightly dusted with icing sugar to help prevent it from sticking, then knead into a smooth ball. The dough will be very sticky- that’s how it should be! The dough is now ready to divide and shape.

If you would like to make the pizzicotti by hand, just put all of the ingredients (bar the icing sugar) into a large bowl.

Mix with a wooden spoon until it starts to come together, then use your hands to knead the dough into a smooth ball. The dough is now ready to divide and shape.

To form the pizzicotti, split the dough into 26 pieces (each piece will be about 25g). Roll each piece of dough between your hands to form a ball.

Sift the icing sugar into a small bowl, then drop the ball in and roll it around until it is completely coated in the sugar. I like to shape all of the balls first, then roll each one in the icing sugar, but you can do them one at a time if you prefer.

Once you have all of your icing sugar-covered balls, you need to pinch them to make them into pizzicotti!

Using your thumb, index finger and third finger, gently pinch each ball- you’re aiming for a kind of rounded triangle shape with a scalloped pattern on top, as in the photos. Don’t worry about it too much though- they’ll taste delicious no matter what!

Once you have shaped all of your pizzicotti, bake them in the preheated oven for about 12 minutes, until they have turned slightly golden and a few cracks have appeared. Let them cool completely on the tray, then serve at room temperature.

The pizzicotti will keep for up to 2 weeks at room temperature, if stored in an airtight container.

Final Thoughts

I am a BIG fan of these cookies. They taste exactly like you would imagine softly baked marzipan tastes, but with an extra hit of clementine flavour, which makes them feel extra Christmassy. I love their snowy-white and powdery coating, as well as their scalloped shape. They’re also incredibly easy to make, which is perfect for this busy time of year! I think these might just be a new favourite cookie recipe for me- I just know I’ll be making them again and again and again.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the first post in my Baking Around The World series and Day 7 of Blogmas At Home! I have a few more recipes lined up, so keep an eye out for those. I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 8!

Gemma

xxx

Recipe

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Pizzicotti

These Sicilian almond cookies, called Pizzicotti ('little pinches') for their indented shape, are flavoured with clementine zest and rolled in icing sugar before baking.

Course Snack

Cuisine Italian

Keyword almond, clementine, Cookie, pizzicotti

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 12 minutes minutes

Total Time 32 minutes minutes

Servings 26 cookies

Ingredients

• zest of 1 unwaxed clementine (see Note 1).
• 250 g ground almonds
• 200 g caster sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 2 tsp honey
• 40 g icing sugar, sifted, plus extra for dusting.

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, then place the sifted icing sugar into a small bowl, ready for coating the pizzicotti. Set both aside for later.
• Place the clementine zest, ground almonds and caster sugar into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times to combine the ingredients and break down the sugar and almonds a little.
• Add the egg whites, almond extract and honey to the food processor, then pulse until the mixture starts to come together into a sticky dough. Remove the dough from the food processor and transfer to a clean work surface, lightly dusted with icing sugar, then knead gently with your hands until it forms a smooth ball. You can shape and bake the pizzicotti immediately, or you can wrap the dough in cling film at this stage and store in the fridge for up to 2 days.
• To shape the pizzicotti, take a small amount of the dough (about 25g) and roll it between your hands to make a ball. Drop the ball into the bowl of icing sugar, then roll it around until it is completely coated. Place the pizzicotti onto the baking tray, then use your thumb, index and middle fingers to gently pinch the ball and give the cookie its characteristic shape. Repeat this process with the remaining dough, spacing them out slightly on the tray (they don't spread hugely, but do give them a little room to grow- if in doubt, use a second tray).
• Bake the pizzicotti in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes, until the cookies (underneath all of the icing sugar!) have turned golden and are slightly cracked. Let them cool completely before removing them from the tray and serving. Stored in an airtight container at room temperature, the pizzicotti will keep for up to two weeks.

Notes

1. I used clementine zest to make these pizzicotti extra Christmassy, but you could use lemon or orange zest to flavour your pizzicotti, or even omit the extra flavouring, if you prefer.

Recipe adapted from ‘Clementine and almond cookies’ by Giuseppe Dell’Anno, from Olive Magazine (Christmas 2023, p.42).

Sources Used

Giuseppe Dell’Anno‘s ‘Clementine and almond cookies’ for Olive Magazine, ‘Christmas 2023’, p.42.

Cooking with Manuela: Italian Almond Cookies

Italian Recipe Book: Italian Almond Cookies

Italy Magazine: Pasticcini di Mandorla

Marisa’s Italian Kitchen: Pasticcini di Mandorle

Rachel Eats: Pasticcini di Mandorle

Quatro Fromaggio and Other Disgraces on the Menu: Amaretti and Amaretto

These cookies just feel more… adult to me? I mean, sure, there’s toffee, but what is toffee if not the sophisticated older cousin of caramel? The coffee instantly adds a hit of ‘not your average 5-year old’s treat’, while the dark chocolate chunks tones down the typical sugary-sweetness of a chocolate chip cookie. For added maturity, I make these cookies with browned butter, which adds a really deep, nutty flavour to the cookie dough, echoing both the coffee and toffee flavours. In terms of texture, the cookies are perfectly crisp on the outside, while still being soft and chewy on the inside. I like them best when they are still warm from the oven (I have even been known to reheat cooled cookies the next day!), but they’re just as tasty cold.

I mean, I know I said I have the palette of a 5-year old and these cookies are supposed to be more suited to an adult palette, but I still love them SO MUCH! Does that mean I’m finally growing up? Hmm… not sure. I guess a cookie’s a cookie, in the end.

Anyway, let’s get into it, shall we?

Table of Contents

• Ingredients
• Equipment
• Making the Toffee Pieces
• Browning the Butter
• Making the Cookie Dough
• Baking the Cookies
• Make Ahead
• Recipe

Ingredients

Aside from a couple of extra mix-ins, the ingredient list for these cookies is pretty standard:

• Unsalted butter

You need butter for both the toffee pieces and the cookie dough itself. For the cookie dough, you’ll be browning the butter to give your cookies a lovely, nutty depth of flavour. I prefer to use unsalted butter, so that I have more control over the amount of salt in my cookies, but you can use salted if you prefer- you just won’t need to add the salt listed in the recipe to the dough!

• Light brown soft sugar

You also need brown sugar for both the toffee pieces and the cookie dough. Brown sugar gives the toffee its iconic, deep flavour and makes the inside of the cookies super moist and chewy. Make sure to use light brown sugar- if you use dark brown sugar your toffee will have a bitter, burnt flavour, while the flavour of the sugar will overpower the coffee in the cookie dough.

• Caster sugar

For these cookies, you use a combination of brown sugar and caster sugar. The brown sugar keeps the insides chewy, but the caster sugar gives the cookies a crispy exterior. This recipe uses a 4:1 ratio of brown sugar:caster sugar, which gives you the perfect crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside bake!

• 1 whole egg + 1 egg yolk

The addition of an extra egg yolk in this recipe makes for a super soft, tender cookie. I know it can be a bit of a pain to be left with a spare white, but it makes such a difference! You can use the egg white in another recipe, such as my macarons; use it alongside some whole eggs to make an omelette/frittata; or freeze it for another day.

• Vanilla extract

Vanilla extract is often used in chocolate chip cookie recipes to enhance the other flavours in the dough. You only need a little bit for this recipe (you want to enhance the flavours, not overpower them!), but it makes a world of difference.

• Plain flour

Don’t use self-raising flour, as this will affect the finished texture/look of the cookies.

• Baking soda

Don’t substitute baking powder here, as this will also affect the finished texture/look of the cookies.

• Instant coffee granules

To get the coffee flavour into these cookies, I use instant coffee granules. You don’t want to use brewed coffee, because the added liquid will affect the texture of your cookie dough, which will, in turn, affect how the cookies bake up. I like to grind up the coffee granules into a fine powder, using a mortar and pestle, to distribute the flavour more evenly and prevent large specks of coffee in my cookie dough, but this is optional. You could also use espresso powder, but I have not tried this. Espresso powder is more intense, so, if you do use it, you will want to decrease the amount.

I prefer to use decaffeinated instant coffee when I’m baking, so I don’t have to worry about being up all night if I want to have a midnight snack! Realistically, though, the coffee content per cookie isn’t massive, so if you’d prefer to use caffeinated coffee, go ahead!

• Salt

A touch of flaky sea salt really helps to bring out all the caramel-y, nutty flavours in these cookies. I like to add a pinch to the dough, then sprinkle some on top of the cookies as soon as they come out of the oven, to really amp up the flavour.

• Dark chocolate

Listen, I’m a milk chocolate chunk kind of girl through and through. I can just about stretch to a 50/50 milk + dark combo in my cookies. However, for these cookies, I use all dark chocolate. I know- the horror! I just think that the dark chocolate really compliments the coffee in these cookies and makes for a more sophisticated, grown-up cookie, which was, ultimately, my goal for this recipe. Also, I can still satisfy my sweet tooth with the toffee pieces that are mixed in alongside the dark chocolate chunks, so it’s all okay. If you prefer though, you can absolutely use milk chocolate instead.

For this recipe, I like to buy my chocolate in bar form and chop it up into rough chunks myself (I feel like chunks have a much more sophisticated vibe than chips- is that just me?), but go ahead and use chips if you prefer- on the plus side, it’ll cut out the extra chopping step, making these cookies easier to throw together.

Equipment

There are a few pieces of special equipment that I used for this recipe, but none of them are required to make these cookies. Where possible, I have tried to indicate alternatives, so that you can make these cookies whenever/wherever you are, regardless of the equipment you have available!

• Stand mixer

Making the cookie dough in a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, makes this whole process significantly quicker and easier, which is always a win. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can absolutely mix the whole thing together by hand, using a large bowl and a wooden spoon- just be prepared for a little bit of an arm workout!

• Mortar and pestle

Again, this isn’t strictly necessary, but I like to grind the instant coffee granules into a fine powder before adding it to the cookie dough, to ensure that the flavour is distributed more evenly and there are no little bits of instant coffee in the dough. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle (or the enthusiasm to grind), you could use an electronic spice grinder, or just leave the granules whole and embrace the speckled-y cookie life!

• Sugar thermometer

I find that the easiest way to make toffee is to use a sugar thermometer- the sugar and butter need to be cooked together until they reach the ‘hard crack’ stage, which is about 146°C. I use a digital thermometer, but any accurate sugar thermometer will work. If you don’t have a sugar thermometer, I would highly recommend buying one- there are some relatively cheap ones available online and it will make working with sugar (and lots of other parts of baking!) much easier. If you’re desperate, you can check for the ‘hard crack’ stage by dropping a spoonful of the hot toffee into cold water and leaving it for a few moments to cool down, before trying to ‘crack’ it with your fingers. When the sugar has reached the ‘hard crack’ stage, it should be brittle and snap when you try to bend it.

• Regular-sized ice cream scoop

I am a huge proponent of using an ice cream scoop to portion cookie dough- it makes the whole process much quicker, easier and neater. Make sure that you use an ice cream scoop with a release mechanism- this method won’t work without it! If you don’t have an ice cream scoop, another of my favourite ways to make even cookies is to weigh the balls of cookie dough. For this recipe, aim to make each cookie dough all about 65g- this will give you the same size cookies that the ice cream scoop method would achieve.

Making the Toffee Pieces

These toffee pieces are really quick to make and work perfectly to balance the bitter coffee/dark chocolate in these cookies. You can also use these toffee bits for other bakes/desserts- they’re delicious sprinkled over ice cream!

If you don’t fancy making your own toffee bits, you could try breaking up some shop-bought toffee and using that instead! Just bear in mind that ready-made toffee comes in thicker chunks, which will be harder to break up. You might want to use a slightly more heavy-duty utensil than a rolling pin for this, like a hammer!

Really though, I would recommend making your own toffee pieces- it’s honestly pretty straightforward and even tastier than the store-bought stuff! To make the homemade toffee pieces, you only need 3 ingredients:

• Brown sugar

Brown sugar is what gives toffee it’s deep, nutty flavour, in comparison to typical caramel. Use light brown soft sugar for this recipe.

• Unsalted butter

Butter is a key ingredient in toffee. I like to use unsalted butter so I can control how much salt ends up in my bakes, but you can use salted if you prefer.

• Water

I mean, it’s barely even an ingredient, but I wanted to note it here because it does make a huge difference to the toffee. Toffee can be a little bit troublesome- often it will separate, leaving you with a pile of sugar and a pool of butter, but the water helps to prevent this.

To make the toffee, start by lining a small baking tray. Ideally, use one with a lip all around, so that the toffee doesn’t spill over the edge.

Then, put the sugar, butter and water into a small saucepan. The amounts listed in this recipe only make a small amount of toffee, so you don’t need a large pan, but do be aware that the sugar will bubble up a little bit as it cooks. If in doubt, use a slightly larger pan, rather than a slightly smaller pan.

Set the pan over a medium heat and stir gently while the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. If the toffee separates while this is happening, stir more vigorously to bring it back together.

Once the sugar has dissolved, stop stirring and allow the toffee to bubble away until it reaches 146°C. During this time, do not stir the toffee- stirring the toffee will cause it to crystallise and you’ll end up with something more similar to fudge than toffee! If you need to move the toffee around, give the whole pan a gentle swirl.

Once the toffee reaches 146°C, take it off the heat. Stir the whole thing vigorously until it forms a homogenous mixture, then pour it out onto the lined tray.

Leave the toffee to cool down completely- it should harden and become brittle. This will take about 20 minutes. Once the toffee is cold, use a rolling pin to smash it up into small pieces, ready to be used in the cookies. You can use the toffee pieces immediately, or you can store them in an airtight container for up to a week.

Browning the Butter

Part of what makes these cookies so deliciously nutty and toasty and flavourful is the use of brown butter in the dough. While it does mean that these cookies require a little more effort, I promise, the end result is so worth it. Also, browning butter is super easy to do- you only need one thing: butter!

Start by putting your butter into a small saucepan and place it over medium heat. Allow the butter to melt, stirring frequently.

Once the butter has melted, keep it over the heat, still stirring frequently. At this point, the butter will still be slightly opaque and you’ll see little white solids/foam floating on the surface- those are the milk solids! As they cook, they’ll start toasting and turn brown, which is how brown butter gets its name.

Eventually, those solids will break down and sink to the bottom of the pan. As this happens, your butter will become clearer (at this stage, you could pass through a coffee filter to remove the solids and you would have the aptly named clarified butter). Keep the pan over the heat and keep the butter bubbling, still stirring frequently.

After a little longer on the heat, the milk solids that sank to the bottom of the pan will begin to turn brown. Keep cooking and stirring the butter until those solids turn a deep, nutty colour, then remove the pan from the heat and there you have it! Brown butter.

Be careful at this stage because the brown butter will be very hot. For this recipe, you want to use room temperature brown butter- it can still be melted, but you don’t want it to be hot. You can leave the brown butter on the side until it cools down, but this will take a little while. I like to transfer the brown butter to a small, heatproof bowl, which I then place into a larger bowl that I have partially filled with ice water. The cold water will help to cool down the butter, so you should be ready to use it in about 10 minutes. Give it a stir every now and then, as it cools, to help things along.

Making the Cookie Dough

Once you have your room temperature brown butter, you can get on with making the cookie dough. As I mentioned earlier, I like to use a stand mixer to make the dough because it makes the whole process so quick and easy, but it’s not a requirement for this recipe. If you would prefer to make the dough by hand, just use a wooden spoon/strong spatula to mix everything together, as directed by the recipe.

A couple of notes on preparation at this stage:

• I like to use dark chocolate chunks in these cookies, but you can absolutely use an equal amount of chocolate chips instead. If you’re using dark chocolate chunks, I always recommend chopping the chocolate bars up before you start making the cookies (perhaps while the brown butter is cooling down) so you can just throw everything together at the end.

• As I mentioned, I like to grind the instant coffee granules beforehand. I use a mortar and pestle for this, but you could also use a spice grinder, if you have one. If you’re using espresso powder, or opting to leave your granules whole for a more speckled-y cookie, skip this step.

To make the dough, put the brown butter and both sugars into the bowl of the stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed to combine the ingredients.

Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract and beat again, until well-combined and fluffy.

Sift in the flour, baking soda and finely ground instant coffee granules. Add the salt (I’m using flaky sea salt, so I don’t bother sifting it- just break it up with your fingers as you add it in). Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are mostly incorporated, then add the dark chocolate chunks and toffee pieces and mix briefly, just until everything is incorporated.

At this point, you need to chill the cookie dough. I know, I know, you want cookies now! However, chilling the cookie dough has 2 benefits:

• It ensures the cookies bake up all thick and chewy.
• It helps all of the flavours to develop and meld together.

Chill the cookie dough for at least an hour, or overnight. I know an hour can feel endless, but by the time you’ve washed up, had a cup of tea and preheated the oven to 190°C, you probably won’t be far off!

Baking the Cookies

Once the dough has chilled, take it out of the fridge and divide it into balls. This recipe makes about 16 cookies and I like to use a regular-sized ice cream scoop to divide up the dough (it makes the whole process SO quick and easy). If you don’t have an ice cream scoop (or one that works for this), you could also weigh the balls for super uniform cookies- each ball should be about 65g if you do this.

Space the dough balls onto 2 baking trays, each lined with greaseproof paper (you need to leave a good amount of space between the cookies because they will spread). Bake the cookies in the oven at 190°C for 10 minutes, until they have turned brown around the edges (typical cookie recipes will require you to check for a golden hue around the edges of the cookies, but these cookies have coffee in, so are naturally much darker anyway).

When the cookies come out of the oven, you’ll probably find that some of the toffee has melted and oozed out here and there. You can fix this and give your cookies back their perfect, uniform appearance by placing an upturned bowl over the cookie (making sure to catch any toffee puddles) and moving it in quick little circles, keeping it flush to the baking tray. This not only brings the toffee back to the cookie, but it also makes the whole cookie slightly thicker and much more circular. I actually do this to all of the cookies, not just the ones that had toffee mishaps. This will only work while the cookies are still warm, though, so make sure to do it as soon as they come out of the oven and to work quickly! Thank you, TikTok, for that little trick. I also like to sprinkle the cookies with a little more flaky sea salt at this stage.

Allow the cookies to cool on the tray for 5-10 minutes before serving. These cookies are best eaten warm (ideally fresh from the oven!), but they will keep in an airtight container for 4-5 days.

Make Ahead

I LOVE to keep cookie dough balls in the freezer, so that I am always ready for spontaneous cookie-snacking. This recipe freezes really well- you can even bake the dough balls straight from frozen! In fact, I think that freezing the cookies actually helps these cookies, because it ensures that the toffee bits stay nice and crunchy during the baking process (they have a tendency to melt away slightly more if the dough balls are not frozen).

I recommend freezing the cookie dough after you have rolled it into balls to make it easier for your future self. I like to place the balls onto a small, lined baking tray and put that in the freezer overnight, until the dough balls have frozen solid. The next day, I transfer the balls to a resealable bag and put them back into the freezer. Like this, the cookie dough balls will keep for up to 2 months, so you can have cookies at a moment’s notice, whenever you feel like it!

I find it helpful to label the bag, so that it’s super easy to tell what the cookies are and how to bake them. If you do this, I recommend including the following information:

1. Flavour (I maintain there is nothing worse than thinking you’re biting into a chocolate chip cookie and discovering that what you thought were chocolate chips are, in fact, raisins).
2. Oven temperature
3. Cook time

For these cookies, bake them, from frozen, for 12 minutes at 190°C.

And that’s how you make these grown-up, Coffee, Toffee and Dark Chocolate Cookies. I think they’re such a perfect, tasty treat for autumn. Let me know if you try them out- I’d love to hear about it!

Gemma

xxx

Recipe

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Coffee, Toffee + Dark Chocolate Cookies

Super delicious, chewy cookies, flavoured with coffee and brown butter and laden with chunks of melting dark chocolate and crunchy, homemade toffee pieces.

Course Dessert, Snack

Keyword Browned Butter, Coffee, Cookie, Dark Chocolate, Toffee

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Chill Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 2 hours hours 10 minutes minutes

Servings 16 cookies

Ingredients

For the toffee bits:

• 55 g unsalted butter
• 100 g light brown soft sugar
• 1 tbsp water

For the cookies:

• 170 g unsalted butter
• 200 g light brown soft sugar
• 50 g caster sugar
• 1 whole egg + 1 yolk
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 240 g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tbsp instant coffee granules, finely ground (see Note 1).
• 1 pinch flaky sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling
• 300 g dark chocolate, chopped

Instructions

For the toffee bits:

• Line a rimmed baking tray with greaseproof paper and set aside.
• Place all of the ingredients for the toffee into a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir gently while the butter melts and the sugar dissolves.
• Once the sugar has dissolved, stop stirring and allow the toffee to bubble away until it reaches 146°C. You can gently swirl the pan during this time, but do not stir the mixture, or your toffee might crystallise.
• When the toffee has reached 146°C, take the pan off the heat and stir vigorously to ensure the mixture is homogenous. Pour onto the lined baking tray and set aside at room temperature to cool down and harden fully- about 20 minutes.
• When the toffee has cooled completely (it should be hard and brittle at this point), use a rolling pin to crack it up into small pieces. The toffee can be use immediately, or stored in an airtight container for up to a week.

For the cookies:

• Begin by browning the butter. Place the butter into a small saucepan over medium heat. Allow the butter to melt, then cook, stirring frequently, until the butter smells nutty and the milk solids have turned a deep brown colour. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the butter to cool to room temperature before using (see Note 2).
• Place the brown butter and both sugars into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until combined.
• Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract to the butter/sugar mixture. Beat on medium speed until well-combined and fluffy- about 30 seconds.
• Sift the flour, baking soda and coffee granules into the mixture. Add the salt, then mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are mostly incorporated.
• Add the dark chocolate chunks and smashed toffee pieces and mix again, just until incorporated. Place the bowl into the fridge and allow the cookie dough to chill for 1 hour, or overnight.
• Just before the dough is ready to come out of the fridge, preheat the oven to 190°C. Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper and set aside.
• When the cookie dough has chilled, remove it from the fridge and divide it into 16 even balls (I used a regular-sized ice cream scoop for this, but you could also weigh the cookie dough balls- each ball should be about 65g). Place the cookie dough balls onto the lined trays, making sure to leave plenty of space between them (they will spread as they bake).
• Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, or until they have turned a deep brown colour around the edges (the coffee makes these cookies darker than average chocolate chip cookies, so look for a deep brown, rather than a golden colour).
• When the cookies come out of the oven, place an upturned bowl (you need one that is slightly bigger than the cookies themselves) over one cookie and quickly move it around and around in small circles, keeping it flush against the tray. This will make sure that your cookie stays nice and thick, has a perfectly round shape and, as a bonus, will bring any toffee that might have oozed out during the baking process back into the cookie. Repeat for the other cookies, then sprinkle with flaky sea salt and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before serving. The cookies will last for 4-5 days if stored in an airtight container, but are best eaten warm (ideally fresh from the oven).

Notes

1. I like to grind instant coffee granules in a mortar and pestle for this recipe, so that I have a really fine powder that distributes evenly throughout the dough. You can skip the grinding step, if you would prefer, but your cookies will be speckled with the coffee granules. You could also use espresso powder, instead, but I would recommend reducing the amount of coffee if you do. Don’t use brewed coffee (it will make your dough too wet!) or coffee grounds (this would affect the texture of your cookies).
2. Your brown butter needs to be at room temperature before you make the dough, to ensure your cookies bake perfectly. You can leave it to cool by itself, but it will take a little while to come to temperature (brown butter is very hot when it has just been made!). I like to transfer my butter to a small, heatproof bowl and sit that in a larger bowl, filled with ice water. Stir it every now and then and, after about 10 minutes, the butter will be cool enough to use.

Make Ahead

This cookie dough freezes very well- I love to have some stashed in the freezer so I can have fresh cookies at a moment’s notice. For best results, I recommend rolling the dough into balls, placing them on a lined tray and freezing overnight until solid. Then, transfer the balls to a resealable bag (don’t forget to label it!) and store in the freezer for up to 2 months. The cookie dough balls can be baked straight from frozen- they’ll need about 12 minutes at 190°C.