Peanut butter biscuits

I don't have much of a sweet tooth, give me cheese and crackers (or maybe oatcakes) any day over a piece of cake. But I had a hankering for cookies. Unfortunately our pantry is rather lacking when it comes to the sweet side of baking, but I did happen to have a bit of peanut butter left in the pantry so all was not lost.


I made a pretty basic cookie dough 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat and 3 parts flour.

50 grams white sugar
50 grams muscovado sugar
150 grams butter
50 grams peanut butter (more if you want a stronger peanut flavour)
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C, don't use fan bake.


Cream the butter, sugars and peanut butter until pale and all the sugar is dissolved.


Mix in the egg and vanilla.


Sieve in the flour and baking powder (I used salted butter, if you're using unsalted add 1/8 teaspoon of salt here).


Roll the dough in to balls (I got 22 in total) and flatten with the palm of your hand, or roll out and use a cookie cutter.


Sprinkle with a mix of sugar and cocoa. Bake for about 12 minutes.

Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack.

Now you can let them cool on the bench if you like a slightly chewy cookie, but I like mine crisp, so I put the cooling rack back in the oven (turned off) with the door ajar to dry out.

Carrot Burrata

I've had a few things from Modernist Pantry sitting the back of the pantry for a while and haven't had much of a chance to experiment with them, until now. I came across a post on Ideas In Food, they had a fun take on Burrata, instead of mozzarella with a soft curd and cream centre, they made it from banana. I had to try it, well the method at least.


I was having another go at caramelised carrot soup, and the idea floated from the recesses of my mind to try the Burrata method with it. Now I'm no expert when it comes to using things such as agar agar and locust bean gum, so the measurements on here are derived from the percentages on Ideas in Food (which I figured out by weight at salt 0.3%, locust bean gum 0.04% and agar 0.35%).

Make the soup (recipe) but use the weights below, stop after you have puréed it and passed it through a sieve and don't add the peanut butter.

Soup ingredients:
500 grams Carrot
25 grams Olive Oil
200 grams Stock

Buratta ingredients:
2.4 grams Salt
0.27 grams Locust Bean Gum
2.7 grams Agar Agar


Weigh out the dry ingredients. Accurate digital scales are essential.


Pour the soup into a blender, turn it on, when a vortex has formed, sprinkle in the powders and let it run for 15 seconds so they disperse.


Pour out the soup in to a dish and let it cool on the bench. Once it has formed a solid gel, place one third of it in the fridge.


Blend one third of it to make a fluid gel, and chop last third to resemble curds. Combine in a bowl and season with some caraway seeds, mix together.

Take a square of plastic wrap and place 2 tablespoons of the mix in the centre, bring up the corners and twist (to create a ball) and secure with a length of kitchen string. Place the balls on a tray and put in the freezer for 3-4 hours.


Unwrap the frozen balls and place back in the freezer while the gel from the fridge melts over a low heat. Use a metal skewer or toothpick as I did to dip each of the balls in the melted gel (do two coats). Place the dipped balls on a tray in the fridge to defrost.


Dressed with a little extra olive oil, parsley, caraway and chilli.

Caramelised Carrot & Peanut soup

I've had this recipe on my mind ever since I heard about it, and got my hands on a pressure cooker (which is essential). The pressure cooker along with some baking soda (which increases the pH and in turn speeds up the Maillard reaction) enable the carrots to caramelise.

You can find the original recipe by Nathan Myhrvold at www.foodandwine.com, and in his book Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking (which would make an excellent Christmas pressie). I have altered it slightly, by using vegetable stock instead of carrot juice, olive oil in place of butter and a touch of peanut. So the original recipe is all about the carrot, my tweaks use it as a base flavour.


Peel and chop 500 grams of carrots place in a pressure cooker along with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda. Cook on high pressure for 15 minutes. The strength of the caramel aroma is quite surprising.

Once the time is up release the pressure (if electric use the pressure release valve or traditional run it under cold water to lower the pressure). Pour in 500 ml of vegetable stock (make sure it's not too strong flavoured, as you don't want to muddy the flavour of carrot. Dilute it if you have to), add 1/2 teaspoon of salt (coarse/kosher) and purée with a dash more olive oil and a spoon of good peanut butter (by good I mean an ingredient list that has only peanuts and salt) don't overdo the peanut butter as it will over power the soup.

Once puréed pass it through a fine sieve, and then warm through before serving. Garnish with caraway seeds, flaked dried chilli, olive oil and natural yoghurt.