Hello and welcome to Amy’s international Let’s Eat Blog Hop! However you’ve come to me, through the blog hop guest list via Lee (she of the original frogs) at The Linear Studio, or otherwise, you’re very welcome. Whatever time of day it is for you, you’re never too early or too late for a cuppa and a slice of cake.
For cake, and biscuits, is what I shall be talking about. Full domesticity in the kitchen came late in life to me, as I didn’t get married until I was 37. It didn’t take me long to learn how to knock out a casserole, thank you, Delia, or to throw a proper pasta dish together, thank you, Jamie, but I was still scared of the mysterious art form known as baking. As a single girl, I hardly ever ate cake and biscuits came from a shelf in the supermarket.
However, enlightenment came through the power of Blog Land ~ Deb’s Peanut Butter Cookies and Robyn’s Coconut Loaf were enough temptation to persuade me that I was, in fact, perfectly capable of making an edible cake and/or biscuits.
That and the fact that I didn’t want my toddler son to be consuming goodness-knows-what if he ate shop bought cake or biscuits. (Have you read the list of ingredients on a shop bought cake?)
And then the BBC ran a series called The Great British Bake-Off …
So, without further ado, let’s get onto two of my favourite recipes.
First up, a very easy, but extremely tasty, recipe for Oatmeal and Cranberry Cookies:
• 85 g butter
• 75 g soft brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 75 g dried cranberries
• 50 g plain flour
• 75 g porridge oats
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in the remaining ingredients until completely combined.
Shape into walnut-sized balls and flatten them slightly by pressing down with your hand onto a lightly grease baking sheet.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.
(This recipe and photo came from my sister; you can find her blog here.)
Secondly, a slightly more adventurous recipe is for a delicious Lemon Drizzle Loaf:
• 6oz Stork, plus extra for greasing (given that Stork is a brand, I suspect that any butter will do);
• 6oz self-raising flour;
• 1 tsp baking powder;
• 6oz caster sugar;
• 3 medium eggs;
• 2 tbsp milk;
• Finely grated zest of 2 unwaxed lemons.
For the lemon syrup:
• Juice of 2 lemons, strained;
• 4oz caster sugar.
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and grease and base-line a 2lb loaf tin. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl, add the remaining ingredients and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn out onto a wire rack. For the lemon syrup, gently heat the lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan until the sugar is dissolved. While the cake is still warm, drizzle the syrup over. Slice and serve warm.
Before I forget, Amy provided a useful link for converting my measurements to your preferred choice and it can be found here. I believe that caster sugar is known in the US as superfine. Thanks very much for stopping by during the Let’s Eat Blog Hop and, if you continue on, your next port of call is FaithHopeCherrytea.
This West London Life 
We love cookies in our house so will defintiely be trying these out and might have to try Lemon Drizzle too used to make that but not tried it for ages! Thanks xxx
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Now Ruth .. you have combined my two favourite ingredients, lemons and cranberries – in fact, I have used them today as well! Don't they say great minds think alike 😉
I know what you mean about the mile long list of ingredients, I try, wherever possible, to make most food for our kids too!
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Cookies are a favourite at our house. These are very similar to our family favourite, ANZAC cookies. Will try this variation for sure 🙂
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We often have the lemon cake…everybody in the house loves it…and that's pretty rare!!
The cookies recipe sounds delicious….and a new one to me…I love cranberries…and think I have all these ingredients ready to go make some.
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I am so pleased to find a recipe for Lemon Drizzle cake! I realise looking at the method that this is the cake my mother-in-law used to make when we stayed, and I haven't known what it was properly called. All the Lemon Cake recipes I've seen don't have the drizzle. So thank-you!
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Mmm. I love the sound of these biscuits. I really enjoyed watching the British Bake Off. I haven't bought the book so thank you for sharing a recipe here. I love lemon drizzle cake. It's always a top seller at my charity cake sales.
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Oh anything with cranberries for me & lemon drizzle is my son's favourite, in fact he asked me to make one only yesterday! I will add these to my list. Thank you 🙂
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lemon drizzle cake is one of my faves, i love the moist cake and cruncht topping.
Jo xxx
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those biccies look great – and easy to substitute the cranberries for something else (not sure that my local supermarket would have them!)
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Oatmeal cranberry cookies are one of my favorites, but I've actually never made them. These look (and sound) just perfect! Thanks for the American translation of castor sugar. I've already looked up dunnet and Weebix. This blog hop is proving quite educational, but probably not so good for my waistline.
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Your post is perfect! I will see my Daddy this week and he'll love the Lemon Drizzle Loaf and I am going to see my youngest son who is away at college, he'll love the cranberry oatmeal cookies! Thanks!
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Great recipes. Lemon drizzle is one of my hubby's faves so I make that quite a lot. I will definitely try out the cookies, we often have oatmeal and raisin but I've never tried them with cranberries before. Thanks for sharing! x
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A simple and reliable biscuit recipe is always welcome round here! Even I think I might be able to manage this one lol. Thanks, Ruth 🙂
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You have chosen my favourite cake, lemon drizzle … yum … I'm always happy to try a new recipe, thanks for sharing!
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Havent had lemon drizzle cake for ages, yummy!
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Those cookies look delicious!
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Yum, both recipes look delicious – did you share the lemon drizzle one a little while ago? I'm sure I tried it then, it was YUM! And I'll be trying out the cookies now as well 🙂
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Yummy!!! Both recipes sound fabulous, Ruth. The sight of the lemon drizzle loaf made my mouth water! Well done. xo
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thx Ruth for 2 fantastic recipes!
look fwd to trying them out 🙂
i've always been a fan of the lemon loaf from my mom's baking in my childhood, so this is a great reminder of happy memories!
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I love baking and shall be trying both of these. Thank you very much!
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Love any variety of oatmeal cookies!
Rinda
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These cookies look delicious and I am a big cranberrie fan, I definitely will make these. I also love lemon loaf and make it quite regularly, am going to check out the conversion scale to see how close our recipes are. Really enjoyed this post Ruth….:-)Hugs
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looks divine!! thanks for sharing!
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I have a tin full of cookies at the moment but haven't tried the cake yet as I have to eat it all myself!! Maybe I'll take it work instead.
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