Cranberry and White Chocolate Jumbles

I hate to bore but I have quite a lot to say about these biscuits; some good, some bad and some completely my fault...

I originally planned on putting pecans and milk chocolate in these but the prices of pecans in my local supermarket were completely unjustifiable. For some reason, I cannot abide the taste of cranberry juice and was therefore dubious about white chocolate and cranberry jumbles, which were a suggestion by my brother. I had no reason to worry though as the cranberries remained juicy despite being cooked within an inch of their life and tasted nothing like cranberry juice!

I loved this recipe as, after melting the butter, everything was literally 'jumbled' together in the pan and scooped onto baking trays. This also gave me the opportunity to use the beast of a saucepan that my brother brought home from uni, it's pretty impressive! I'm yet to fathom why he spent £40 on a pan with no lid...

I did have an issue with this, however, as the chocolate began to melt before it entered the oven and, whether this is a coincident or not, there were no lumps of chocolate in the biscuits and therefore nothing to prove that they had any chocolate in them at all...

As you can see, half of my jumbles are on a tray and half on a baking sheet. Having bought a silicone baking sheet a few months back, this was the first opportunity I had to use it. Unless I'm missing something and using it wrong, this is a rubbish invention. The whole oven rack had to come out, to lay the tray on, spoon the biscuits on and put the rack back in the oven, which resulted in a loss of heat.

Although the recipe stated that the baking trays must be greased, my silicone mat was 'non stick' and I took the plunge to put them in without greasing. As you can see, those on the left from the mat are not cooked underneath and those on the right which had sufficient greasing are perfectly crisp. This made little difference but I'm not bringing myself to chuck the useless thing out!

Ingredients:

(adapted from The Great British Book of Baking)

125g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

50g light muscovado sugar- I used light demerara

1 medium egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

175g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Flavourings: up to 100g of each- I did 55g white chocolate and 45g cranberries

2 baking trays well greased with butter

Method:

-Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas 5

-In a pan large enough to hold the mixture, melt the butter gently then remove from the heat and stir in both sugars

-Beat the vanilla and egg in a separate bowl and then stir into the butter and sugar

-Sift in the flour and baking powder, once combined, add your choice of flavourings

-Scoop the mixture well apart on greased baking trays- they really spread!

-Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden and just firm

-Leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes then allow to cool on a wire rack

Enjoy!