Hello :) I'm back! I have finished exams! And have a recipe to share! From my new cookbook! Can you tell I'm very excited? The cookbook I am talking about is the fancy new Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. I bought it online straightaway as an after exam reward, knowing I'd be making many of her recipes over my (3 month!) break. Yes, I'm on holidays until the end of February. It's a bit ridiculous.
So the first recipe I made was Buttered Popcorn Cookies, the perfect way to celebrate the end of exams with friends...
Recipe: Buttered Popcorn Cookies (adapted from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook)
Ingredients-
2 tablespoons (30mL) grapeseed oil
1/4 cup (45grams) popcorn kernals
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 cup (115grams) butter, softened
1/2 cup (95grams) packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup (65grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups (115grams) white spelt flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Method-
1. Make popcorn. Pour oil over the bottom of a large saucepan that has a lid, and add the popcorn kernels, shimmying the pan around so the kernals land in one layer. Cover the pot, heat it over medium-high heat, and, once the kernels begin to pop, keep the saucepan moving until all the kernels have popped. This should take 5-7 minutes total. Toss the salt & melted butter over the popcorn, then transfer it to a bowl so that you can fish out any unpopped kernels. You should have about 4 to 4.5 cups. Let cool.
2. Mix dough. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius. In a large bowl, cream together the softened butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg, and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour and baking soda together. Stir the combined dry ingredients into the butter-sugar mixture. Fold in the cooled popcorn so that it is evenly distributed through the batter. There is lots of popcorn compared to cookie mixture, but it shall work! Don't worry if the popcorn breaks up a bit. The mixed-size pieces are part of the cookies charm.
3. Bake cookies. Scoop heaping-tablespoons-sized mounds 2 inches apart onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are light brown. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for a few minutes to firm up before transferring them to a rack to cool.
......
Rolling the cookie mixture into little mounds
I was super impressed with these cookies, I mean just look at them!
Crunchy, sweet cookies packed full of popcorn. Scrumptious!
We sat in my garden eating a few each...
I highly, highly recommend this cookbook. For all those vegetarians out there, there's even a section with vegetarian mains which have some great ideas. I also made her cauliflower pesto linguini and it's excellent and full of flavour. There's plenty of indulgent dessert recipes as well, including a chocolate hazelnut crepe cake. Oh yes! I was so impressed that every dish has beautifully styled photos to accompany, as well as sweet stories.
I hope everyone is having a lovely week. Keep checking back here, there's plenty more posts to come, including feedback on an incredible health conference I went to with my mum recently...
Hannah x
