Wednesday 21 May 2014

Make, Bake, Cookies Recipe Book from Parragon (Cooking With Kids)

We've been sent Make, Bake, Cookies from Parragon Books for review, and here's how to make swirly rainbow cookies with your children. Super easy and very attractive...

Yellow, green, blue cookies in jar

As soon as I got an email from Parragon Books to tell me I was going to be sent Make, Bake, Cookies my mouth started watering. We very often make cookies for dessert and snacks, and get through a couple of batches a week if I ration them well.

Make, Bake, Cookies biscuit recipe book review from Parragon

Cookies are perfect for baking with children and encouraging a love of cooking, understanding of where food comes from and the effort involved. They always bring a sense of pride and achievement and delight the rest of the family. With this in mind I handed this one over to my 14 year old daughter and 5 year old son...

Extra special biscuit recipes

They chose to make Rainbow Swirl Cookies from the 'Something A Bit Special' section of the book.

Parragon Books Rainbow Swirls Cookies instructions and recipe review

Ingredients

225g unsalted butter, softened (plus extra for greasing)
150g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
yellow, red and blue food colouring paste/gel colour
1 tbsp egg white, lightly beaten

(My children chose to exchange red food colouring for green). 

Instructions


Beat together the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and creamy. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla extract, sift in the flour and mix to form a smooth dough.Knead lightly on a floured surface until smooth.

Kneading colour into cookie dough

Divide the dough into 3 equal sized pieces and knead the yellow food colouring into one third, adding a little extra flour if necessary to prevent the mix becoming sticky. Colour the other two pieces of dough in the same way. Shape each coloured dough into a 15cm log, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.


Unwrap the dough and roll out each piece on a floured board to form a rectangle approx 20x25cm. Carefully lift and place the sections on top of each other. Lightly brush the top with the egg white and then roll up tightly  like a swiss roll. Wrap in cling film and chill for around 45 minutes until firm.

How to roll a swiss roll using cling film

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Grease 2 large baking sheets.

Careful cutting of rainbow cookies into slices

Unwrap the dough and cut into 28 slices, each around 8mm thck. Place on the prepared baking sheets, spaced well apart.

Pyrex glass baking sheet needs no greasing and wipes clean

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 10-12 minutes or until just firm. Leave to cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Paragon Books Make, Bake, Cookies Recipe Book Review Finished Biscuits

My children did very well with this recipe. It was quite a tricky one - rolling the doughs, placing them neatly on top of each other and the rolling into a 'swiss roll' is not simple. I think we were maybe a little impatient and leaving it to chill for longer would have made it a bit easier. The end result though is gorgeous.


The instructions are clear and easy to follow. The result v's effort is brilliant and everyone was impressed with the cookies. The actual biscuit is light and very melt-in-the-mouth, and they went down a treat.


 Make, Bake, Cookies has an astounding 185 pages of recipes and tips covering just about any variety of biscuit and cookie you can think of, from the everyday to the incredibly special. It is published by Parragon Books and has an RRP of £14. It's a joy to have and a book which has already become popular with my children - they've all placed their orders for next time we bake!

Swirly Rainbow cookies in blue green and yellow in mason kilner jar

We were sent our copy of Make, Bake, Cookies for review.

24 comments:

  1. cool! these look so unique - it almost looks like playdough because of the colours! pinned! :)

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    1. It does look like playdough - and feels like playdough too! Doesn't taste the same thankfully :) Thanks Anna!

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  2. Wow, they look fantastic, my kids would love making them!
    #Minicreations

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    1. Go for it - colour is great! I want my lot to use red next time :D

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  3. Jenny i am LOVING these!! what a super baking idea x

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    1. It is nice and simple, but it makes all the difference. Cheers Jaime :)

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  4. They look like bath bombs from Lush too. Well done to the kids

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    1. They do! They don't really look like something you'd eat :D

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  5. They look great and a really fun bake to do with children.

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    1. They were loads of fun. I didn't really do anything, just stood at the side with a bit of advice and the camera :)

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  6. Wow those are funky! I love making cookies yum yum!

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    1. I've not heard anyone call anything funky in ages - but they totally are :D

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  7. They look brilliant and so different, I should make more biscuits but always seem to over cook them or they cook unevenly

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    1. It's really quite hard to know when to take them out of the oven. Sometimes you do have to have a bit of faith in the timings and just trust they'll be done when they're cool :)

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  8. They look fab, you could make them into snails couldn't you. Sounds like a good book to get kids interested in the kitchen.

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    1. It's definitely a fun cookery book to use with your children - it almost seems daft not to include them in cookie making :)

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  9. Wow, look at those, they look fab, I bet the children loved eating their coloured cookies #minicreations

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    1. They did! I think children especially love food that is a weird colour! :)

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  10. Lucas says - WOW!!!! These are so awesome and yummy looking. I love the colours (I think Ash might like them too........)
    Thanks for linking up to #minicreations

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    1. Thank you guys! Glad you're impressed - they're pretty cool looking :)

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  11. These look lovely and so colourful, I love how they keep the colours even when cooked and they look so pretty in the jar. Thanks for linking up to Kids in the Kitchen, I've given you a mention in this weeks post.

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  12. I love the cloud of your cookies! I think my girls will enjoy these too!

    Thank you for linking up with the #FridayFoodie linky.x

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