Melt in the Mouth Almond Cookies

Pardon me for the poor quality photo taken with the Iphone. It's been a long while since I have uploaded anything to my blog site. I have been doing less baking since the birth of my younger son. There is practically not much time to spare for photo taking when I bake or cook.

I made use of the recipe from one of my favourite blog sites - My Kitchen . It was successful and I am glad that I have finally found the recipe that I have been looking around for. Made some for my colleagues and they like the cookies very much.

I also made Tiramisu over the weekends.. (No photos again as it was a rush project with a baby complaining at the back.)

Hopefully I will have more time soon to do more baking and uploading.

Nestum Cookies

Made this from a recipe that I found in the local food magazine - Food and Travel magazine. This cookie is simple to make and fabulous with the fragance of nestum with every bite of these cookies.

Ice Box Cookies

These are called Icebox cookies. I got this recipe from the book called Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets. These cookie dough were quite tricky to handle as it was soft and needs to be chilled. I made a total of 4 different flavours here.

1. Orginal Flavour (ie the plain ones with red sugar coating)

[The kids called them cha siew cookies]

2. Orginal Flavour with chopped glaced green and red cherries.

3. Chocolate Flavour

4. Marbled Flavour (Orginal with chocolate)

In order for it not to be too sweet, I actually reduced the sugar content and forgot that cocoa powder is bitter. As a result, the Chocolate and Marbled flavour cookies tasted 'non sweet'.

My son and niece was so excited when the cookies came out and as the chocolate ones were not sweet, I would think that the kids won't like it. To my surprised, the 2 rascals said that the chocolate cookies where yummy... .... ...

Well, glad they liked them!

Biscottis With Egg Yolk

This biscotti recipe was given by a colleague. It is different from the ones i usually make in the sense that it had egg yolks in this recipe. It was also easier to make as you just need to mix the liquid ingredients into the flour, form a dough and bake it. After that, just slice the dough into thin slices and double bake it again.

The egg yolk smell is very strong in biscotti made in the way even though I have added grated orange peel into it. Reviews from people who have eaten the egg white version and this version all preferred the egg white version one.

My personal preference is also the egg white biscottis.

Christmas Biscottis

Fragrant crunchy biscottis for sale for this christmas season. Packed in pretty square boxes or 10 pieces in a pack as give aways. Healhty and fat free, makes it an ideal gift for this christmas.

Almond Snaps

Found some slices of almonds at the fruit compartment of the fridge. Roasted it last week to make almond snaps but only managed to do it this weekend. This, similar to almond biscottis are made of almonds, egg white, and sugar, and a small quantity of melted butter. But instead of baking two times, this only require one time baking. Pretty simple to make, but got to keep a watchful eye as it will burnt quite quickly.

Compare this to Almond Biscottis, I still prefer the latter.

Petit Bakes for a Wedding

A friend had asked if I could make some pastries to compliment her lunch buffet on her wedding day. After thinking hard for the past week, I have decided to make these 3 items as samples for her. The extreme left side-brownie, centre - mini cheesecake and the extreme right - Apple Crumble.

As this was the first time i baked the brownies, I baked it according to the recipe time which was 40 mins, resulting in a drier brownie version. I think i can shorten the baking time to maybe 30mins so that the brownie would be more fudgy.

The mini cheesecake baked quite fast in small cupcakes. Instead of a 1.5hrs of baking time, it was done within 20mins.

The apple crumble consist of 3 layers. The first layer consist of a sweet crust pastry that had to be prebaked first and after that, topped with cooked apple filling and covered with a crumble to be baked again till the crumble turns brown.

I personally liked the apple crumble and the mini cheesecake.

Almond Walnut Biscotti

I collected a total of 8 eggs while meeting my mooncake orders. It would be a waste to be throwing them away which I used to do previously as I had no idea what to use it for other than making Angel Cakes. However, recently, I've got enlightenment from Judy my baking instructor when she mentioned about how extra egg whites can be put into good use instead of discarding it away.

I had a pack of almonds bought some months back, stored in the fridge, just right for making these Almond Biscotti. I made these for my son's teachers as it is Teacher's Day today, Hub tasted them and had requested 3 packs, I think maybe to give his colleagues. The rest was distributed out to my siblings and I brought a pack home for my mother-in-law.

These biscotti are healthy as they are fat free. That means no butter, or oil used in the process of baking. Definitely healthier than eating butter cookies, or chocolate chip. If you are health conscious, you can consider eating small amount of these besides the boring fruits and carrot sticks.

Petite Four Class - Lesson 3

This is from the third and last lesson of my Petite Four Class. This lesson, we were taught to make mainly Petite Fours Sec. What you see in the picture starting from the top:

1. Expresso Cheesecake - Little expresso cheesecakes baked and chilled. Dust with some cocoa powder and snow sugar and decorated with white chocolate and a coffee bean made of marzipan.
2. Hazelnut Focus - A crunchy little cake made of hazelnut powder and meringue, decoarated with ganache and roasted hazelnut.
3. Cranberry Almond Florentines - Made of sliced almonds and cranberry cooked in glucose which hardens when cooled.
4. Orange Kisses - The base is made of Pâte Sucrée, topped with a chocolate orange chantilly and decorated with a slice of oranage and chocolate slice.

My personal preference are the Expresso Cheesecake which has a very strong coffe flavour and the Cranberry Almond Florentines which you cannot stop munching on once you start.

We were awarded with a certificate of accomplishment at the end of the course.

Walnut Moon Tarts

Walnut Moontarts with Pâte Sucrée and white lotus. These were made on request from hub for giving to some Taiwan colleague to bring back to Taiwan. These moontarts are very different from the traditional mooncakes because of how the crust is made.

Some of my friend's have requested to place some orders for these, thus I would be busy for the next 2 weeks with these little pastries.

Purple Sweet Potato Cookies

Something different from the usual cookies. This was made from purple sweet potatoes which is not often seen. Seasonal I guess and I was happy to find some at NTUC a few Saturdays back. This cookie is not crispy due to the large amount of sweet potato used.

Hello Kitty Pineapple Tarts

Some left over pineapple filling as still sittng in the fridge, so I decided to make this with the Hello Kitty vegetable cutter bought from Kai Kai at Chinatown. It looks pretty cute. I tried making with a Pooh Bear cutter but was not very successful as the ears were quite narrow and quite difficult to make the shape.

Italian Egg Yolk Cookies

Thought that this cookie was unique as it uses hard boiled egg yolks as one of the ingredients in making the cookie dough.

White Chocolate Chip Cookies

White chocolate chip cookies made from white conventure but unfortunately I overbaked a tray of it and had to discard them. It has a milky taste from the white chocolate.

Bubble rice and Walnut Cookies

Made these over the weekends as I had some left over rice bubbles at home.

Bubble rice and Walnut Cookies
Ingredients:
225g butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g castor sugar
230g plain flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
100g rice bubbles
55g walnut ( coursely chopped)
100g chocolate chips

Method:

1. Lightly grease baking trays.
2. Cream butter, sugar and essence until creamy.
3. Stir in sifted dry ingredients, rice bubbles, walnuts and chocolate chips to mix into a dough.
4. Roll out dough into small sized balls and place onto prepared trays. Flaten slightly.
5. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees for 15 minutes or until lightly golden brown and cooked through.
6. Cool completely before storing in air tight containers.

Butter and Almond Heart Cookies

Made this Butter and Almond Heart Cookies and was quite well received by some of my colleagues. Some of them actually requested to place order for a bottle of these. :)

Rock Buns

One of my favourite receipes for Chinese New Year but due to lack of time, I didn't manage to make this for Chinese New Year.

Here is the recipe for it.

Ingredients:

225g Self Raising flour

85g sugar

85g butter

85g dried fruits

1 egg

2-3tbsp milk

Method:

1. Rub the self raising flour and butter together till it resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Add sugar and dried fruits and mix well.
3. Add egg and milk to bind the mixture together. (Add more milk if you like your rock buns softer)
4. Scoop teaspoon of dough on the baking tray and bake at 175 degrees for 20mins or till golden brown.

Holicks Doggie Cookies

Made these for my son's class at childcare for Christmas as well as for some colleagues of mine. I adapted the recipe from Happy Home Baking. I thought it was not sweet enough, but it is healthier. You could add some castor sugar while creaming the holicks and butter. A tablespoon should be sweet enough for one portion.

Here is the recipe for it:

Horlicks Doggies Cookies
(makes about 48 cookies)

Ingredients:
180g butter, soften at room temperature
80g Horlicks (original flavour)
200g top flour or cake flour
25g corn flour
25g milk powder.
100g chocolate chips
some chocolate rice
some Koko Krunch

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 140deg C. Line baking tray with baking paper and set aside.
2. Sieve top flour, corn flour and milk powder.
3. Cream butter and Horlicks for about three minutes at low speed. Do not overbeat.
4. Put in top flour, cornflour and milk powder and beat for about one minute to form dough.
5. Divide dough into 10g each. Put three chocolate chips into each piece of dough and roll into balls.
6. Insert two pieces of Koko Krunch to form the 'ears', chocolate rice for the "eyes", and a chocolate chip in the centre for the 'nose'.
7. Bake at 150 deg C for about 25 minutes. Depending on your oven, it may take another 5 to 10 minutes more for the cookies to be ready.
8. Leave to cool on wire rack before storing in an airtight container.

Pooh Bear Cookies

I have finally managed to get my very own Winnie The Pooh cookies cutters after many months of search. The cutters were easy to use and the cookies were so cute. I bought the whole series fo cookie cutters from Kai consisting of Winne the Pooh, Chip and Dale, Mickey and Minnie and also some Hello Kitty cutters but I think I still like Winne the Pooh best. The recipe is the same as the one I posted for the car cookies.

Cars and Ship Cookies

Bought some cookie cutters from Daiso and made these cookies over the weekends.

Cars and Ship Cookies Recipe

Ingredients:

100g butter, softened at room temperature

65g brown sugar

1 egg yolk

180g cake flour

20g corn flour

Method:

1. Sift cake flour and corn flour together and set aside. Line baking tray with parchment paper, set aside.
2. With an electric mixer, add in sugar to the butter in 2 ~3 additions and cream till the mixture turns pale and fluffy.
3. Add in egg yolk and mix well.
4. Add sifted flour into mixture, stir with a spatula to form a soft dough.
5. Place dough in a plastic bag and flatten with rolling pin.
6. Roll out dough on slightly floured work surface and cut out with slightly floured cookie cutters.
7. Bake at pre-heated oven at 175 degC for 15 ~ 20mins.
8. Let cool and store in air-tight container.