Bit of baking.

I've tried out a few new recipes recently but most of them have been from my Ella's Kitchen cookbook, as I try to introduce my son to real non pureed foods.  Unfortunately by the time I've cooked these meals I remember that it would be a good idea to blog about them but by this time the baby wants his tea and so do I!  Every so often recently I've had the chance to do a bit of baking when people have graciously watched my little boy for me.  The most recent thing I baked was some polenta and cranberry biscuits this evening.

I'd been thinking about making this recipe from my Homemade Baking cookbook for a while as I had the ingredients but not the time. Thankfully today my boyfriend finished work early so I got chance to relax and do some baking, just what I need!

The recipe was a bit fiddlier than what I would normally like but I actually found it quite therapeutic tonight to follow all most of the steps properly.

To make these you need:

80g cold unsalted butter cut into smallish pieces
100g fine polenta (as well as a bit extra for dusting)
115g plain flour
50g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
Finely grated zest of 1 orange 2 teaspoons of orange juice with bits
100g sweetened cranberries

So can you tell what I changed? To start I turned on the oven to pre-heat then measured out my dry ingredients into my measuring bowl before adding the butter and rubbing them together into what I seem to remember breadcrumbs should look like.

Then I beat my egg, got the orange juice out of the fridge and added that as well as the egg to the dry ingredients before measuring out & popping the cranberries in. Then I got a wooden spoon out and started stirring only to realise that the recipe said to mix together well with your hands... so I scooped the mix off the spoon and kneaded it all together.

Once I'd got the mixture into a ball shape I put some polenta on my work top, tore bits off the ball of mixture and rolled/formed them into little mini cigar shapes before putting them onto lined baking trays.

When that was done I popped the trays in the oven and turned my oven down to 190c/375f/gas mark 5 and put a 10 minute timer on.  I checked on them after ten minutes but they seemed anaemic so I waited a few more  minutes and got the first batch out.  As I did this I then switched the tray that was in the centre of the oven to the top so that they would get browner faster then took those out a couple of minutes later.

After what seemed like forever the biscuits had become cool enough to not feel like molten lava in my mouth and I tried them. (It's not right to just try one...) They were nice but the polenta gave them a crunch texture which takes a little getting used to, the boyfriend isn't as sure. More for me then! Hehehe!