Peanut butter cookies with honey buttercream

Its the weekend, its cold and rainy and I'm feeling a little poorly, so sitting on the sofa and watching telly, craving comfort food (again!). So I had a little ponder in my baking cupboard and was going to just make some peanut butter cookies on their own, then thought it would be much more tastier to make it with a cream filling... hmm, but what? I've read somewhere that peanut butter and honey is the new version of the peanut butter and jelly / syrup combo and they're not wrong. Its quite the match made in a dream baker's heaven. The ever so slight salty crunch of the peanut butter in the biscuit combined with the sweet buttercream makes this sound rather ambiguous, but honestly it works!

St Patrick's Day green velvet cupcakes and shamrock cookies

Yes, I'm aware that this post is a few days late; one day I'll make it on time. In all fairness I did make the goods before St Patrick's Day, does that count? And I've been a bit busy, packing up and moving from the countryside to north London and then unpacking and getting used to a new kitchen (and new oven, which does now work). All these things take time, and yes, good things come to those who wait!  Haha, pun intended and yes I did get to enjoy some guinness over the weekend.

So, green velvet cupcakes... my goodness. What a pilaver. I ran out of green colouring and it ended up looking like pond green sludge. But from the outside it still looks alright, well sort of. Had to hide the cupcakes with lots of yummy cream cheese frosting. But the main thing is, they tasted amazing.

Not to forget the shamrock cookies, the dough I used, meant that you have to chill them overnight. So that took some time, but you know what, sandwiched together with buttercream frosting and these little beauties are worth all the time spent.

Caribbean Coconut and Raisin cookies

These are probably just the quickest and easiest cookies to make - ideal for when you just want something pronto to nibble after dinner. The great thing about this recipe is that you can vary the ingredients, substitute cranberries instead of raisins, or ginger, chocolate, pecan nuts, pistachio nuts, the list goes on!

Crispy on the outside, slightly chewy on the inside..

Ingredients:-
175g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
125g butter
85g brown sugar
55g castor sugar
1 egg
100g raisins
75g dessicated coconut
1/2 tsp rum flavouring optional

Method:-

Preheat oven to 190 C or gas mark 5.
Grease and lightly flour baking trays.

Place all ingredients in large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre and add the egg. Whisk together until forms a soft dough.

Place teaspoonsful of mixture onto prepared baking trays and bake for 8-10 minutes.

I was too busy eating first and second batch, I left batch 3 in too long!

Leave to cool on tray for a few minutes and then move to cooling rack.

Makes about 30 cookies, but they're so more-ish it won't feel like it!  Best eaten whilst still warm and with a cup of tea.