When I first started this project in 2009, I have no idea
where I thought this project was going to go? It started off as a game of
sorts. On Thursday nights Glen and I would select three or four cookbooks from
the few that I owned back then, in comparison to now, It was two shelves of a
5ft book shelf, now it’s an entire 7ft bookshelf and that’s not even enough, I
have spread to other shelves around the house.
Back to my game, we would fan the pages and shout stop,
whatever page it landed on is what I would cook, if there was more than one
recipe on the page we would take it in turns to choose the recipe and if it was
one we had already tried the pages got fanned again, but that was the only time
that the pages got re-fanned, whatever it landed on that’s what I had to cook,
no exceptions (because sweet/dessert recipes are at the back of books we
skipped those pages). Friday I would do my shopping list and then when Glen got
home from work we would go shopping, for the ingredients. Then I would set
about making my new recipes, then they would get added to my notebook, I had
the theory that it would make the recipes we had tried and liked easier to
find, which in the beginning it was, except now I am about to start my third
notebook and I have tried over 300 recipes now. I really hadn’t expected it to
go this far, or for this long. Most things in my life fizzle out, so I had
expected this to go the same way, but it hasn’t my need, desire, enthusiasm is
still as strong today as it was when I first started nearly 5 years ago. Although
I’ll admit with work commitments, leaving me little time these days, my
progress is a little slower, but definitely not through choice… I often dream
about quitting and becoming a full time housewife, cook, blogger extraordinaire.
I am good at that stuff!
This next recipe is from a book Glen got me early last year,
and although they are so simple to make I had so much fun doing them.
Dutch Caramel Cookies
125g softened butter
150g caster sugar
150g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Caramel
50g caster sugar
1tbsp water
1.
To start with you need to make the caramel, so
put the sugar and water into a small saucepan and place over a low heat for a
couple of minutes until the sugar has dissolved stirring every now and again,
then turn up the heat and bring the mixture to a fast simmer and cook for about
5 minutes or until the sugar caramelises and is a golden brown colour. Do be
careful once it starts to turn because it doesn’t take too much to burn it.
2.
Line a baking tray with baking paper and as soon
as the sugar has caramelised, pour it onto the baking paper as thinly as
possible. Set to one side and leave it to cool… DO NOT TOUCH THE CARAMEL IT
WILL BE HOT.
3.
Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F, place your
butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy,
beat in the flour and baking powder, stirring well, until it comes together and
forms a ball.
4.
Smash up the caramel into small bits, using a
rolling pin or pestle and mortar, they don’t have to be equally sized or be the
same shape, just little shards between 3-5mm.
5.
Stir the caramel bits into the cookie dough so
that they are equally distributed throughout the dough, then split the dough
into about 15 equal pieces and roll them into little balls, place them onto a
baking sheet and squish them to about 1cm thickness, try to space them apart
because they are going to spread.
6.
Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes so that
they are a pale golden colour. Allow them to cool on the cookie tray as they
will still be soft, and crumple if you try to move them. Check that they have
firmed up and move to a wire rack
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