Banana Fudge Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Icing

I made these for a BBQ last weekend and they went down a treat. I had some leftover chocolate buttercream icing in the freezer which I used so have somewhat guesstimated quantities - you may end up with more buttercream than you need! However, this accounts for eating whilst making it, which will definitely happen because it's the most amazing buttercream of all time, ever.

White Chocolate, Apricot and Oat Cookies

I had some dried apricots to use up and felt like doing something a bit different. I came across this recipe on Martha Stewart's website and it was fantastic. So good, in fact, that I made two batches in one week - the first were a bit large so I adjusted to make them smaller, but if you'd rather large cookies then just double the amount of mix per cookie. I haven't really adjusted the recipe much, except for translating it into weight (rather than volume) and British English rather than American English (i.e. oats vs. oatmeal). These are more like 'American style' chewy cookies than what I would view as 'English' biscuits. Because these are 'drop' cookies and spread during cooking, you will likely need to do them in a couple of batches.

 

Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Biscuits

My boyfriend had a Christmas party at work and was asked to bring in a dessert. I decided this would be a good time to make some shortbread and use some Christmas themed cookie cutters I received last year, and haven't had a chance to use yet. Shortbread is incredibly easy to make, and dipping them in chocolate adds an extra bit of yumminess, though if you are a purist or can't be bothered, you can always omit the chocolate as shortbread tastes great on its own.

Good quality unsalted butter really does make a difference here; I have to admit I always use Lurpak butter - a Danish butter sold here in the UK - when I make shortbread, as it has exactly the right taste for shortbread.. Amazing.

Can you guess what the shapes are below? According to Pete, his work-mates could not make any sense of them and someone even thought one was a.. penguin! This amused me a lot.