The thing I love most about food is that it brings people together as food is meant to be shared. Hence, one of the most exciting things about food blogging is that this shared experience is taken to a whole new level. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when Madalene from the British Larder graciously accepted to do a guest post on Gourmet Worrier.

What led me to Madalene's blog in the first place was a mutual respect for using local and seasonal ingredients and supporting local producers and farmers. I also resonate with Madalene's simplistic approach to food, her uncomplicated flavours and her attempt to use the best quality ingredients available. So without further ado, I introduce you to the extremely talented Madalene Bonvini-Hamel.

Photo - Madalene Bonvini-Hamel (2009).


I have only recently met Nanette aka Ms Gourmet, but it feels like we have known each other for years. I love her posts and enjoy her photos of the children. We both love twittering about food, cooking and all things yummy and nice. This brings to mind that old nursery rhyme "What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and all things nice..."

So that got me dreaming about what it would be like to invite Nanette for afternoon tea and what I would bake to mark this occasion. High on the list would be a deliciously and very carefully brewed cup of English breakfast tea followed by lots of nattering. Then the pièce de résistance would be these unbelievably cinnamon chocolate and meringue sandwich cookies. That's what I would plan for our 'Alice in Wonderland' tea party!

This recipe has a lot of interesting elements and lots of flavour but the unique and beautiful thing about it is that it's completely new. I have developed them especially for Nanette and there are flavours that I have never put together before such as raspberry, coffee, cinnamon and chocolate. And it works-outrageously fantastic!

The meringue centres are crispy and chewy at the same time laced with fragrant home made raspberry jam and this is all sandwiched together with soft crackly chocolate, coffee and cinnamon crinkle cookies. These cookies have a rather unusual ingredient for cookies, and that is yoghurt. Are you now intrigued and interested? I urge you to have a go and make these little beauties, they are quite big in size and carry a big hit in flavour so do not over complicate the tea party with too many different items, you only need these.

Enjoy, Nanette these are for you with love!


Chocolate and Cinnamon Crackle Cookies
 
Ingredients

80g unsalted butter, at room temperature

250g dark brown sugar

125g cocoa powder

10g instant coffee granules

5g bicarbonate of soda

5g ground cinnamon

2 large free range egg whites

300g plain flour

1tsp vanilla extract

100g natural full fat yoghurt

                         Photo - Madalene Bonvini-Hamel (2009).

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the cocoa powder, coffee, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon and mix well. Add the egg whites and yoghurt and mix. Mix in the flour to make a soft dough.

3. Divide the cookie dough in three; wrap each quarter in cling film forming a long sausage. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

4. Cut the cookie sausages in slices and press the cookies out to 5cm diameter by ½ cm thick circles. Place the cookies on the baking tray and bake the cookies for 10 - 12 minutes. I like them still slightly soft, you can bake them for a further couple of minutes if you prefer them to be crispy.

5. Once the cookies are cooked let them cool for one minute on the baking tray then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.


Meringue Disks

Ingredients

200g large free range egg whites

400g caster sugar

                          Photo - Madalene Bonvini-Hamel (2009).

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 100°C and line two baking trays with parchment paper. I normally mark the paper with 5cm circles to guide the size of the meringues.

2. Place the egg whites and sugar in a medium saucepan. Cover your hand with disposable rubber glove and gently heat the egg whites over low heat using your rubber glove hand to stir the egg white and sugar, this will help to pasteurise the eggs and dissolve the sugar. Use your hand as a temperature control, the temperature should not exceed 37°C, this takes about 5 minutes. Do not boil the egg whites.

 3. Transfer the egg mixture to a mixer with a balloon whisk and whip the meringue until stiff and glossy. Transfer the meringue to a piping bag and pipe 5cm wide disks about ½ cm thick.

4. Place the meringues in the preheated oven and dry them for about 30 - 45 minutes.


Assembling the cookies

Pair two cookies with one meringue disk, spread home made raspberry jam on one side of one cookie then place the meringue onto the jam, spread the other cookie with more jam and then sandwich it to the meringue cookie. Complete all the cookie sandwiches and then lightly dust the sandwiches with ground cinnamon.

Makes about 30 cookie sandwiches

Photo - Madalene Bonvini-Hamel (2009).


Food Fanatics Tip

Serve the cookies on the same day that you have assembled them, if you like to keep some for the following day the keep the components apart and assemble as required. This will prevent the meringue from going soggy.  If you do not bake all the cookie dough at once then place the left over cookie sausages in the freezer, de-frost the dough completely and bake as-per instructions above.