YogiLatte

This is not a frequently seen CNY cookie. I'm not even sure it entirely qualifies but hey CNY is all about eating and delighting your visitors with angpows, tea and snacks, so I guess anything small, dainty, baked, kept in a plastic container with a red top works.

I first had a taste of these cookies few years ago at my mother-in-laws' place. They were teeny but packed a punch in taste as the sharp cheese hits the taste buds followed by the melt-in-the-mouth sensation. Entirely addictive.


I love it that they can be rolled out and cut into shapes easily. The cookies hold the shapes well and only expanded a slight bit upon baking. They also bake up really fast, 8 minutes then flip the tray and another 8 minutes. I made 2.5 batches of the recipe and filled up 5 bottles of around 70 cookies per bottle.


Recipe (adapted from cornercafe.wordpress.com)

Ingredients:
170g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
160g sugar
2 eggs, separated
400g tapioca flour
3 pandan leaves
100g grated parmesan cheese
30g coconut milk powder

Steps:
1. Fry the tapioca flour with cleaned and dry pandan leaves until the flour is dry and very light. Be careful not to let the flour turn charred. I had some that turned a little cream colored when cooked too long.
2. Let the flour cool and sift to get 310g after sifting. (you can start with less than 400g. I used more as mine flew all over the place and out of the pan so I ended up with just the sufficient amount of sifted flour needed)
3. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and mix in until incorporated.
4. Mix the flour, cheese and coconut milk powder in a separate bowl and stir to mix well.
5. With the mixer at low speed, add the flour mixture gradually. At this stage, the mixture will look crumbly.
6. Add the egg white and mix well. I removed the beater and fold in the remaining bits that was not mixed in well together.
7. Chill in fridge for 15 minutes, it will be easier to roll and cut.
8. I like to roll fist-sized dough between 2 parchment layer, then cut out the shapes and dropped them on a lined tray.
9. Bake in pre-heated oven, top-bottom-fan mode 150C for 16 minutes. Turn the tray around at 8 minutes. They will remain beautifully pale with visible yellow shreds of cheese.
10. Cool completely before keeping them in air tight containers.


Submitting this to:
"Bake Along", hosted by Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, Lena from Frozen Wings and Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids

d. 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

e. 1 tsp sea salt

f. 1/2 tsp baking soda

g. 117g unsalted butter, room temp

h. 100g brown sugar

i. 50g fine grained white sugar

j. 150g molasses (I used dark molasses)

k. 2 small eggs, cold

l. 1 tsp vanilla extract

Steps:

1. Combine ingredients a - f and sift.
2. Using the paddle attachment, cream butter, brown & white sugar on high speed until pale & fluffy.
3. Add molasses and cream for another 2 minutes.
4. On medium speed, beat in eggs and vanilla.
5. On low speed, add flour mixture until fully combined. Dough will be soft and mallable but not sticky nor crumbly.
6. Separate dough into 2 portions, cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. 

When ready to bake:

1. Preheat oven to 175g, fan mode.

2. Roll out 1 portion of the dough onto a floured tabletop. Use only a light layer of flour on the tabletop and try not to get it on the top surface of the dough. 

3. Cut out shape of your choice, peel shaped doughs from surface and place it onto a lined baking tray.

4. Bake for 13 minutes, turning the pan around 7min into the bake. 

This is my first attempt at making decorated cookies with fondant. It's for a little girl's gift to her classmates, therefore the theme of girl characters. I'm never good with decor, preferring to perfect the cake's taste and texture, playing around with fillings and frosting to enhance the flavors, relying on premises of rustic (aka home-style and far from store-bought) for decor.

I tried one time with royal icing, mixing a thick and thin icing, flooding the cookie, piping shapes and OMG, what a nightmare for me and my clumsy fingers. Flooded area looks grainy, faces are definitely not round and piped eyes look more halloweeny drippy than sweety big.

16 cookies later, I g.a.v.e. u.p.

Packed everything and have my nieces and nephews have a go at it, with an impromptu cookie decor session that they thoroughly enjoyed and were able to give as little presents to their kindergarden classmates.

Back to my cookies, I've an order to deliver...so once again, Mr Google and it's family of many helpful, passionate bakers came to my rescue. There were plenty of techniques videos, cookie tips and inspirational pictures, both with royal icing and fondant. I conclude that I can probably work with fondant after having done an Angry Bird fondant cake before.

On to the adventure I went, baking the cookies a night before and printing lots of little girl pictures for reference. I referenced the cookies from Sweetapolita, my favourite site for decor ideas, she's uber inspirational. The cookies tasted really great. The shapes stayed and I added a fair bit of orange zest, giving it a fruity essence as you crunch into it. The only little bit of challenge was in determining the thickness of cookie and timing needed to ensure its crunchy but not burnt. I had batches that look nicely baked but it was not as crispy as a sugar cookie pop needs to be as it has to stay on the sticks. Finally determined that a nice timing was 25 minutes for my cookies which will have a slight browning at the edges but nicely crisp and tasty upon cooling. Perfect for a cookie pop!


Cookie Recipe: (source)
Ingredients (makes around 25 to 27 large round cookies)
227g unsalted butter, cold and cubed
200g fine white sugar
1 large egg, cold
375g plain flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt (sifted together)
2 teaspoon vanilla essence
zest from 2 mid size oranges

Steps:
1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy with the paddle attachment.
2. Beat in the cold egg.
3. On mid speed, add the flour and salt and let it mix until just combined.
4. Add vanilla essence and orange zest and let it incorporate.
5. Take 1/2 the dough and  mix into a ball on a piece of parchment paper. Cover with another layer of parchment paper and roll it out to the thickness desired. Do the same with the rest of the dough. Refrigerate for at least 45 minutes.
6. Remove 1 tray at a time and cut out cookie shapes, lay on baking tray lined with paper. Place them back into the fridge and let it firm up for another 30 minutes.
7. Once the cookie shapes are chilled, gently insert the stick up to the middle of the cookies. At this point, place them into the freezer and start the oven at 160C.
8. 15 minutes later, slide the cookies straight from freezer into the oven, bake for 13minutes, flip the tray and baker another 12 minutes. Edges should be slightly brown, top should still be beige in colour whilst the bottom of cookie would be light brown.
9. Remove from oven and let it stay on the tray to cool before removing. It is still a little soft when straight out from the oven so removing it from the tray may break them.
10. Cool completely before starting the decor.


To decorate the cookies, let them cool completely and ensure it's dry and crispy. Colour the fondant in desired colours by kneading them with the colours until well blended. Place coloured fondant under wrap at all time to prevent drying out. Take out bits of fondant as needed, roll them out on a surface dusted with icing sugar and cut shapes out. Dab a teeny weeny bit of water of the back of the fondant and adhere them to the cookie.

Let cookie and fondant dry totally before packing them into cute little bags as gifts!

Cornflake cookies seem to typically make only 2 appearances a year -  amongst the stacks of red-top cookie containers during Chinese New Year and in cute little green mini cupcake liners during Hari Raya. Other than these 2 festive seasons, they are rarely if ever seen, at least by me who loves cereal and who loves cookies. Pairing the 2 together in a buttery, melt-in-your mouth cookie dough and baked to a crisp seems a natural option for the rest of the year where you cannot get them anywhere. It's anyway, a really easy, yummy, quick bake. My nieces and nephews' repeated requests for these cookies prove their buttery worth indeed! Best with a cuppa tea too.

In our trip to Austria in July this year, one of our favourite snacks on the road was the yeasted crackers from Spar. It's from their range of Spar Premium house brand products and comes in a variety of flavors. I recalled that there's one with cheddar and sunflower seeds. Absolutely crunchy, savory and filling for a snack in between meals.

So when I saw the Bread Baking Buddy's September theme on crunchy crackers, I set out to try my hands on it too! Its a relatively quick process, a quick mix and knead in less than 30 minutes, then resting period of 90 minutes, roll out for 10 minutes and rest another 30 minutes, so total handling time is only 40 minutes. I didn't manage to roll out the dough totally even, so there were some parts that were really crispy and crunchy and some parts that were still slightly doughy but still crisp to the bite. No matter which thickness, me and Hub love it. It might not be as savory as Spar's but it was just as addictive and definitely healthier with no preservatives, plus they are packed with nutrient-rich seeds and nuts. Am gonna try the next bake of crackers with herbs and spices!

Ingredients:
100g Whole Wheat Flour
170g All Purpose Flour (I ran out of whole wheat flour so I used AP flour and more almond meal)
50g Almond Meal
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon instant dry yeast
2 tablespoon sugar (I used light brown sugar)
200ml warm water
2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds and flax seeds
Topping - 100g of walnuts, pumpkin seeds and flax seeds. Black pepper. (I only had roasted pumpkin seeds which is already slightly salted so omitted the salt for topping)

1.In a large bowl, combine the flours, almond meal and salt together. Form a well in the middle and add the sugar and yeast, then 200ml warm water. Let it sit for 10 minutes.
2. Add the 2 tablespoons seeds and form into a dough. Knead until it comes together into a smooth and relatively dry ball. It was pretty sticky to begin with, so I added another 1 tablespoon of flour.
3. Cover and let it rest for 90 minutes. My dough rose quite a bit, probably 1.5x the starting size.
4. Divide into 2 parts and roll each dough into a very thin layer. Sprinkle some water on the dough and spread the topping all around the dough. Press the topping into the dough.
5. Let it rest for 30 minutes and bake at 180C for 20 minutes. I used 2 trays and therefore used the oven fan mode, it turned out to be too hot and I had to lower the temperature to 160C and tent the top tier after 10 minutes.
6. Once the crackers are nicely browned, turn off the oven and let it cool inside the oven for at least 15 minutes. Remove and cool completely before storing in an air tight container.


Submitting this to Bread Baking Buddies, Yeastspotting and Bake Your Own Bread

Recipe (Source)
a. 455g Plain Flour
b. 2 tsp cinnamon
c. 2 tsp ground ginger
d. 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
e. 1 tsp sea salt
f. 1/2 tsp baking soda
g. 117g unsalted butter, room temp
h. 100g brown sugar
i. 50g fine grained white sugar
j. 150g molasses (I used dark molasses)
k. 2 small eggs, cold (or 1 very large egg, mine is 55g per egg)
l. 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Combine ingredients a - f and sift.
2. Using the paddle attachment, cream butter, brown & white sugar on high speed until pale & fluffy.
3. Add molasses and cream for another 2 minutes.
4. On medium speed, beat in eggs and vanilla.
5. On low speed, add flour mixture until fully combined. Dough will be soft and mallable but not sticky nor crumbly.
6. Separate dough into 2 portions, cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

When ready to bake:

1. Preheat oven to 175g.
2. Roll out 1 portion of the dough onto a floured tabletop. Use only a light layer of flour on the tabletop and try not to get it on the top surface of the dough.
3. Cut out shape of your choice, peel shaped doughs from surface and place it onto a lined baking tray. (Alternatively, I rolled out random patches of dough, place entire sheet onto tray, cut the shape and remove the excess. This way, it prevents the dough from breaking (especially the heads!) and getting mishapen when removing from tabletop onto tray) See pictures:

5. Cool completely before icing it. 

3 cups icing sugar

Add lemon juice to egg white and beat slightly. With the mixer on high speed, add sugar 1 cup at a time. Beat until stiff peaks.
If texture is too grainy or stiff, add a little water to thin it. If texture is too runny, add more icing sugar and beat further.
Cover and use quickly as it will dry up if exposed to air.

I was contemplating whether to bake a brownie or cookies one Sat afternoon. My last brownie bake was years ago since I'm not a big fan but recently have been seeing and tempted by recipes of salted caramel brownie, chocolate fudge brownie, marbled brownie etc. On the other hand, I wanted crisp crusts and chocolate chunks ala cookie style.

So...well, this is the result - confused brownie in a cookie shape. It is a slightly dense cookie; there's a cakey texture in the interior and the chocolate chunks did add some ooze-worthiness but what I really like is the crusty surface that gives way not to crumbs, bite nor dryness but to a surprise cake within.

However, I sub butter for avocado, in an attempt to go the slightly less sinful route! It does lack the fragrance of butter and I suspect the brownie would have a more fudgy and moist texture if it was butter. So sub away if you wish but if you are slim and healthy, do go ahead and indulge in a full butter brownie cookie!

Recipe, adapted from here:

Ingredients:
500g dark chocolate, in small chunks (I used cadbury gold 70% cocoa and Ghirardelli 60% cocoa)
1/2 cup smashed ripe avocado (or unsalted butter)
4 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup AP flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Fleur de Sel

Oven temp : 180C

1. Melt 300g chocolate over double boiler
2. Stir in the avocado. If using butter, melt butter together with chocolate in #1.
3. Stir eggs, vanilla, and sugar together and mix with chocolate avocado mixture
4. Fold in the flour and baking powder to combine and stir in the rest of the chocolate chunks
5. Drop tablespoons of batter onto lined baking trays and sprinkle with fleur de sel
6. Bake for 12 minutes until crisp crusts are formed but do not overbake or the brownie within will dry out.


Enjoy!