Brownie Cookies

I made some brownie cookies a while ago using Donna Hay's recipe. These are so light and delicious. 

Almond Cookies

Christmas time is cookie time. I baked some almond cookies using Dorie Greenspan's recipe this year and this is a recipe to keep and remake indeed. Delicious and moreish!

Salted Egg Yolk Cookies

These salted egg yolk cookies seem to pop up more as Chinese New Year is nearing. I was very curious that I felt the urge to bake some. The cookies were really tender, I needed a little time to get used to the flavor. They were like sweet spritz cookies, but with mild flavor of salted egg yolk. 

Recipe adapted from: http://mintyskitchen.blogspot.sg/2014/01/salted-egg-yolks-cookies.html

Pineapple Tarts

This Christmas, we are having people over. People that live away from her and constantly miss Chinese New Year in this country, where pineapple tarts are commonly served. I could make pineapple tarts anytime, as long I have the ingredients and the time.  I decided, this year, to bake pineapple tarts this Christmas for them. Christmas time is the time when family and friends get together, supposedly to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior. I know there lots of cookies and cakes will be served and available, but let's include pineapple tarts too. Because, why not?

Cheese Shortbread

Cheese shortbread or known as kaastengels for Durch and Indonesian people, are so scrumptious. Originally they are shaped as cheese fingers, but these days, these cheese cookies seem to come in different sizes and shapes. I have been making these for the longest time and I did not really use particular recipe, but there's always a guidelines that I remember in terms of amount of cheese and butter used. Recipe is below.

Recipe

Ingredients:

100 gr butter

1/4 tsp salt

25 gr almond flour

1 egg yolk

125 gr flour

50 gram grated cheddar or gouda

egg wash (beat 1 egg and 1 Tbs of water)

Directions:

In a medium size bowl, beat the butter and salt until they are slightly creamy, add almond flour and the egg yolk and mix them well until they are combined.

Add the flour and mix well, mix in the grated cheese and mix further until they are combined. Tip the mixture onto a lightly floured surface and knead to a soft dough. Wrap the dough using a plastic wrap and store in the fridge for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 170C.

Take out the dough and knead a little bit if needed and roll out to 4-5mm thickness. Using a cookie cutter or a knife, cut the dough into preferred shapes. Brush the top of the shortbread using the egg wash and sprinkle generously with grated parmesan cheese.

Bake for 10 minutes at 170C, and further 10-15 minutes at 160C, until they are golden brown. Leave on the baking tray for a few minutes until they are firmer and transfer to wire rack to cool. 

Lemon Polenta Cookies

We have a lot of polenta at home, but nobody really eats it. The polenta eater is 15,337 km away and will only be back in December. I tried to use them, but only made a little dent here. I only made half of the recipe and used merely 40 grams of polenta. A dent is still a dent, no matter how small. 

These are lemon polenta cookies, made one afternoon after I was done with my appointment and work. 

Recipes, adapted from Foodidies :

Using an electric mixer, beat 80 grams of butter (room temperature) and 75 grams of sugar until well mixed and pale in color, about 3-4 minutes.

Add 1 egg and continue beating. Add the zest of one lemon and 4 tablespoon of lemon juice, mix well.

In one bowl, whisk together 140 gr of polenta, 120 gr of flour, 2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of salt.

Add the flour mixture into the egg mix until they are just combined. Cover and leave in the fridge for one hour.

Preheat the oven 170C.

Divide the batter into 16 parts and make ball shape. Flatten the balls slightly using the back of a wooden spoon or a glass or any tools you wish to use.

Bake for about 15 minutes, cool them on the wire rack when they are done.

Dust lightly with confectioner's sugar

Panellets

Shortly after we got back from Shanghai, baking these little goodies were something that I planned and executed. The recipe that I used was adapted from liliscakes.

These are basically made with egg, almond flour and honey. I used pine nuts, sliced almond and sesame seeds to coat the panellets.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

20 gram of beaten egg (the remainder of beaten egg will be used to roll the panellets)
1 tsp lemon zest (optional)
3/4 cup almond flour
2 Tbs honey

Directions:

Preheat oven to 170C
Mix the ingredients well and make 1-inch balls.
Dip the balls in the remaining of beaten egg. Retrieve.
Coat the balls with either pine nuts, almond or sesame seeds and press the coatings gently so that they stick well. Brush lightly the outer part with beaten egg.

Put them on the baking tray and bake for 15 minutes or until they are golden brown

Lemon Madeleines

It was the day after we got back from our holiday in Phuket. I missed baking so much and had been thinking about baking some madeleines, as few as possible, because there were only two of us at home. I came across a recipe from Chuck Williams that uses only one egg and yields 12 madeleines. His method is different than the one I normally use. I made some adaptation and made them as lemon madeleines.

Recipe below:

Adapted from Chuck Williams (William Sonoma)

Ingredients:

1 egg
1/4 c sugar
1 Tbs lemon zest
1 Tbs lemon juice

1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

4 Tbs soft butter
Powdered sugar

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 165C
Butter and flour 12 madeleine molds, Set aside.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt.
Beat the egg, sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice on medium speed for about 30 seconds, then increase the speed to high and beat the mixture until becomes very thick, for approximately 8-10 minutes.
Fold the sifted flour in gently.
Add the soft butter into the above and mix well.

Spoon the batter into the molds and bake 10-12 minutes, until they are golden brown.

Invert onto rack and dust with some powdered sugar. Best eaten on the day they are baked.

CNY Goodies

We baked them and we also got a lot more as gift. In a couple of days, it will be the 15th day of Chinese New Year and it will be all over. We, however, still got plenty of goodies too consume ....

First Pinapple Tarts

Just before Christmas, I made my first ever pineapple tarts at home. The jam was also made from scratch. I must say, they are really good! I am pleased with both the jam and the pastry. Together, they are delicious!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

It had been a while since we baked chocolate chip cookies. There's no particular reason, we were just taking a break from it. Miss K finally made some and stored them in the freezer recently. Whenever we wanted some, we took a few and baked them. We don't store the baked cookies, we ate them when they are fresh from oven at their very best. These are some that we baked this afternoon. So yummy.

Christmas Cookies

They were baked, decorated and eaten!

Cookie Brownie Bars

I woke up from a short nap on Saturday and suddenly felt the urge to make brownies. It had been a long while and I did long for my brownies, I did not know why. I went to Miss K's room to express my desire and she suggested that I make Cookie Brownie Bars from the mix box that we got last Spring in the USA, the Betty Crockers one. Why not! That's even easier and very devilish! Just what I needed.

This wicked dessert is a combination of cookie and brownies and a tad too sweet for my taste but these bars are super yummy and I can simply forgive the sweetness. I will gain a couple of pounds for sure if I do not restraint myself from eating too much.... 

Cat's Tongue

After baking Layer Cake yesterday, we ended up with so much egg white in the fridge. Today, I used some of them to make these cat's tongues since it had been a while since I made them.

The Rectangular And The Round Ones...

Both were made from the same dough, they taste equally superb, especially when they are fresh out of the oven. They taste so heavenly that makes it difficult to stop once you start eating one. The recipe I used is from widely known source, New York Times, adapted from Jacques Torres. Miss K was having fun and decided to have some rectangular ones. Some of the round ones were taken by Miss P for her trip back to DC. The leftover dough was stored in the freezer for future baking.

Practice Makes..... Better

The children, big children, but they are still my children irregardless what age, decorated more cookies a couple of days after the first try. They did it with more knowledge of what to do and more familiarity of the materials. We saw more exciting results here..... Credit to Miss P for the nice picture above.

Three more hours to Christmas.......

It's Beginning To Taste Like Christmas......

We kicked off the festivity with Christmas cookies making and decorating. It was messy but fun and we managed to pass a few of them to others ...... Yes, we had the fun and passed the calories around.

Butter Twists Ala Martha...

I got the recipe in my inbox the other day and I fell in love with the way the cookies look in Martha Stewart's recipe page. In a way, the picture made me check out the recipe and it is so close to making butter cookies, but using one egg white instead. In a coincidence, I used one yolk to make Gnocchi this evening and had the white part to make Butter Twists. The twisting part was a bit tricky at the beginning, but after failing a few times, I managed to do them quite quickly and well. They do taste like butter cookies.

Transforming...

These are cream cheese cookies, made by using the leftover cream cheese frosting that I made for the cupcakes a few days ago.  I added an egg, enough flour and grated cheese to the batter. They are jolly-good-addictive ones!

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

We passed by a Trader Joe's store on our recent trip and made a stop and bought some stuff. Miss K bought a bag of dried cranberries and I brought it back to Singapore. I would normally leave that bag alone until the rightful owner comes back, but not this time. I had the urge to make Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies and took liberty to open the bag and used a little portion of it. I am sure she would not mind.

I simply love the results, these crisp and chewy cookies are absolutely delightful. Gotta watch the waistline though!