Mum's cheesecake

Mum's cheesecake

2 Nov 2026

My mum was famous for her cheesecake, a classic German kasekuchen, which she served with coffee on her elegant china. The recipe came from Mrs. Ortweiler, the German born mother-in-law of her best friend Millie. Mum eschewed a rolling pin and would press the pastry into the tin and would top the cake with a latttice that she'd hand rolled. Over time I changed the pastry recipe to one that could be rolled out. 

Looking back through the blog archives I last made this cheesecake for my Dad's birthday way back in 2012. At the time I noted how difficult it was finding the farm cheese needed to make the cake. I made this cheesecake with cream cheese many years ago and it was too runny and rose volcanically and ricotta just doesn't have the distinctive taste of farm cheese. Fast forward to 2026 and its now impossible to find farm cheese. I figured the best cheese to use would be Quark but I couldn't find any at the supermarket and the price at the fruit shop was exorbitant. I looked online, found a simple recipe for quark and made a batch to use in this recipe. I think a filling made with a mix of quark and well drained ricotta would also work well.

If you look closely at the recipe you'll note there isn't a set quantity of sugar in the filling. Farm cheese was often very bitter so you'd start with a 1/4 cup of sugar and keep adding the sugar to taste. I used 5 eggs in my filling and it was quite runny so next time I'd start with 4 and only add the extra egg if the mixture was too thick. I made the cheesecake in an 8 inch springform pan and had too much filling so I suggest you bake it in a 9 inch tin. With the excess filling I made a little cheesecake which I gave to my neighbours.

Here's the recipe for you which will make a 9-inch cheesecake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. 

Mum's cheesecake

Pastry
¼ cup/40g icing sugar
¼ cup/35g almond meal 
1⅓ cups/200g plain flour
pinch sea salt flakes 
110g cold unsalted butter, diced 
1 egg, lightly beaten 
Cold water 

Pastry
To make the pastry, combine all the dry ingredients in a food processor, and whiz for a few seconds until well combined and free of lumps. Add the cold butter and whiz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and suffcient cold water and whiz until a soft dough just starts to form around the blade. Remove the dough from the food processor and gather the pastry into a ball; flatten slightly before wrapping in plastic and placing in the fridge for 30 minutes.

This next step is optional. Roll out ⅓ of the pastry and line the base of a 9-inch springform tin. Cover the base with a square of greaseproof paper and clip the side of the tin around the base. Bake for 10 minutes before removing the paper.  Bake for another 5 minutes or until the pastry is lightly golden. Allow the base to cool before lining the sides of the tin with the remaining pastry. Otherwise do what my Mum used to do and with your hands just press the pastry into the tin and up the sides. If you like you can use the leftovers to make a lattice top 

Filling

650g bulk dry cottage cheese or quark

4-5 eggs separated 
¼ cup - 3/4 cup caster sugar (add to taste)
1 tbs melted butter
1 tbl plain flour
1 tsp vanilla extract

200 ml cream

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional and place a baking tray on the middle rack. In the bowl of a food processor, blend the cheese until smooth. Add a 1/4 cup sugar, melted butter, egg yolks, flour, vanilla extract and cream. Taste for sweetness and adjust as necessary. Pour the cheese mixture into a large bowl.

In a clean dry bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture then pour the cheese mixture into the pastry lined 9 inch tin. If desired, cover the cake with a pastry lattice and brush the lattice with melted butter or cream. Place the cheesecake on the preheated oven tray and bake for 1 hour. 

The cheesecake will still be a little jiggly in the centre and will have puffed and risen like a souffle but it will settle as it cools. Leave to cool completely before storing in the fridge in an airtight container for a few days. The cheesecake also freezes very well. The cheesecake is best eaten at room temperature so bring it from the fridge an hour or so before eating.

It might have been 14 years since I last had a slice of Mum's cheesecake but this quark version was pretty close to her's and judging by the size of the slice my brother cut, it was also family approved.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

Read more

pistachio, rhubarb and ginger layer cake

pistachio, rhubarb and ginger layer cake

26 Oct 2026

During this year's birthday season I decided to up my cake game. For my neighbour's birthday cake I decided to make the Ode to John Olsen Cake from the cake master, Nadine Ingram. I'm normally both a competent and confident baker. Well not after tackling this cake I'm not. The custard split and the sponges failed to rise and with a looming birthday and no cake, I whipped up a new batch of crème pâtissière and made a pistachio butter cake with the last few eggs from the dozen I'd bought. 

Although the cake was delicious, I don't like to be defeated so I found another nut based sponge recipe from Natalie Paull and tried again. 

It's best to approach this recipe in stages. The oven baked rhubarb and the ginger custard can be made ahead of time and the sponges baked the day before assembling the cake. This is one of those rare cakes that must be eaten the day its assembled.

Here's the hodge podge recipe for you, garnered from a variety of sources, which makes a 16 cm cake. I've provided links to both cake recipes but unfortunately I don't have a link to the Natalie Paull cold start custard recipe from which my ginger custard was based. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. 

Pistachio rhubarb and ginger layer cake - serves 6-8
Baked rhubarb
1 bunch rhubarb (minimum six to nine stalks)
150g caster sugar
1 small piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1 orange, juiced and zested

Ginger custard

165g full cream milk 

135g cream 

1 large piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp vanilla paste

65g caster sugar 

25g cornflour

pinch fine sea salt

3 egg yolks

Pistachio Cake

100g pistachios

100g extra-virgin olive oil

80g egg yolk (from approx 4 eggs) + 160g egg white (from approx. 5 eggs)

40g orange juice

½ tsp vanilla paste

85g cake flour

185g caster sugar

1 and 1/4 tsp baking powder

pinch fine sea salt

¼ tsp cream of tartar

To assemble
125g pure cream
125g double cream
35g pistachios, shelled and roughly chopped

Baked rhubarb
Preheat the oven to 160°C, fan forced/180°C, conventional. Wash the rhubarb to remove any soil and trim off the ends and leaves using a sharp cook's knife. Slice the stalks lengthways down the centre, so that they are no thicker than 1 cm. If the stalks are really thick you may need to slice them into three pieces lengthways to achieve the correct thickness.

Cut each length into 7 cm batons then toss with the sugar, ginger, and orange juice and zest. Arrange the rhubarb in a deep baking dish, all in a row and in the same direction like matchsticks, and place in the oven for 20 minutes. Check the fruit and you will see the sugar has melted and the rhubarb is half immersed in the liquid. Give the dish a shake so the fruit rolls over and the other side can be cooked, then return to the oven for a further 15 - 20 minutes or until soft and tender. You need the fruit to be soft enough so that when it goes into the layers of the cake you can cut through it with a knife. Remove the rhubarb from the oven and cool completely in the baking dish. This will make more rhubarb than you need but it's delicious served over muesli.

Ginger custard
Combine the milk, cream, ginger, cardamom and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring everything almost to the boil, then turn off the heat and allow the flavours to infuse for at least 30 minutes or overnight.

In a medium bowl, weigh the sugar, cornflour and salt. Add the egg yolks last and hand whisk to make a creamy paste. Strain the milk through a sieve before pouring in to the egg mixture whisking well. Scrape the mix into a medium saucepan.

Place the saucepan on a medium-high heat and hand whisk at a slow pace to allow the heat to suffuse through the mix. Work the small balloon whisk into the corners of the saucepan (where the custard thickens first). After around 3 minutes of whisking, the custard will start to look like a creamy liquid. Speed up the whisking now the custard will thicken fast. It will look lumpy but just whisk quickly and it will all come together into an evenly thick paste in another 1 minute.

Don't give up at the lumpy stage. It is NOT failure - just the custard cooking at different rates. Keep whisking to achieve silky, evenly thick success. As soon as it looks smooth and thick, slow down the whisking and wait for a few burp-like bubbles to pop over the surface. It's a super thick custard and your whisk should leave obvious furrows as it moves through the mix.

Take the pan off the heat and scrape the custard into a bowl and press a piece of plastic wrap on the surface of the custard to prevent a rubbery skin forming. Chill for at least 1 hour.

Pistachio cake

Lightly spray the base and sides of three 16cm 5cm deep cake tins with cooking oil. Place a circle of paper in the base of each tin, spray again and lightly dust the sides with flour, tapping out any excess.

Whiz the 100g pistachios in the food processor to a thick and dry peanut butter–like consistency, then scrape into a wide mixing bowl with the oil, egg yolks, orange juice and vanilla paste. Set aside.

Weigh the flour, 135g of the sugar, baking powder and salt into a small bowl and set aside with a sieve on top. Bump the oven temperature up to 160°C, fan forced/180°C, conventional.

Put the egg white, remaining 50g of sugar and cream of tartar in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, whip on speed 8 (under high) for 2–3 minutes until the meringue is stiff and white.

While the meringue whips, sift the dry ingredients over the pistachio and oil base and mix with a stiff spatula to make a thick paste, then gently and thoroughly fold in one-third of the meringue until almost fully incorporated. Gently fold in the remaining meringue with a hand whisk and do a final fold with a plastic spatula until no white streaks remain. Divide the batter between the three tins – 245g per tin – and smooth the tops. If you only have 2 tins, pour a 1/3 of the batter into one tin and 2/3 of the batter into the second tin.

Transfer to the oven and bake on the centre rack for 20–25 minutes or until the cakes have risen, have a slight dome and are biscuity brown. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean (internal temperature is 95°C/203°F). If making 2 cakes, the larger cake should take about 40 minutes to bake.

Cool the cakes in their tins on a wire rack for a minute. Cut around the sides to loosen the cake from the tins. Place a second oiled wire rack over each cake and carefully flip them upside down. Remove the tins and paper and leave the cakes top-side down on the racks to cool completely. If you can rest the racks over the sink to get better airflow, do!

To assemble
If you've used 2 cake tins, cut the larger cake horizontally into 2 even layers so that you have 3 cake layers.

Remove the ginger custard from the fridge and mix thoroughly to remove any lumps.  Place the custard in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment along with the creams. Whip together until thick and fluffy. Don't walk away from the mixer at this stage as double cream can whip very quickly and curdle.

Place one of the sponges onto a cake platter and spoon one-quarter of the ginger cream on top, spreading it evenly to the edge of the cake using an offset palette knife. Cover the custard with half the baked rhubarb, being mindful not to add too much of the syrup at this stage, then top with the second sponge and repeat the layering of ginger cream and rhubarb. Place the third sponge on top and take a moment to jig all the layers together so the cake looks straight. 

Ripple a little of the rhubarb poaching syrup through the rest of the ginger cream then spoon it all over the top of the cake. Push the cream gently over the edges of the cake using a large palette knife and rotate the cake as you go to cover the sides. Try to move the cream only in one direction, so you don't sweep crumbs back into the icing. Smooth over the top, drizzle with a little more rhubarb syrup, if you like, and sprinkle with the chopped pistachios. 

This cake must be served the day of making as the custard dries out when stored in the fridge overnight.

This cake is a dream - it's a lovely combination of soft sponge cake, tart rhubarb and creamy custard.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

Read more

brown sugar cake with brown sugar cream and oven roasted strawberries

brown sugar cake with brown sugar cream and oven roasted strawberries

19 Oct 2026

To celebrate the publication of Simple Too by Ottolenghi and Verena Lochmuller, a number of recipes appeared online including a recipe for a brown sugar cake topped with brown sugar cream and sumac roasted strawberries.

It's peak strawberry season here so this cake was on the top of my 'to bake' list. I already have a killer oven roasted strawberry recipe courtesy of Nadine Ingram so I made a batch with which to top the cake. I made some creme fraiche and I was good to go.

Ottolenghi cake recipes are usually very reliable but I had problems with this one.  The batter made with melted butter was very loose and when baked, it rose around the edges but sank in the centre leading to a dense texture. I find this happens quite often with wet batters leavened with baking soda so I remade the cake. This time I used the creaming method and I used self raising flour instead of plain flour with leavenings. I also increased the quantity of flour just a little. I made the second cake the old fashioned way using a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon and it came out perfectly.

Here's the recipe for you, adapted from an Ottolenghi recipe, which makes a 16-cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. The linked recipe is the original recipe whilst the recipe below is the adapted version.

Brown sugar cake with brown sugar cream and oven roasted strawberries 

Strawberry compote

¾ tbs dried mint

Scant ½ tsp pink peppercorns, crushed

4 cardamom pods, cracked

55g caster sugar

1 lemon, zested

3 dried hibiscus petals

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

250g washed and hulled ripe strawberries

Cake

100g unsalted butter, room temperature 

150g brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs 

140g SR flour

½ tsp fine sea salt

50g creme fraiche or plain yoghurt

Brown sugar cream

125ml cream

125g creme fraiche (or use 85g pure cream and 40g yoghurt instead of 125g crème fraiche)

1 tsp vanilla bean paste 

25g brown sugar

To serve (optional)

Fresh mint sprigs and icing sugar, to serve  

Strawberry compote

Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Grind the mint, peppercorns and cardamom in a spice grinder, but you could also use a pestle and mortar.  Add this to the sugar along with the lemon zest, hibiscus petals and the seeds from the vanilla bean. Toss the strawberries in a large bowl with the sugar mixture and spread evenly over the base of a large baking tray. Add the scraped vanilla bean and roast in the oven for 20 minutes, giving the tray a little shake halfway through to distribute the syrup. Remove the strawberries from the oven and cover and allow to cool, reserving the juices. If you like, you can reduce the juices by cooking over a low heat in a small saucepan for about 5 minutes, until they’re syrupy.

Cake

Preheat the oven to 190°C, conventional. Grease and line the bottom and sides of a 16-cm round cake tin with baking paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer cream the butter, brown sugar and the vanilla extract until light and creamy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time and beat to incorporate. The mixture might look a little curdled at this stage. Sift the flour and salt together and add to the butter mix in thirds, alternating with the crème fraiche and mix until just combined.

Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin smoothing the top. Bake on the centre rack of the preheated 190°C, conventional oven for 30–35 minutes, or until springy to the touch. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a wire rack before unmoulding.

Brown sugar cream 

Place all the ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk to soft peaks.

Assembly

Remove the cake from the tin and put on a serving plate. Just before serving dollop the cream on top, and spoon over the strawberries and drizzle with the reserved juice. Decorate with mint sprigs and then dust with icing sugar, if using.

The baked sponge will keep for 2 days, tightly wrapped. The cake is delicious served plain and it would work well sandwiched with jam and cream. The cream is best prepared on the day, and once the cake has been decorated, it needs to be served immediately.

I shared the cake with my neighbours, who enjoyed it as did I. The brown sugar cake was just lovely unadorned, served with a cup of tea.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

Read more

lemon drizzle and blueberry friands

lemon drizzle and blueberry friands

12 Oct 2026

To celebrate the publication of Natalie Paull's new book, Sweet Heart, I booked into a cooking class run by Natalie which took place at the Sydney Seafood School. I'd not been to a cooking class since I was 9 so I had no idea what to expect. 

We were given recipe sheets for the 2 confections we were to make in the class, raspberry jelly lamingtons and lemon drizzle financiers or friands. I was paired with Sue and Ash, a mother/daughter duo and between us we tackled both recipes. 

The raspberry jelly lamingtons were a triumph but the lemon financiers stuck to the tin. My friands always stick unless I grease and flour the tin first then place a small piece of baking paper in the base. I know just greasing the tin isn't enough so why I didn't prepare the tins my usual way in the class, I'll never know. Natalie was mortified and although not picture perfect, the friands were still delicious.

Looking to redeem my reputation, I remade the financiers at home. This time I made sure to grease, flour and line the base of the tins with baking paper and the friands came out perfectly. Hunting through the fridge I found some candied lemon slices which I used to decorate the friands but that's definitely an optional extra. I also found an unopened packet of frozen blueberries so I made some blueberry friands and some lemon drizzle friands from the batter. 

Here's the recipe for you in Natalie's own words, which was adapted from here. The recipe makes 6 friands but the recipe can easily be sized up or down. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. 

Lemon drizzle friands - makes 6 small cakes
Ingredients 
90g unsalted butter 
1 large lemon
85g pure icing sugar
25g plain flour (I used SR flour)

pinch fine sea salt
60g blanched almond meal
75g egg whites, from 2–3 eggs

Blueberry version

18 blueberries, fresh or frozen

  
Lemon Syrup 
20g pure icing sugar

35g fresh lemon juice

Lemon Glaze
60g icing sugar
10g fresh lemon juice

 
To decorate
1 lemon

icing sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C, conventional/180°C, fan forced. Grab six small moulds – use cupcake tins, friands tins or little dariole moulds. 

Cook the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until medium brown speckles form on the base. Pour into a small bowl to quickly stop cooking, scraping in all the brown goodness too. Brush the interior of the moulds with a light coating of the browned butter (the rest is for the batter). Finely zest one lemon into the remaining butter, then express-chill in the fridge – it should still be liquid (it makes the batter thicker and easier to use when fresh).

 
Sift the icing sugar, flour and salt into a small bowl and place the almond meal on top. In a wide bowl, hand-whisk the egg whites until just foamy. Stir the dries into the whites and hand-whisk gently until just combined then hand-whisk in the brown butter. Into each mould, spoon enough batter to 90 per cent fill each cavity, or approx 45g. If using chilled batter, it is more like a paste, so pipe the batter into the moulds. If making the blueberry friands, place three blueberries on top of each friand.

Place the tray on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake the friands for 15-18 minutes until they are pale brown around the top edges and have pert little bumps. If any batter has puffed over the edge of the tin during baking, push the bulges back in line, while hot, using a small knife.

 
Lemon syrup
Sift the sugar into a bowl, then hand-whisk the lemon juice in to make a thin syrup. Take the friands out of the oven and invert onto a rack lined with baking paper, teasing them out of the tins with a butter knife if they need help. Cool the friands for 1 minute. Give each friand a quick roll in the syrup, then place onto the rack. Leave to cool for 5 minutes. 

Lemon glaze
Place the icing sugar in a bowl, then vigorously hand-whisk 30g of the leftover syrup in to make a very thick glaze that drools thickly from the whisk – use extra juice if you need. Spoon the glaze onto one of the friands – give it a suggestive push in the direction you would like it to go, then let gravity do the rest so it settles into a smooth finish. Adjust the consistency after the first one – add a few drops more juice at a time or a sprinkling of icing sugar. 

If the glaze is good, continue to glaze two or three at a time, zesting the other lemon directly over the friands to rain on the glaze. If you leave the glaze too long, it dries firm and loses sticking power. Once glazed, c’est fini!

If making blueberry friands, you can omit the glaze and just dust the tops with icing sugar. I did both and I have to say the blueberry friands topped with the glaze were just delicious.

These friands taste delicious and are a cinch to make. They'll also keep for a few days stored in an airtight container. 

Many thanks for such a lovely recipe Natalie. See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

Read more

nichola gensler marmalade ricotta cake

nichola gensler marmalade ricotta cake

5 Oct 2026

I've had this recipe bookmarked for quite some time but just never got round to making it. With a pot of blood orange marmalade in the cupboard, a few blood oranges in the fridge and a kilo of fresh ricotta in the fridge, the time had come to make this marmalade ricotta cake, adapted from a Nichola Gensler recipe. I found the recipe on Nicola Lamb's substack but it's now been placed under a firewall, so I can't give you a link to the recipe.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 16-cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Note

The cake isn't gluten-free but you could certainly swap the plain flour for gluten free flour.

Nichola Gensler marmalade ricotta cake - makes 1 x 16-cm cake
Cake
185 ricotta 
100g unsalted butter at room temperature
100g caster sugar
Zest 1 lemon (1 tbs)
Zest 1 orange (1 tbs)
1 egg and 1 yolk
110g natural almonds 
30g plain flour
Generous ¼ tsp baking powder
pinch fine sea salt 
¼ tsp ground ginger 
125g marmalade 

Glaze ingredients
The strained marmalade liquid
20mls lemon juice
45mls orange juice
20g caster sugar

Cake
Grease and line the base and sides of a 16-cm cake tin with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 170°C, fan assist or 180°C, conventional.

Tip the marmalade into a saucepan and gently heat until runny. Sieve the marmalade into a second saucepan, saving the liquid for the glaze later, pressing through the liquid. Coarsely chop the shred and set it to one side.

Drain the ricotta, ensuring there is no liquid, then mash up the ricotta a bit so there won't be any lumps in the cake. Cream the butter, ricotta, sugar and citrus zests together until pale and fluffy. Add the egg, followed by the yolk and allow each one to work in before adding the next.

Coarsely chop the almonds either by pulsing in a food processor or by hand - you want a mixture of meal with some larger pieces. Place the chopped almonds into a small bowl with the flour, baking powder, salt and ground ginger and mix to combine. Fold in the chopped marmalade shred to the mix. Gently fold it all together and put it into the lined cake tin.

Bake for around 35-40 minutes, turning halfway through. I would usually check the centre of the cake with a thermometer. If it reads 75°C, it’s good to come out. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can check it for wobble. It should be mostly firm with a little wobble in the centre.

Once the cake has cooled down slightly, you can glaze the top. Keep the cake in the tin to glaze it, as the glaze will set nicely on top, forming a nice layer of smooth zingy marmalade. Pierce the cake 10 or 12 times with a skewer to allow the glaze to absorb. 

Glaze
Gently heat together the glaze ingredients in the saucepan. Allow the sugar to melt before bringing it to a boil, and then pour it over the top of the cake. This should set as it cools so you can put it on quite thickly to make a nice zingy marmalade top. Allow to cool fully before refrigerating. Leave in the fridge for at least 4 hours before serving, but let it come to room temp before eating.

This is a curious cake as its more cheesecake in texture than cake like. It's packed full of citrus and has some texture from the almonds and altogether, it's quite delightful, and it becomes more squidgy and citrusy as it matures.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

Read more

salted caramel chocolate chunk cookies

salted caramel chocolate chunk cookies

28 Sept 2026

As you're aware, I'm not much of a chocolate fan but I do love caramel. When I saw a recipe for nutty chocolate fudge cookies, I thought they'd be even more delicious if I used salted caramel instead of the fudge.

The recipe is quick and easy to put together but the batter is very soft. It needs a good rest in the fridge before it can be scooped out, so remember to factor that in when making these cookies. Once scooped you can bake the cookies straight away but I prefer to refrigerate the balls of cookie dough overnight then bake them the following day.

Here's the recipe for you, adapted from this Gill Meller recipe, which makes 12 cookies. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. You'll need to make the caramel before making the cookies as it needs time to set. You'll only use a small quantity of the caramel which means you can eat the rest!

Salted caramel chocolate chunk cookies - makes 12 cookies

Salted caramel
1 x 375 g tin condensed milk 
45g golden syrup
30g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp sea salt flakes

Cookie ingredients

100g unsalted butter

100g light soft brown sugar

50g caster sugar

1 egg

dash of vanilla extract or ½ tsp vanilla bean paste

150g plain flour + ½ tsp baking powder

pinch salt

50g walnuts, coarsely chopped

75g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken up

75g of your favourite fudge or salted caramel (recipe below)

1 or 2 good pinches of smoked salt flakes

Salted caramel
Line the base and sides of an 8 x 4 inch loaf pan with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional.

Place the condensed milk in a saucepan and stir over a low heat for 7 minutes or until slightly thickened and lightly coloured. You can also microwave the condensed milk in a large bowl on high for 7 minutes, stirring every minute. Add the remaining ingredients to the condensed milk and stir thoroughly until well combined. 

Pour the caramel into the tin and using a knife spread it evenly over the base then sprinkle with sea salt flakes.  Return the slice to the oven and bake for another 20-30 minutes or until the caramel is golden brown and set. Loosen the caramel from the tin and cool completely before refrigerating. When cold, cut into small cubes.

Cookies

Heat the oven to 200°C, conventional and line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat. Put both types of sugar into a mixing bowl, pour on the butter and beat well. Add the egg and the vanilla extract or paste and beat again until well combined. Sift the flour and the baking powder together into a bowl, then fold it in. Allow the mixture to cool for 15–20 minutes before stirring in most of the walnuts; most of the chocolate and half the fudge pieces/salted caramel. 

Refrigerate the mixture for at least an hour before scooping tablespoons of the mixture into approx 47g balls. You can refrigerate the cookies at this stage or freeze them for later. 

When ready to bake, place 6 cookies onto each of the prepared trays, then distribute the remaining walnut pieces, the chocolate and fudge/salted caramel equally over the surfaces of the cookies. Sprinkle the cookies with the smoked salt and bake for 8-10 minutes. If chilled overnight, bake for 12-14 minutes or until the cookies are lovely and golden. If baked from frozen you'll need to add a few more minutes to the bake time.

You can ‘scoot’ the cookies with a larger cookie cutter when they come out of the oven to neaten the cookies. Cool the cookies to 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Once cool, store  the cookies in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

These cookies are so delicious when still warm from the oven and keep well. If you'd like to get that just baked feeling, zap the cookie in the microwave for 15-20 seconds to melt the chocolate chunks and soften the caramel before eating. Delish!

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

Read more