Rolo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

As we all know from past escapades, I love both rolos and cookies stuffed with things, so when I decided that the only thing that would cheer me up from uni blues was baking, I knew that this would be the thing to bake.

I know that it may be tough to not eat the rolos before putting them into the cookies, and also not to eat the cookies themselves before it's all cooked, but it's definitely worth it. This recipe would probably make about 50 cookies, but my housemates and I ran out of tray space, so we made 27 cookies, and a cookie-rolo tray bake that made about 28 cookie bites of varying size. They were equally delicious, so I've put both methods into the recipe and you can just do whichever one takes your fancy.

Rolo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Bare Necessities

310g/1 1/2cups Butter
225g/1cup Granulated Sugar
275g/1cup Brown Sugar
1tbsp Vanilla
2 Eggs
375g/3 3/4cups Plain Flour
2tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
300g/2 cups Chocolate Chips
50 Rolos (about 5 packets)

1. Pop the rolos into the freezer for 1-2 hours.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 350F/180C.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in the vanilla and the eggs.
5. Fold in the flour and bicarb of soda until fully combined.
6. Mix in the chocolate chips.
7. Line 3 baking trays with baking parchment.
8. Take the rolos out of the freezer and their packaging, and with half of the mixture, roll small balls of cookie dough, flatten it out into a disk, place a rolo in the middle and fold the dough back around it, rolling the dough to make it a ball again. (n.b. these spread out a bit in the oven, so be sure to leave about 3cm of space between each one)
9. Pop the cookies in the fridge to chill for 15-20 minutes.
10. With the other halve of the dough, spread it out on a slightly deeper tray or dish with your hands until roughly flat.
11. Place the remaining rolos on the top.
12. Pop the cookies and the traybake in the oven for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.
13. Once cooked, take them out of the oven and leave them on the tray to cool a little bit before moving them to a cooling rack or board.
14. Tuck in!

Iced Sugar Cookies

These are such a good staple for any celebration, rainy day or general get together! You could cut them into any shape you wanted, and ice them with more or less any type of icing you felt like! I just iced them with a simple water and icing sugar recipe, but you could just as easily replace the vanilla extract for lemon juice, or use royal icing if you wanted more of a distinctive glaze.

When I set about cooking these, I wasn't expecting to make so many, but they certainly went down well with my friends and family, and will last a couple weeks if stored in an air tight container - though I'd be surprised if they weren't all eaten by that point!

Post a picture in the comments section of your creations, I'd love to see what shapes you cut and what colour icings you use!


Iced Sugar Cookies
(makes about 50 cookies)

Bear Necessities:

For The Cookies
225g/1cup Butter
150g/2/3cup Sugar
1 Egg
1tsp Vanilla Extract
250g/2 1/2cups Plain Flour

For The Icing
250g/2cups Icing Sugar
1tsp Vanilla Extract
4tbsp Water
Food colouring

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
2. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy.
4. Beat in the egg and vanilla until fully combined.
5. Gently fold in the flour until fully combined and the dough forms a ball of dough. Don't worry if it looks as if it won't combine at first, it will eventually! Don't be tempted to add any extra flour, as the dough will absorb more when it's being rolled out.
6. Gather the dough into a ball and then wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge to cool for at least 20 minutes. You could easily leave it overnight if you wanted to, though you'd need to let it warm up and soften a bit when you took it out.
7. Once cooled, lightly dust the work surface with flour and roll out the dough until it's about half a centimetre thick. As there is quite a lot of dough, I did this in several goes, re-flouring the surface and my rolling pin as necessary.

8. Cut the cookies into any shape you want either with a cookie cutter or by hand with a knife if you're feeling more creative!
9. Place the cookies on the baking tray and pop in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden.
10. Once cooked, leave the cookies on a rack to cool.
11. Whilst they're cooling, gradually add the water and vanilla to the icing sugar until you reach the desired consistency.
12. At this point, if you want to have more than one colour icing, separate the icing equally into different bowls so that you have 1 portion per colour.
13. Slowly add the food colouring until you've reached the perfect colour.
14. Once the cookies are cool, set about decorating them! I just haphazardly covered them in icing, but if you have gone for a thicker consistency you could put it into a squeezy bottle to have a bit more control. You could also add any other decorative items you want, go wild!
15. Leave the icing to set. The waiting time will depend entirely on how thick the icing is, so try and be patient!
16. Place the cookies on a big plate and enjoy!

Chocolate Chip And Marshmallow Cookies

Oooh these are good! I made them at school over the weekend, and I am sorry to say that I cant even tell you how many we made, because we ate ridiculous amounts of cookie dough before they went in, and we ate them literally as they came out the oven. I will tell you this though, despite the fact that this recipe does make a lot of cookies, it will never be enough. Eat these with caution, as they are addictive-cooked or uncooked!

Chocolate Chip And Marshmallow Cookies
Bare Necessities

2 1/2cups Plain Flour
1cup Butter
1cup Caster Sugar
1cup Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
2tsp Vanilla Essence
1tsp Bicarbinate Of Soda/Baking Soda
1 1/2cups Mini Marshmallows
2packets Chocolate Chips

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the eggs and vanilla essence.
4. Gently mix in the flour, bicarb of soda, mini marshmallows and chocolate chips until everything is completely combined.
5. Grease a couple baking trays (we ran out at school, so we used cupcake tins).
6. Roll the dough into small balls (a bit smaller than a ping pong ball) and place them on the tray.
7. Pop the trays into the oven and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
8. Take the trays out of the oven, leave the cookies to cool (or not) and enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ok, so I really do have to appologise. I've been so lazy as of late when it comes to writing these posts. It's kind of reverse logic why I haven't been so good with the whole blogging thing. I'm usually right on time during term time because I've got lots of work to procrastinate. Either way, I have got a recipe for you all today, and these are a gem! (if you like peanut butter that is).


Peanut Butter Cookies
Bare Necessities

1cup Butter
1cup Peanut Butter
1cup Caster Sugar
3/4cups Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
3cups Flour
1 1/2tsp Baking Soda/Bicarbonate Of Soda


1. Preheat the oven to 375F/190C.
2. Cream together the butter, peanut butter, caster sugar and brown sugar together.
3. Beat in the eggs until the mixture is light and fluffy.
4. Gently mix in the flour and the bicarb of soda until it is fully combined.
5. Scoop up a small ball of cookie dough, a little smaller than the size of a golf ball, but don't worry if it's a bit bigger or smaller.
6. Get a small bowl of sugar (granulated or caster) and roll each ball of dough in sugar (don't cover the whole thing, just a little bit).
7. Place each ball of dough onto a baking tray, each spaced out, and pop them in the oven for about 8 minutes or until they are golden brown.
8. Once they are cooked, place them on a cooling rack to cool and then enjoy!

The Best Cookies Ever

The title doesn't lie. These are literally the best cookies ever. I never tire of making these because they are just so simple, despite there being a lot of ingredients to it. I also never tire or eating these, and I could easily go through an entire batch of these before they've even gone in the oven! I won't, however, take any credit for this recipe, I got the recipe from a friend of mine, and I think it was her grandmother or something who wrote the recipe, and I think that this is one of the few recipes that I haven't changed over time.
Either way, have fun!

The Best Cookies Ever
(makes about 19 cookies)
Bare Necessities

4oz Butter
2oz Brown Sugar
2oz Caster Sugar
1 Egg
1/2tsp Vanilla Essence
3oz Plain Flour
1/2tsp Baking Soda/Bicarbinate Of Soda
1/2tsp Salt
4 1/2oz Chocolate Chips/Finely Chopped Plain Chocolate
3oz Rolled Oats
1 1/2oz Desiccated Coconut
2oz Walnut Pieces


1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4.
2. Grease and line two baking trays.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy.
4. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence.
5. Mix in the flour, bicarb of soda and salt until fully combined.
6. Mix in the chocolate, coconut and walnut pieces until they are fully mixed in.
7. Roll the mixture into small, golf ball sized balls and put them on the tray.
8. Pop the cookies in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Enjoy!

Deep Dish Cookies

Ok so I have few apologies about this one. Firstly, sorry that there aren't many photos, I kind of forgot to take them... and sorry that they are really crummy quality, I'm not sure why that is, but I'm working on it. Actually, I think that's it! So this recipe is kinda odd, but omg is it good. And for my last ramekin, I didn't even cook it, I just ate the dough raw! I did share it with friends though, so its not too bad...

Deep Dish Cookies

Bare Necessities

225g Butter (salted or unsalted)

114g Granulated Sugar

100g Brown Sugar

1 Egg

200g Plain Flour

1/2tsp Baking Powder

1/8tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda

1-2packs Chocolate Chips

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/356F.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Beat in the egg.

4. Mix in the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda and chocolate chips.

5. Fill the ramekins about 3/4 full and pop in the fridge to chill for a bit.

6. Put in the oven for about 20mins or until they have mostly cooked through (you want them to be a bit gooey though, so make your best judgement.

7. Serve up as is or with a scoop of ice-cream!

Oreos!

Admit it. Who doesn't love oreos? They're amazing! The person who cam up with the idea of getting two delicious chocolate biscuits and sticking them together with icing to make one biscuit is a genius. A god. It's probably one of the best inventions since...a while. Either way, they're good, so when I saw this recipe, I knew I had to make oreos out of them. I didn't use the icing recipe that she gave though, I used a slightly different one, but I think that it worked really well, so that's the one I'm going to give you all. Enjoy!


Oreos
Bare Necessities

For The Cookies
1 1/2cups/150g Flour
2/3cups/66g Cocoa Powder
1 1/4cups/155g Icing Sugar
1 Egg
1tsp Vanilla Essence
3/4cups/170g Butter


For The Filling
2cups Icing Sugar
1/2cup Butter
2tsp Vanilla Essence
1tbsp Milk


1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence until it's fully combined.
3. Gently fold in the flour, cocoa powder and icing sugar until it is all mixed in.
4. Gather your dough together in a ball, wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge for about 1 hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
6. On a lightly dusted surface, roll out the dough to about 1 or 2 cm thick and cut out smallish circles with a cutter and place it on a greased baking tray.
7. Pop in the oven for about 10 minutes.
8. When they're cooked, put them on a cooling rack to cool.
9. Blend the remaining icing sugar, butter, vanilla essence and milk together until light and very fluffy.
10. Put the icing in the fridge for a bit to chill it.
11. Once both the icing and cookies are cool, take one cookie, spread some icing on it, place another cookie on top, push them together slightly and put it on a plate.
12. Repeat this until you have used up all your cookies and put your oreos in the fridge to chill.
13. Enjoy!

Cookie Inception

These past few weeks have been hectic. What with the loss of two years worth of geography work and my homework diary, along with the overload of work, it's safe to say that these haven't been the most fun or relaxing weeks. However, just when I was beginning to lose all hope and the holidays seemed ever far away, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel in the form of my friends and a crazy amount of cookie.

My friends, Sophie, Phillipa, Nicola and Lucille are some of the craziest bunch of people I know, and I can always count on them to lift my spirits. So you can imagine, when I suggested to them that we cook some food on the weekend, they leapt at the idea with suggestions of what to cook and kind offerings to chip in on the ingredients.

We had to choose a recipe that required limited utensils, as the kitchen in our boarding house, it's fair to say, isn't the most equipped kitchen in the world (it doesn't even have weighing scales!). Eventually, we found the perfect recipe that would lift our spirits on a Saturday afternoon when we were all stuck in at school-Cookie Inception. This recipe, I can safely say, is fool-proof, and even though we did many stupid things, (like melting the butter by accident when we just wanted to soften it, and putting the oven at the wrong temperature) we still managed to make some delicious cookies.

I would recommend this recipe to ANYONE (unless they didn't like cookies), as it is SO simple and quick to make and they taste sooo good!

Cookie inception

Bare Necessities

1cup Salted Butter

3/4cup Brown Sugar

1cup Granulated Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1tbsp Vanilla Extract

3 1/2cups Self Raising Flour

2cups Chocolate Chips

2packets Oreos (in the recipe, you may only use 1 packet, or maybe just over, but you will probably eat some throughout)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/392F

2. Cream the butter and sugar together. When we did it, the butter was solid, so we put the pan on the radiator, and then the butter melted completely, which wasn't supposed to happen, but it worked out fine anyway.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs and vanilla together.

4. Slowly add this to the butter and sugar whilst stirring constantly.

5. Mix the flour and chocolate chips together and then combine with the rest of the mixture.

7. Get a ball of the cookie dough and flatten it in your hands. Then place an Oreo into the centre and then fold the dough around it.

8. Grease two trays.

9. Place the cookie inception on the tray and continue this until all the dough is gone.

10. Put them in the oven and leave for 10 mins, or until golden on top.