BOO!

Who’s ready for Halloween? No quite? Well hopefully these little beauties will make things little easier. Don’t  worry too much about your piping skills , I certainly haven’t , and they certainly aren’t the same (oops) but seriously who ever said that all ghosts looked the same 🙂

I had the idea when I was thinking about what to make as a sweet treat this weekend, for reasons unknown to me I thought about iced gems , you know the tiny royal icing sweets on top of a biscuit base. Well this recipe is a take on the iced gems from my childhood, instead of royal icing swirls we’ll have mint flavoured meringue ghosts and instead of shortbread biscuit base we’ll have salt and pepper chocolate cookie dough biscuit  (yup that’s right SALT AND PEPPER!) with a layer of sweet sticky marshmallow.

Trust me as strange as they sound the combination of flavours and textures is amazing ,this recipe will give you meringue that is crunchy on the outside and sweet soft goodness in the centre , the young ones and the rest of the famalam are sure to love them !

Happy Halloween , and enjoy!xxx

MAKES

About 20 Ghostly Sweet Cookies

INGREDIENTS

For the salt and pepper chocolate cookie dough

• 200g cold butter, cubed
• 265g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 35g cocoa powder
• 100g icing sugar, sifted
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp flaky sea salt
• 12–15 turns of your pepper mill
• ½ tsp vanilla bean extract

For the Meringue Ghosts

• 2 large egg whites
• 130g icing sugar, sifted
• 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint flavouring
• Edible glitter, for dusting (optional)
• 10g Dark chocolate for the eyes.(melted)
• 100g of Marshmallow fluff ( you can make your own but seriously its just easier to but from a supermarket)
• Orange food colouring.

METHOD

Directions for the Meringue Ghosts

1. Pre-heat the oven to 120C/100C Fan/Gas 1/2. Line 2 large baking trays with baking paper.
2. Put the egg white in a heatproof bowl and whisk until frothy. Add the 130g of the icing sugar.
3. Put the bowl over a pan of simmering water – make sure the base of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Whisk with an electric mixer until it’s thick and holds its shape. Remove the bowl from the pan and whisk for another 2 minutes.
4. Pipe on the baking tray using a large round nozzle in a circular motion while lifting slightly to get the hight for the little ghosts. Each meringue should be 3-4cm wide.
5. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the meringues can be easily lifted off the baking tray. They’ll feel sticky when they first come out of the oven. Leave to cool

Directions for the salt pepper chocolate cookie dough biscuits 

1. In a large bowl, rub the butter, flour and cocoa together between your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Add the icing sugar and mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. Add the egg yolk, salt, pepper and vanilla and mix until a smooth, fairly firm dough forms, sticky to the touch. If it’s too crumbly, warm your hands and give it a gentle knead in the bowl to bring it all together.
3. Squeeze the dough into a flat sausage shape, and sandwich it between two sheets of clingfilm. Roll it out until it is about 2cm thick, then chill for at least 30 minutes to harden up.
4. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Roll out the dough to 1cm thick. Using a  cutter , ideally about 1 1/2 inches across, cut out as many  circles as you can and put them onto the tray. Chill for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/gas mark 3.
5. Pop your cold baking tray directly into the hot oven and bake the circles for about 10 – 12 minutes according to size. Cool on a wire rack.

Assembly

1. When you are ready to pop your meringue ghosts on top of the cookies, mix orange food colouring into the marshmallow fluff (it needs to be dark orange so be generous).
2. Add a teaspoon of the orange marshmallow fluff onto each cookie and top with your a little ghost. Using the melted dark chocolate and a cocktail stick paint on 2 little dots to make the eyes.
3. You can also dust them with edible silver glitter for a lovely sparkly finish.