Leftover Cookies

This is something that I've been doing for a while now, especially when I've made lemon meringue pie. It's not so much because the food isn't getting eaten, more that it can be made into a very tasty cookie when all that remains is the last slice, which everyone is often too shy to have.

Apparently nobody in my house likes cherries and I refuse to eat the entire cake myself (not to mention that it'll start to go stale soon because of the lack of fat in the recipe) so I've decided to put most of the remainder of the cherry cake into a batch of cookie dough. This is a very simple recipe and it can be applied to any dessert, cake or even biscuit that you have lying around. Of course you don't have to have made it yourself, but I don't tend to buy shop-bought cakes (birthday cake being the only exception) because I know I can normally make something that tastes better myself.

The recipe for the cookies is based on the one from Nigella Lawson's white chocolate and pistachio cookies from How To Be A Domestic Goddess (probably my all-time favourite recipe book). If you prefer another recipe just add your leftover dessert to it and, give or take ten minutes, you'll have your leftover cookies. If nobody happens to be eating your food this is also a wonderful way to reinvent it and make them want to eat it again. I'm hoping nobody will realise that the cookies used to be cherry cake so they'll eat them. Fingers crossed.

Serves 10
Ingredients

• 1-3 Portions of Leftover Dessert
• 1 Egg
• 100g Caster Sugar
• 125g Light Muscovado Sugar
• 100g Plain Flour
• 1 Tsp Baking Powder
• 100g Butter

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan and line a couple of baking trays with baking parchment.
• Cream the butter and sugars together.
• Mix in the egg, followed by the flour and baking powder.
• Tip the portions of your chosen dessert into the cookie mixture and literally mash it into it. If it's a cake or a dessert it should break up very easily, but leftover biscuits might require some chopping or breaking up beforehand.
• Stir the mixture until there are no large lumps of dessert left.
• Put spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking tray, leaving some space between each one.
• Put into the oven for about 12 minutes until the cookies have spread out and browned. Use a spatula to separate them (mine always run together and join up a little bit) before placing them on a cooling rack.

For hints and tips for beginners, take a look at The Basics.

I'm making an apple crumble with a difference either tomorrow or Thursday, so look out for that and don't forget to try these cookies!

[The photos and contents of this post were updated on 3/7/13]