Have you ever tried doing a skillet cookie, she asked.

Well no, actually I hadn’t, and was kicking myself that I didn’t think of it sooner. It seems almost a logical conclusion to reach, from skillet cakes to cookies. I suspect skillet cookies are the ultimate lazy but impressive dinner party dessert, brought to the table in all it’s piping hot glory, and served straight from the pan.

Try baking your favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe in a skillet by pressing the cookie dough into the skillet and baking for about 30 minutes or until just set. A standard chocolate chip recipe yielding roughly 24 cookies should be sufficient for a large 9 inch skillet. Or try my recipe below, which is based on Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito’s Black Forest Chocolate Cookie recipe as appears in Baked.

This skillet version of their cookie is best described as an amplified version of a brownie. A brownie cookie on ‘roids, if you will, with a crackingly good crust (my favourite part of any brownie) and slightly oozy interior (especially if you dig in while it’s still warm). Serve with vanilla ice-cream if you have no hips to speak of and would like some.

Black Forest Skillet Cookie :

220g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
75g unsalted butter
85g brown sugar
120g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
55g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
80g dark chocolate chips (60% – 70% cocoa)
80g milk chocolate chips
80g dried sour cherries (or dried cherries/cranberries)

Preheat the oven to 175’C. Arrange a rack on the lower third of the oven.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl and set aside.

Melt the 220g dark chocolate and butter together in a bowl over a bain-marie (or in the microwave). Stir and set aside to cool.

In an electric mixer, whisk the eggs and sugars on high speed until the mixture is pale and thick. Add the vanilla extract and cooled chocolate mixture and beat until just combined.

Fold the flour into the chocolate/egg mixture, then both the chocolate chips and dried cherries.

Scrape the mixture into a 7 1/2 inch skillet (if your skillet is larger or smaller, adjust baking time accordingly) and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the edges are well browned and the top is set. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve straight from pan.

My love affair with skillet cakes began a long time ago, when B and I used to make apple pancakes on a regular basis. The recipe for those pancakes originated from a newspaper cutting that has since been misplaced and is still dearly missed. My attempts to recreate the recipe have so far failed. Or maybe whatever we make now will never taste the same because we were younger then and more inexperienced in the kitchen, and it was a wonder to be able to combine shredded green apples with cinnamon, a pat of butter and a leavened batter to yield a large fluffy pancake which we proceeded to devour with vanilla ice-cream.

But as it turns out, I still have the capability to be in awe of how simple but soul-satisfying pancakes can be. If you’re in need of a boosted start to the day, I can’t recommend pancakes highly enough. I’m quite fickle when it comes to pancakes. Sometimes I like them thick and fluffy. Other times, I prefer them thin, drizzled with lemon juice and sugar, then rolled up and eaten without cutlery.

This week, I resuscitated my long forgotten omelette pan from the depths of the pot drawer, to whip up some sourdough pancakes and other skillet cakes. Of all the recipes I’ve been trying out, this gluten-free prune and buckwheat skillet cake is probably the most unusual. It is worthy of an attempt by anyone reading this because I think it has great potential to be tweaked according to your own tastes. To my surprise when I first saw this recipe, the cake contains no added sugar apart from the mere tablespoon of honey, and no butter or oil either. The sweetness contributed by the prunes is amazingly all the cake needs to make it the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea, when you’re craving something that’s not loaded with sugar. That is, as long as you don’t proceed to ruin things by pouring over a hearty dose of maple caramel sauce. That was just me trying (and failing) to resist the temptation to dessert-ify my breakfast.

Pain aux Pruneaux :
(from Home Baking by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid)

1 cup pitted prunes
1/2 cup cognac or Armagnac
1 tablespoon honey, heated until runny
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups light buckwheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup whole milk

Chop the prunes into 2 or 3 pieces each. Soak them in the cognac for 8 to 24 hours.

Place a baking stone or unglazed quarry tiles, if you have them (or a heavy baking sheet) on a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 190’C. Butter a 9-inch cast-iron or other heavy ovenproof skillet.

Whisk the honey and eggs together in a medium bowl until tripled in volume. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and pepper. Stir 1/3 cup of the flour into the egg mixture, then stir in 1/3 cup of the milk. Repeat, alternating until all the flour and milk have been stirred in. Fold in the prunes and any remaining cognac.

Pour the batter into the skillet. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a faint line of brown forms around the edges of the cake and the cake is starting to pull away from the sides of the skillet. There will be small bubbles or holes on the surface.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 or more minutes before serving. The top surface of the cake will be tacky, but the crumb will be firm and spongy. Serve from the skillet, or flip onto a plate.

The boy and I are both on holidays this week. It’s one of those unusual occurances normally reserved for a handful of days over the Christmas period. A rarity, in other words. Which also meant that I had really been looking forward to this week.

Unfortunately, I have not been feeling well – one blood test and a CT scan later, and it still remains a mystery. Due to the visits to the doctor etc, we had to shelve plans to do a bit of travelling. This was disappointing not only because I love road trips, but also because I was harbouring daydreams of the two of us renting a little cottage somewhere, walking around in our jammies all day and eating steak with our fingers. Not that we couldn’t have done that at home, but like they say, it’s all about location, location, location!

Still, we are having a ball, lazing around at home. Yesterday we spent the evening watching old episodes of 30 Rock, eating large slices of mince tart and talking general rubbish, as we’re prone to do. All washed down with hot cups of bancha. The mince tart was inspired by the cold weather and some dried fruit marinated in leftover Guinness. The general rubbish was inspired by non-leftover Guinness. Or perhaps not.

This had been a vacation not just from work, but from the things I normally bake too. I’ve been embracing more time-consuming recipes such as puff pastry and breads which we’ve been enjoying for breakfast. Maybe more on those, in a future post. I also took a holiday from my favourite carrot cake recipe, to make Claire Clark’s very carroty and very delicious carrot cake. Worth going on holiday for!

Carrot Cake :
(from Indulge by Claire Clark)

250g wholemeal flour
25g baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
125g dessicated coconut
5 medium eggs
250g muscovado sugar
185ml vegetable oil
500g carrots, grated
125g Californian raisins

For the cream cheese frosting :
125g cream cheese
375g icing sugar, sifted
250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
a capful of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180’C. Grease a 25cm deep, round springform cake tin and line the base with baking parchment.

Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg together, then stir in the coconut so it does not clump together. Using an electric mixer, whisk the eggs, sugar and oil together until the mixture becomes pale and has doubled in volume. Gently fold in the dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix and lose volume. Finally fold in the carrots and raisins. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the centre of the oven for about 40 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin.

To make the frosting, simply beat all the ingredients together until pale and fluffy.

Turn the cooled cake out of the tin and using a long serrated knife, slice it into 3 layers. Sandwich them together with the cream cheese frosting and spread a third of it over the top.