Custard Cookies

This cookie sure have a strange look.  Evy called it snake skin cookie.  LOL!  This was resulted from my experiment in the kitchen.  I was surprised that the cookie turned out like this too.  If you try this recipe of mine, let me know if yours turn out looking like this too, okay?  Because I am curious!  Look aside, this cookie is crisp and melt in the mouth with the fragrant of custard powder.  Actually tasted very good.  This is the last of my CNY cookies for this year.  收工了!

Yields about 80 cookies.

Ingredients:

(A), sifted

2/3 cup cornflour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup custard powder (you can buy it at World Market)

10 Tbsp. butter (141g), soften

1/2 cup confectioner sugar

1 egg yolk

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Sprinkles or red jelly or dried cranberries, cut

Method:

1.  In a bowl, use an electric beater and cream together butter and sugar.  Add in yolk and beat together.  Add in vanilla extract and cream together.

2.  Add in sifted (A) and use your hand to mix it into a dough.

3.  You can press it with a cookie press or roll it flat and use a cookie cutter to cut into shape.

4.  Place on parchment lined baking sheet.  Place a decorative red jelly or sprinkle on top.

5.  Bake in preheated 350'F oven for 14-15 minutes.  Cool on wire rack and store in air-tight container.

Early Happy Valentine's Day!! 情人节快乐!!

I was told that the last day of Chinese New Year is also the Chinese Valentine's Day.  So what's better way  to incorporate the Chinese New Year cookies into the Valentine's Day cookies as well.  I made this pineapple tarts using the heart shape cookie cutter and voila ~ a sweet heart shape Valentine's cookie made with love from the heart! 

You can find my recipe here.  I am sure your loved one would love to receive a gift from the heart that made from scratch.  People always say to win a man's heart, you will have to win his tummy first.  These days I am not too sure about this, but perhaps that's still the case if he is looking for a wife that can cook.  :-P

 

I want to wish all the love birds out there a Very Happy and Sweet Valentine's Day!!  情人节快乐!!

I am also submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #4: Love In The Air (Feb 2011) hosted by Cuisine Paradise.

Chinese Cashew Cookies

This year I made Cashew Cookies instead of my usual Peanut Cookies.   I have a can of salted cashews and I thought I would use that to make my cookies.  First, I toasted my cashews until golden brown and then I processed it in my food processor until fine.  After that, I used it to make this cashew cookies.  I decorated the top with a half cashew just to identify it (if not it would look like peanut cookies).  This cookies is the soft and melt in the mouth type.  So, very fragile.  Once you pop into the mouth, it dissolves and melts.

The sweetness is just nice and very easy to make as well.  Through my blog, all beginner can at least make a few delicious CNY cookies on their own.  Such as peanut cookies, cashew cookies, sugi cookies, cornflakes cookies, etc...

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #3 : My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011) hosted by Jess of i3ss kitch3n.

I used my Sugi/ Sugee Recipe and play with it to make this.

Ingredients:

(A)

1 1/3 cup of unbleached all-purpose flour (or plain flour)
2/3 cup of icing sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda

100gm ground toasted salted cashews

(B)

1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup + 2 Tbp. canola oil

(C)

Extra half cashews for decorating
1 egg for egg wash

Method:


1. Add (A) into a mixing bowl.  Whisk well.  Add (B) and use a fork to stir it. Mix well, and use your hands to work it into a soft dough. Knead the dough a few times so that the vanilla extract can distribute evenly.


2. Use your hands and roll the dough into small balls (about 1 tsp. size). Place on parchment lined baking sheet.


3. Lastly, place a half cashew in the middle of each cashew ball and press it down.  Brush with egg wash.


4. Bake at preheated 350'F oven for 15 mins.

~Yields about 65-70s small cookies, depended on the size of your cookies.

Chinese Sesame Cookies

I remembered when I was a child, I heart a type of Chinese sesame seeds cookies.  It had been so long that I could hardly recall the texture of this cookies anymore.  I only remembered if I saw it being served, I would certainly had some.  I did a search on the web and found one recipe from About.com and the picture of the sesame seeds cookies resembled the one I remembered.  So, of course I got to give this recipe a try.  But not sure why my cookies turned out looking different (mine had flat top)?  The one thing I changed was used all butter instead of half butter and half shortening.

I wanted contrasting colors so I tried a few with black sesame seeds.  This cookies is delicious, fragrant with the smell of sesame seeds and very crispy.  But not quite like the one I remembered.  Nevertheless, we were all in loved with this cookies, my girls couldn't stop snacking on it.  I don't think this batch can last through Chinese New Year.  The longer it kept, the smell of sesame seeds grew stronger.

If you are looking for a new CNY cookies to bake this year, this can be it.  :-)

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #3 : My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011) hosted by Jess of i3ss kitch3n.

This recipe was adapted from About.com Chinese Food with slight modification.

Ingredients:

(A)

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

3 tsp. toasted sesame seeds

1 cup or 2 sticks of butter, soften

3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. almond extract

White sesame seeds, as needed

Method:

1.  Sift (A) in a bowl.  Add toasted sesame seeds, whisk well.

2.  In a large bowl, use an electric mixer and beat the butter and sugars until incorporated.  Add egg and almond extract and beat until blended.  Stir in flour and mix well with a spatula until a dough is formed.  The dough will be soft.

3.  Divide the dough into four and form each into a logs.  Wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or until harden.

4.  Preheat oven to 325'F.  

5.  Take out the log, one at a time and cut the log into pieces.  Dip each piece into a plate of sesame seeds and place on a parchment lined baking sheet 2 inches apart (as the dough will spread during baking).  After you finish with a tray, you take one more log out and do as previously mentioned until you finish all the dough.  If you find the sesame seeds hard to stick, just dip the piece in water first before dipping into the sesame seeds.  But I don't find this as a problem, the white sesame seeds stick very well (this step needed if black sesame seeds is used). 

6.  Bake for 15-17 minutes.  Cool completely on wire rack before storing in an air-tight container.

Note:  My dough shape before baking is about the size of the Quarter coin.  When baked, it expanded.  For this size, it yields about 110 cookies.

Chinese Almond Cookies

I had some leftover almond that I needed to use up, about 1/3 cup of it.  Just nice that we finished the oatmeal cookies that I made for our snack so I wanted to use the almond to make cookies.  A fool proof recipe that I made before and also must be easy.  So I picked this almond sugi cookies recipe that I made dozen of times and added the chopped almond.

I really loved the extra crunch from the chopped almond and this cookie was very yummy.  So suitable for Chinese New Year too. 

Click this link for the recipe I used, except I double the recipe and added 1/3 cup of whole almond, chopped.  Need to double the recipe because of this shape, it's a much bigger cookie.  For the shape, just pinch a bigger dough, roll into ball and flatten it and lightly press it on the parchment paper.  For the almond essence, I did not double it.

The baking time is the same and use a scraper or frosting knife to remove the cookies to cool on the wire rack.  This cookie is pretty fragile but absolutely yummy!

Pineapple Tarts 2010

These pineapple rolls were also called nastar.  This was the first time I made a successful nastar actually because previously I just couldn't roll the pastry out from the nastar molds that I bought.  It was so hard that I just gave up.  When I went back to Malaysia in 2008, I saw another plastic nastar mold with a push stick to push the dough out, I quickly grabbed one.  And it worked!  It made my life so much easier with this new tool.

I spent the whole afternoon and only managed to produce 59 nastars, like shown above!  Like I said before, this was one cookie that took time to make and could be finished in on time.  My pineapple pastry and short-cut jam recipes can be found here. 

This pastry is soft and melt-in-the-mouth type. Some were not as pretty because after a while I just wouldn't be bother anymore.  :P  Great thing is it is just for home consumption.

Below is the picture of the mold I used to make this pineapple rolls.

Kuih Bangkit 2010

My kuih bangkit for 2010.  Same old recipe but using a new cookie cutter.  Too lazy to pinch pattern also.  I wonder how people got energy to make tons to sell?

Recipe can be found here.

Step by step pictures guide here.

Cornflakes Cookies without Flour Take 2

With the advice from youfei, I used honey instead of sugar to help it bind.  I added dried cranberries and walnuts to make it healthier but this is not a healthy cookies because it is packed with butter.  The butter made it really fragrant and when baked, it was really crispy.  This recipe is for those who seeks it, enjoy!  The sweetness is just nice, not overly sweet.

You can add any dried fruits, roasted nuts, chips for baking or anything you can think of  to make it uniquely yours.  Now I know what to make to bring it for Evy's classmates, the chocolate version would be ideal for little kids.  Without nuts, just raisin and cornflakes so all kids can enjoy it.  ^o^

Ingredients:

1 stick of unsalted butter (113g)

2 Tbsp. honey (you can add 1 Tbsp. of sugar for extra crunch)

3 cups packed cornflakes, lightly crushed

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

Method:

1.  Microwave butter and honey until melted, about 2 minutes.

2.  Add in the rest of the ingredients.  Stir to mix well.

3.  Spoon teaspoon full into mini paper cups and bake in preheated 350'F for 10 minutes.

4.  Let cool completely before serving.

~Yield about 40 mini baking cups.

Note:  I found it to be oily, perhaps you can add half cup or one more cup of cornflakes into the mixture.  

Chocolate Covered Cornflakes Cookies

From the boo boo of my previous post, I created this Chocolate Covered Cornflakes Cookies.   This is a yummy cookie.  Almost like my chocolate clusters yet a bit different.  Since some of the cornflakes cookies that I made early won't stick together, I have resorted to use chocolate to bind them together.  I couldn't waste a bowl of fragrant buttery and crispy cornflakes mix.  Chocolate is excellent especially in this cold weather (super cold winter here), I don't even have to store it in the refrigerator.

Closer view of the cookies.

My two trays of cornflake cookies, now finished, all in our tummies. :P

Ok,  back to the draft on this cornflake cookies, if I failed again, more chocolate one will be created.  Even though the chocolate ones are delicious, but this plain one has it own place in our hearts, even my girls who love chocolate wanted to eat this too, Evy said both were good.  To me, this is more suitable for warm weather as chocolate will melt if it's warm. 

Cornflakes Cookies without Flour

If you are my avid reader or someone who have tried my Chinese New Year cookie recipes, you should know I have been making cornflakes cookies for years. The one that uses flour and oil/butter. This year I wanted to try something different. Cornflakes cookies without flour and I am still experimenting with the recipe. Let me perfect it first before I share it with you because I am having problem for some to stick together. I ended out creating another version of this cookies, the chocolate covered cornflakes cookies which is equally delicious if not more.



Sharing pictures of this delicious treat for now. Recipe will be share once I perfected it. First, I need to go buy more cornflakes cereal.

Green Curry Paste Cookies

I had been thinking...whether to create new Chinese New Year cookie recipes for 2010. I came across Laksa Cookies last year but never tried it. 1) Living aboard good laksa paste was hard to come by. 2) I am too lazy to make my own paste (too much extra work just to make a cookie). And then it kind of strike me that I knew a good Thai green curry paste and in fact I had it at home. So, why not make a Green Curry Paste Cookie instead of the Laksa cookie for us who live overseas? Hence, this cookie was inspired by Laksa cookies and I was eager to try it out. So, sharing with you my tried and tested Green Curry Paste Cookies. This cookie is crunchy and very spicy! Definitely for adult who likes it spicy. And of course tasted like Thai green curry! 





Ingredients:

(A)
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup icing/powder sugar
(B)
50ml coconut cream
1/4 cup packed Thai green curry paste ( I used Mae Ploy)
(C)
1 + 3/4 cup all-purpose/plain flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Method:

1. Hand whisk (A) until blended.

2. Add (B) and hand whisk well.

3. Lastly add (C) and use a spatula to stir it together. When it almost come together, use your hand and knead into a dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

4. Roll the dough out and cut out with the desired shape of your cookie cutter. Place on parchment paper lined baking pan.

5. Bake in preheated 300'F oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

~Yield about 53 cookies with my rose shape cookie press cutter.


This is how the flower cookie cutter press looks like.  I forgot whether I bought it at Giant or Jusco supermarket in Malaysia.

Pandan Sesame Pizzelle Cookies

This is a new Chinese New Year cookie recipe I invented for 2010. I didn't know how to name it so I just name it as it because this cookie is baked in a pizzelle maker. It stays crispy after it's cold and it stays that way which I like because I didn't want to bake or toast it again. This was a recipe I accidentally created last year but it was a plain version. For this year, I added pandan paste and additional white sesame seeds. Since the majority of the flour used was rice flour, to me it tasted like rice cookie with the fragrant of coconut milk, sesame seeds and Screwpine leaf (pandan). Edda loved this and has been asking for it everyday.




Ingredients:

125gm rice flour
100gm cornflour

85gm all-purpose flour

250gm sugar

200ml coconut milk

3 eggs

1 tsp. pandan paste
1 Tbsp. black sesame seeds
1 Tbsp. white sesame seeds

Method:

1. In a big bowl, use a hand whisk and whisk coconut milk, eggs, pandan paste and sugar together. Then, add in all the flours and whisk again until blended. Lastly, add in black & white sesame seeds. Whisk and mix well to combine.

2. Heat Pizzelle press and brush with a little oil and pour about a tablespoon of batter in the middle of the press. Close the lid and bake until the light indicator tells you that it's done. Remove with a chopstick and let it cool completely before storing. [I used setting 4 on Cuisinart pizzelle press.]

Green Peas Cookies

This was one of those unplanned baking day. I was snacking the green peas with Edda which we bought two weeks ago and then "ding dong". Finished one packet of this green peas had been slow and I really wanted to get rid of it fast instead of seeing it in front of my computer all the times. And then while snacking some today, the idea of making it into cookies came into mind. I always loved green peas cookies and I know it will get eaten faster than just the green peas alone. I only left with 1 cup of green peas and thus my experiment began and luckily the cookies turned out well. While making this cookie, another idea came to mind, you will have to stay tune to see what new cookies I will invent in the future. ;)

This green peas cookie is melt-in-the-mouth soft but with the crunchy bites from the crushed green peas. This recipe yields 49 cookies for me. It is a sweet cookie, you can slightly cut down on the icing sugar if you prefer it less sweet.



Ingredients:

1 cup salted green peas (the one you bought at store)
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup icing sugar
125ml canola oil

Method:

1. In a food processor. Process the green peas until fine.

2. In a big bowl, add all the ingredients and mix well with your hand. A dough should formed, if not add a little more oil to bind.

3. Take some of the dough, roll with your hands into a log shape, pinch about 1/2 inch off and shape into round shape. Place on parchment paper lined baking sheet about 1/2 inch apart. Finish the rest of the dough.

4. Bake in preheated 350'F oven for 15 minutes. Place on wire rack to cool completely before keeping it in an air-tight container.

Crispy Pizzelle

I developed this crispy pizzelle by accident. I wanted to make kuih rose but the new batter that I tried didn't work for me. So, I had to improvise and use my pizzelle press in an attempt to save the batter. Hey, it works! It turned out very crispy, way better than the kuih kapit recipe I tried earlier. The kuih kapit recipe I tried earlier turned soft and I had to bake it in the oven again to make it crisp. But this batter is a keeper for me, it's crispy and stay that way. So, this is not the original pizzelle recipe (different flavor too), but a recipe I discovered by accident. A new recipe to try for people who own a pizzelle maker! Feedback would be appreciated. :-)

Ingredients:

125gm rice flour

100gm cornflour

85gm all-purpose flour

250gm sugar

200ml coconut milk

3 eggs

1 Tbsp. black sesame seeds
(would add 1 tsp. of vanilla extract next time)

Method:

1. In a big bowl, whisk coconut milk, eggs and sugar together. Then, add in all the flours and black sesame seeds. Whisk and blend to combine.

2. Heat Pizzelle press and brush with a little oil and pour about a tablespoon of batter in the middle of the press. Close the lid and bake until the light indicator tells you that it's done. Remove with a chopstick and let it cool completely before storing. You can shape it when hot if you like.

Gong Xi Fa Cai 2009

I want to wish all my readers a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous Lunar New Year!! May this Ox year brings us great happiness, better economy, full tummy and wealth.

Too lazy to make pineapple tart this year, so I only pick easy cookies to make. For easy access of my recipes, click the links below:

Cornflakes cookies
Crispy Pizzelle
Peanut cookies
Kuih bangkit
Almond flavored sugee cookies

London Almond Cookies

Cooling on rack.


Covered with white chocolate and sprinkles.


Covered with semi-sweet chocolate and almond bits.

I saw this cookies at Rainbows and it really got me interested. I have not seen this kind of CNY cookies before because I have been living in the States for a very long time. Thus, I only familiar with the traditional CNY cookies. Luckily, I know how to bake and can always make whatever cookies that strike my fancy. So, here is it, my first ever London Almond Cookies. As I was lazy, I melted the chocolate using the microwave and perhaps that's why my melted chocolate was fairly thick and it won't spread nicely like the one in Rainbow's blog. She said the skill of making this cookie is in melting the chocolate. Guess I can't really do a short-cut if I wanted my cookies to look like her. Tastewise, no different but for the presentation itself, huge difference. LOL! :P

Verdict:
This cookies is on the sweet end, as the white chocolate is sweet. However, this easily can be any children favorite, but very messy when given to toddlers.

My Golden Rats

Since I am making another batch of pineapple tarts. I decided to play with the dough and made these six little rats to welcome the Rat Year. I got this inspiration from aunty Yochana's blog. Let me tell you, these are not easy to shape at all and really have to kudo to those that have the patience to shape so many rats, or the rose shape pineapple tarts. This was not my best job as I had to do it fast as little one was crying (wanna sleep), thus some turned out looking more like pigs. LOL!

Baked Pork Floss Mini Puffs

I saw the mini peanut puffs at Lily's blog and it gave me an inspiration to make mini pork floss puffs. Reason being I have a bottle sitting in my pantry ready to be used. Since I have no plan on making any deep-fried CNY cookies this year, I decided to experiment with the basic pie crust recipe for my baked puffs. The resulted pastry is buttery, crispy and flaky!





The crust/pastry recipe adapted from allrecipes.com.

Ingredient:

Pork floss
1 beaten egg, for glaze

Pastry:
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup or 1 stick of cold butter, cut
3 Tbsp. ice cold water

Method:

1. To make the pastry: In a food processor, add in flour, salt and cut butter. Pulse until it resemble crumbs. Then, add in the cold water and pulse until a dough is formed and pull away from the food processor. Wrap the dough with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

2. Roll the dough thinly, cut it out with a round cookie cutter and place the round dough in a mini puff maker, place the pork floss filling inside, close it and take out the mini puff. Place on parchment paper and brush the top with egg glaze.

3. Bake in preheated 350'F oven for 20 minutes. Let cool completely on wire rack before storing.

~Yield about 40 mini puffs.


I used the mini puff maker above. It came in three sizes, the ones I have are medium and small sizes.

Note:
If you have the time, it's better to pleat the puffs by hands as half of my puffs split open when baking in the oven. But for own eating it's fine I guess. This mini puffs is so good it won't last long at all.

Kuih Bangkit II, 2008

I baked my 2nd batch of kuih bangkit this morning. Ahhhh, practice makes perfect (I also didn't use frozen coconut cream). I achieved the light, crispy and melt in the mouth texture that I like. I'm going to make my 3rd batch next week using the Pandan extract like I did earlier and let my brother brings it back to M'sia for my mom.


Playing with the different cookie cutters.


Are those pineapple and pine tree designs? What do you think?

For my kuih bangkit recipe, click here.
For my step-by-step-pictures guide, click here.