French Lavender Brownies
This is a very easy and fast recipe. I found it in one of the many French food magazines I buy every time I visit this beautiful country. And even though my French skills desperately need some updating, it turned out surprisingly well. I changed and adapted this recipe a little bit, but I’d still like to give full credit to the lovely French “Elle à Table” magazine.
Ingredients: 200 g dark chocolate, 200 g butter, 200 g sugar, 4 eggs, 100 g flour, 80-100 g ground almond or hazelnut, icing sugar and lavender flowers.
Melt butter and chocolate in a pot over low heat and let it cool. Beat eggs and sugar until the mass turns almost white, or at least 4 minutes. Add the chocolate butter mix, flour and ground almond or hazelnut and mix well. Use a square brownies tin and bake for about 20 minutes at 180 degrees. Decorate with icing sugar and Lavender flowers.
Linzer Christmas Tree Cookies
Here is a recipe for some easy and decorative Christmas cookies. Merry Christmas everyone ♥
You need: 600 g flour, 220 g icing sugar (plus some for decorating), 4 egg yolks, 1 tsp vanilla essence, 400 g butter, raspberry jam
Combine all ingredients (except for the jam) to a dough and refrigerate for at least half an hour. Roll out the dough to about 5 mm and cut out shapes with a cookie cutter of your choice.
Punch holes or shapes into half the cookies before baking. Bake at 180 degrees for 8-12 minutes, or until the edges start to brown.
Remove from oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes. Spread some raspberry jam on the cookies without holes, and sprinkle some icing sugar over the cookies with holes. Combine the two parts carefully to avoid the icing sugar falling on the jam, so that the cut-out shapes stay bright red.
Summer Cookies: Lemon Myrtle Stars
A few weeks ago, my lovely friend sent me a packet of Lemon Myrtle spice from Australia and while I was wondering about how to use these precious little seeds, these cookies came to my mind. You need: 110 g of icing sugar and 300 g of flour, 1 tsp Lemon Myrtle spice, 200 g butter and 2 egg yolks. Some more icing sugar and edible flowers for decoration. Combine all ingredients with your hands and knead into a dough. Refrigerate for half an hour. Roll out the dough, use cookie cutters to make stars, ar any other shapes and bake on a parchment paper lined tray for about 10 – 15 minutes, or until they are just lightly brown on the edges. Because these are supposed to be summer cookies I decorated them with some Thai Basil flowers. Any other edible flowers, such as lavender would be nice too. Just mix some icing sugar with a little bit of hot water and put a drop of it on each cookie and the gently place a flower in the middle. 
Berry cookies
This recipe is based on traditional oatmeal slices or breakfast bars. They contain a lot of oats, which makes them healthy, but because they are also quite sweet and sugary adding berries creates a perfect balance. You can use all kinds of berries, even frozen ones. I was lucky enough to have some fresh red currants from my garden. To avoid crumbling and falling apart when cutting, which always happens to me, just use a muffin tray lined with paper muffin cups instead of a square tin.
You need: 175 g butter, 125 g brown sugar, 50 g honey, 350 g rolled oats and some fresh or frozen berries, a muffin tray and paper liners.
Melt butter, sugar and honey in a small pot on the stove over low heat and stir until dissolved. Combine with the rolled oats in a large bowl. Add the berries and distribute the mix into the muffin tray. You can use a small bottle or a glass that fits into the moulds to gently press down the contents. It works best with frozen berries, with fresh ones you have to be careful not to squash them.
Bake at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes. Once they are baked and have cooled you can take them out of the muffin cups and they will have a beautiful shape. However, if you use colourful muffin cups and leave them in there, it will make them even more appealing to your children and they will look much nicer in their lunch boxes.
Chocolate banana cookies
This is a quick and easy recipe for chocolate banana cookies. They are perfect for afternoon guests and even more perfect for you children’s lunch box, if you decide to give them an extra little treat. I used my friend’s tip on what to do with left over Easter chocolate – you can find it in her lovely blog.
Ingredients: 125 g butter, 125 g sugar, 2 mashed bananas, 1 egg, 175 g flour with half a teaspoon baking soda, 100 g chocolate chips and 50 g sliced almonds.
Beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add the egg and bananas. Mix well. Sift flour with baking soda and carefully combine all ingredients. Add chocolate chips and almonds. Distribute into even portion onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes at 180 degrees.
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