Monday 9 July 2012

Gran's Peanut Brownies

Fantastic weekend here loaded with sport for us to enjoy! On Friday the kids finished school early as the Olympic Torch was visiting Brentwood here in Essex. It stopped off in the smallest village on its entire UK tour, Herongate, which is just behind the farm we live on. So onto the bikes we hopped, and off to Herongate we went. Once we got there, the village cricket green was loaded with all kinds of local community marquees with all kinds of things going on.

We selected a visit to the beer tent as the first priority - it was a very long queue, we were a bit thirsty, and only about 30 mins till the torch was scheduled to arrive.

Standing on the side of the road, on a bend as it happened (fluke) we had a pretty good view of the proceedings. Sponsor vehicles, loads of police on motorbikes high fived the kids as they came through quickly building up hype with the crowd, and then the lady carrying the torch down our stretch came by.

It was quite moving as she looks so utterly thrilled to be part of such a momentous occasion. The public wet so thrilled too, and I'm sure everyone who came didn't regret it one bit.

Sunday was a hard choice between tennis, formula 1, cricket...so much going on this weekend! We opted for the tennis, what a great match between Federer and Murray. The crowd there was amazing, and we enjoyed every minute watching on the TV. Federer seemed out of sorts the first half, and Andy was super, but after the rain break the tables turned, and Federer's genius shone through. A well deserved win, Andy seemed to flag a little, or lose his mental emotional battle...i think he still has some fine tuning to do before he can win a Wimbledon final, but he's got some years ahead of him to keep trying! I'm sure he will win it one day!

I managed to fit in some baking on Sunday. And thought I'd share the recipe with you, as you don't see these biscuits over here in the UK often. In NZ we call them peanut brownies. They are a basic biscuit batter with sme cocoa and peanuts. Easy, tasty, and kids love them in the lunchbox!

Mark's mum makes these in a melt in the mouth manner that I never seem to be able to duplicate, she really is an amazing biscuit maker - Gran's house is always full of baked goodies!

you need( for a big batch)

8oz butter, 12oz sugar, 2 eggs, 16oz flour, 2t baking powder, 4dsp cocoa, 1t salt, 1C peanuts

I find the raw peanuts hard to find here in the UK, they are generally only seen as bird food!! But in health food shops they are usually available, they have the shells on more often, but of you can get them shell off it's faster. Top remove the shells, roast the nuts lightly, when cool, roll between your hands, and the shells will fall off - or do this outside and you can blow the shells off! - great job for the kids!

Cream your butter and sugar, gradually add the egg, the the dry ingredients, and lastly the peanuts.

Place teaspoon fills on a cold baking tray, and bake at 180 Celsius for 15-20 mins.

Hope you enjoy these as much as we do here!

have a great week!

Leandra

4 comments:

Helen said...

The peanut brownies would be great if I liked peanuts... but I guess I could substitute pistachios which I do love....?? Glad you got your beer...!

Carol said...

Sounds like a good weekend! Biscuits look great! I'm not a great biscuit maker!! With you ref beer tent being first call though!!! X

Siobhan Brignull said...

awww Herongate where I went on my first date (pub called The Bull) with my husband to be and where we spent our first night of marriage (new world inn). See I was stalking you before I knew you even existed LOL

Bethan said...

Seems like a lifetime ago since the torch came via my town... beer tent sounds good...brownies sound yummy..will try to replicate...and WEBBER won the F1...yeah!!!!