Excitement!

Hello!
I haven't posted anything for a week as last Wednesday I was whipping up a quick banana cake for Madeline to take to Girls Brigade there was suddenly a clanging unusual noise, a funny smell and the mixmaster stopped working! Nooooo!
Now it sounds so stupid but going back to hand mixing a cake was foreign to me, and especially painful thanks to my still broken finger. I was LOST (ok, yes lazy too) ! So today we took the broken mixmaster and receipt back to Harvey Normans. I have a HUGE thank you to my mum who bought the very excellent and efficient Sunbean Mixmaster as my last birthday present but decided I needed an upgrade! To a sexy cream coloured KitchenAid mixer! Ahhhh the excitement!!! For once I was lost for words.
To sum up I think I have the best mum in the world. Sorry all of you out there but I do.
Anyway here is my dream machine. I might have to kick Owen out of bed tonight to make room for it. He he.



So my first mission with this was to make some cookies. Two types. One chocolate and the other lemon vanilla. Just plain ones.



Recipes are as follows:

Plain choc biccies
125g butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup self raising flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder

Beat butter, sugar and egg, then add sifted flour and cocoa in two batches.
Knead dough on floured surface until smooth; roll dough between sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick. Cover and chuck in fridge for 30mins.
Preheat oven to 180 or if fan forced 160 deg Celsius and using any cutter you like (I used plain round) cut your shapes and place on lined baking tray. Bake for 12mins.

Lemon Vanilla cookies
125g butter, softened
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 2/3 cups plain flour

Beat butter, rind, vanilla, sugar and egg until well combined. Stir in sifted flour, in two batches.
Knead dough and cover and bake as above in choc biccie instructions - these ones will only need 10mins to bake however.