Toffee Cookies / Cinnamon Rolls

Today, we had Jeroen’s grandparents over for coffee and tea. So obviously, I was busy all week figuring out what I wanted to bake for them.

I ended up with cinnamon rolls (Jeroen’s grandma is Dutch, so she loooves anything with cinnamon) and toffee cookies, since I had a bag of toffee in the cupboard that I’ve been wanting to use for a long time.

I used two recipes I found on Pinterest, customized those a little bit, and was REALLY happy with the outcome.
The cinnamon rolls were a little too ‘bready’ for me, but everyone else liked them, and the taste was good.
The toffee cookies were an instant hit… Crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, and with lovely pieces of melted toffee all over them. I’m certainly making these again.

Toffee cookies

Ingredients (for 16 cookies):

• 175g margarine
• 100g cane sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 250g flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• pieces of toffee

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 180°C.
• Beat softened shortening with the sugar, until the mixture becomes creamy.
• Add egg and vanilla extract. Beat for a couple of minutes.
• Mix flour with baking powder and sift into the mass. Knead the dough.
• Add salt and toffee pieces, mix again.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Scoop out a wooden spoon of the dough and place them on the baking sheet. Flatten them a little bit.
• Bake for about 15 minutes.
• Transfer on a wire rack to cool.

Source: adapted from Divine Cuisine

Cinnamon rolls

Ingredients (for 9 rolls):

Dough

• 250ml buttermilk (or 250ml milk+ 1 Tbsp vinegar)
• 60g cane sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 400g flour

Filling

• 3 Tbsp margarine
• 75g cane sugar
• 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 190°C.
• Put the sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla extract and egg in a bowl. Mix until homogeneous
• Add the milk and whisk again.
• Keep on whisking while you add the flour.
• Take the dough out of the bowl and knead for a couple of minutes.
• Roll out the dough into a rectangular shape.
• Spread with the shortening and sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar
• Roll up the dough into a log.
• Cut the log into pieces of about 5cm.
• Put each piece into a hole of a greased muffin tin.
• Bake for 15 minutes.
• Let the rolls cool down a bit and then remove them from the tin.

Source: adapted from The Baker Chick

And last but not least, some pictures of the table setting: