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The set of numbers are definitely not my vital statistics or codes to my safe box; it's the winning numbers of yesterday's Toto $6 million draw. Although i did not buy any Toto tickets for yesterday's draw, I prepared some 'huat kueh' (發糕) especially for my Wendy's mil and relatives for them to "FATT FATT" (發發). Not too sure whether any of them is a overnight millionaires? If not, we still have the Hong Bao Draw on 26 Feb 2010 ;-) Good luck everyone!

The 'huat kuehs' are nicely packed and given as a gift to my Wendy's mil! We went to their house on the 2nd day of CNY, and as usual, we enjoyed the sumptuous dinner prepared by her .

These lovely sweet hearts paper cases is one of my favourites and i had used them for my mini 'huat kuehs'.

To good health and wealth in 2010!

大年初一 (Lunar New Year)

Before the first day of lunar new year ends, I would like to wish all of you ....

花開富貴

旺旺來

春風得意

金銀財寶享不完

八星報喜, 喜臨門

甜甜蜜蜜

(My boy requested me to take picture of the cream crackers

& his hand together with the dessert ;-p)

Walnut snowballs

My production for CNY is running very low, it seem that energy has been sapped. Nevertheless, other than pineapple nastar tarts, i managed to bake some walnut snowballs. Actually, I have plans to bake so many cookies (at least 4 or 5 types), and tagged all my recipe books, but in end I only managed to bake 2. With CNY approaching in 3 days' time, I won't have any time to do any more baking.

So for now, here's Walnut snowballs to share with all my friends here. These little snowballs are very fragile, and it has the melt-in-your-mouth texture. I believe it will taste as good with other condiments like almonds or peanuts.

Fresh walnuts are easily available these days

Ingredients/ Method:

(Yields about 120 little snowballs)

(A)
227g butter
35g icing sugar
1 egg yolk

(B)
1 tbsp rum
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

(C)
350g plain flour, sieved
1/2 tsp baking powder
60g walnuts, chopped coarsely

(D)
icing sugar for dusting

1) Cream ingredients (A) until combined. Add in ingredient (B), beat until blended.
2) Fold in ingredient (C), mix to form a soft dough. Scale at 6gm each portion and shape into rounds.
3) Arrange balls on lined baking tray.
4) Bake in pre-heated oven at 150 deg C for 25 to 30 mins.
5) Cool cookies slightly, dust top with icing sugar.
6) Store in airtight jars.

Customised Hello Kitty stickers are so cute!!

Now, these "limited edition" cookies are packed and ready to be given to my family & relatives. Hopefully I can bake more next year in order to give to each and everyone of them ;-)

祝: 虎年行好運, 虎虎身威.

Catching up

..... with CNY baking. I know I've been slacked with blogging and baking for at least 3 weeks. This blog would probably be neglected for even longer period, but because I really like baking my own pineapple tarts that pushed me to start preparing the pineapple paste last week. The usual shredding, cooking, and rolling them into little balls.

Unlike years of making all covered up, i wanted to 'expose' them!! Open tart or nastar? A very ignorant me, I thought the nastar was using a knife to cut the pastry across many times. I tried that before and of course, the outcome was disastrous! Until recently i saw a post from Quinn that i realised that there is actually a tool to make nastar, and it cost only a few bucks. I did open tarts before, like 4 years ago, and i still have the moulds.

Ok, Sunday is a good time to start baking CNY cookies, and here it goes. But only nastar. Because there's not enough pineapple paste left for open tart. Maybe next year? There are probably about 190 pineapple nastar, and they are definitely prettier than my closed pineapple tarts ;-)

With some leftover dough, i added chocolate rice and 'concorted' my own Butterfly cookies.