The children were up early this morning and had their school work done by 9.15am! Why? Because the playstation controls were found yesterday….. Motivation is a wonderful thing!

This was a bonus for me since it freed me up to do lots of things around the house. Mostly today turned out to be baking day. I started with Baking Powder Biscuits for lunch and then went on to make two batches of cookies. Both types of cookies are Dutch, so I’ll have to translate them into English for you

The first ones I made were “Zand Koekjes” translated literally - Sand Cookies. I guess they are called this because they are crumbly….??? They certainly don’t taste like sand!

Sand Cookies - recipe here!

These sand cookies had chocolate chips in them! Yummy!

The second batch are the kids’ favorites. They are called “Half-om-Halfjes”, literally “Half and Halves”… Matthew saw them and yelled out,

“Yum! Two flavored cookies!!!” I think I will call them, Two Toned Cookies. (If anyone comes up with a better name, please tell me - I’m not very good at these things!)

And here it is, my first ever “Online Cooking Tutorial”!!!

Two Toned Cookies

You will need:

320g plain flour

240g butter

160g caster sugar

a pinch of salt

Extra:

1 1/2 tbsp cocoa

Mix all the ingredients except the cocoa. The mixture will be crumbly, but should stick together when you grab a handful. Take approx half of the mixture out of the mixing bowl and place it in another bowl. This will be your “plain” half.

Add the cocoa to the remaining mixture and mix in well. If you want it darker, add more cocoa, 1/2 tbsp at a time.

It will look something like this:

Knead both mixtures to make two balls of dough:

Now take some of the dough from each color and roll into rolls or (”worms!”) like this:

Place the rolls of dough on top of each other like this and cut slices to make cookies:

Now this is the “by hand” way. If you are like me and have a wonderful cookie press, roll the dough into thicker rolls:

Squeeze them into the cookie press:

Press out the cookies onto a baking tray:

Don’t they look good?

Bake in a 180C oven (moderately hot) for about 6 - 8 min. These cookies are done when the white dough has a slight golden tinge to them.

Any questions? Just ask

Have a great weekend everyone!