I bought some lovely 72% cocoa dark chocolate the other day so I thought I'd make good use of it by using it as a coating for biscuits. I thought dark chocolate would combine beautifully with ginger so I got out Leith's baking bible and found a recipe for ginger nuts- small crunchy biscuits flavoured with the spicyness of ground ginger. These biscuits are made by the melting method ie. the butter sugar and syrup are melted together before adding the flour. I placed small balls of the dough onto a baking sheet because I thought they would easily spread whilst baking-which they did! All in all this was a very easy recipe that gave good results but next time I might try adding chopped crystallised ginger for an extra kick!
The butterflies pictured here are shortbread half coated in luxury white chocolate and very indulgent they were! I stuck to using my normal shortbread recipe from Leith's baking bible which uses both plain flour and ground rice to give a lovely crumbly texture. I always like to finish my shortbread with a sprinkling of caster sugar as the biscuits themselves are not overly sweet and you can't go wrong with a bit of extra sugar!

Unfortunatly around the time of my birthday my laptop died, which meant that I couldn't upload my new baking photos which has lead me not to update my blog regularly :( The good news is I'm still baking and have lots of new things that I can't wait to share with you! My laptop still seems to be in some sort of computer coma, and I've got to wait another month until I receive my new one (my birthday present to myself!) so until then I'm using the home pc and my Dad's laptop! Anyway, I'll get started on what I've been baking over the past month or so-enjoy!

Although I was lucky to receive chocolate eggs this year (and a box of creme eggs yum!) I still couldn't resist doing some more easter baking as I thought we may aswel make the most of scoffing lots of naughty treats! I decided on rocky road, shortbread egg biscuits sandwiched together with chocolate spread and chewy mini egg cookies for an easter theme.

My sister and her boyfriend came in the evening so we had lots of snacks to keep us going! I took the rocky road recipe from the Sainsburys magazine calendar I got last year. I knew it was a good recipe as my grandma has made some before which were delightful so I had to try out the recipe myself. These bars are really chocolatey and perfect when you need a sweet fix- I added extra cherries, marshmallows and raisins so the slices were packed full of yummyness! The only problem is they are ever so moreish- I never seem to be able to stop at one!

As it's easter time I thought I'd bake some traditional easter treats, starting with these crisp easter biscuits with lemon zest and currants. Making these reminded me of childhood as I recall my mum making them at some point. I took my recipe from the Readers Digest recipe book, one that my mum has owned for quite a long time. I think this is a brilliant book as it contains all the British classics and a brief description of the history behind most of the recipes which I find really interesting (considering I don't really like history!). I also took my simnel cake recipe from here, as this is the one my mum has used in the past. This is a lovely moist, flavoursome cake which is packed with dried fruit and has a sweet layer of marzipan running throught the middle. The cake is baked at a very low temperature (gas mark 1) for 1.5-2 hours so you have to be patient! I think I over baked mine slightly so after taking it out the oven and letting it cool I brushed the top in some amaretto liqueur (hehe!) It smelt absolutely delightful as the amaretto enhanced the almondy flavour. I decorated the top in marzipan and 11 marzipan balls which represent the disiples of Jesus. I also made a simnel loaf cake along with this so I could cut it up into slices and give out as gifts (meaning I wouldn't have to give away any of our cake!).

This year I also really wanted to have a go at making hot cross buns- slightly sweet spiced bread with dried fruit traditionally eaten in Britain on Good Friday. I've never made bread before so I was unsure as to whether they would be successful. Everything was going well- the dough rose beautifully the first time but unfortunately when I shaped the dough into buns and left them to prove, the house just wasn't warm enough for them to rise so I ended up with rather heavy, cake-like buns! This was quite annoying considering I'd spent all day making them, but they actually taste quite nice and I almost like their denser texture! However, I have still bought a pack of hot cross buns from the shop, Birds, where I work which I know will be good! Nevermind, I'm just going to fob them off as hot cross 'rock' buns instead!