Special Melting Moments

Today is a activities-filled day! At the repeated request of my boy, he wanted to take the train from our place to Changi Airport... nothing special if you are not staying in the farthest north of Singapore. I didn't really timed the journey, but I think it took at least 1.5 hours including the feeder service from my house to the MRT station. The return trip was another train and super long bus trip back from Changi Airport back home. Really a B.M.W. (bus.mrt.walk) day! Although it was pretty tiring, I really cherish and love these moments. Our conversation whilst in the sky train:-

Me: Are you happy today?

Zakris: I am happy!

Zakris: Mummy, are you happy?

Me: I'm happy because you are happy :-))

Zakris: Why?

Me: B'cos I love you <3<3<3>

I thought I would be too tired to do any baking today, but my energy level went up when I reached home. So here's another recipe which I'm trying from Agnes Chang's I Can Bake.... Special Melting Moments. Another easy and no-fuss (i.e. no mixer required) recipe which yield yummy & very delicate morsels. And these are made especially special because my darling helps with the mixing and piping :-))

Special Melting Moments

Recipe adapted from Agnes Chang's I Can Bake

Ingredients/ Method:

200g butter

80g icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 tsp salt

120g self-raising flour, sifted

120g corn flour, sifted

1. Cream butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence and salt using spatula till just combined.

2. Add self-raising flour, corn flour and mix into soft dough.

3. Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with a big star nozzle. Pipe onto a greased baking tray to form into the shape of rosette.

4. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170 deg C for 15 - 20 mins till light golden brown.

5. Cool on rack, sprinkle some icing sugar on top if desired.

6. Store in air tight tin before serving.

Note:

1. I reduced the icing sugar to 60g, sweetness is just nice for me.

2. As usual, I used my favourite pure vanilla bean paste.

3. I baked the cookies at 15 mins.

4. I sprinkled snow powder on some of the cookies but I think they look and taste better without them.

5. The next time I baked, I may want to add a bit of red cherries to make these cookies look brighter and cheery.

(Updated 23.1.2011: My relatives tried these but they don't fancy this cookies. General comment is that it's very salty. To omit salt or use unsalted butter the next time if I'm trying this recipe again.)

Melting Moments dusted with snow powder.

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favourite CNY Cookie, hosted by j3ss kitch3n.

Daisy Mocha Cookies

Another CNY cookies that I made today - Daisy Mocha Cookies, the first recipe that I tried from Agnes Chang "I Can Bake" cookbook. Personally I'm not a cookie-person, and usually I don't pay much attention to the cookie section of any cookbooks. If you were to notice, I hardly bake cookies but during this CNY season, it seems that I'm going to bake more cookies than ever ;-))

The recipe is very easy to prepare, and only require a mixing bowl and spatula.

Daisy Mocha Cookies
Recipe adapted from Agnes Chang "I Can Bake"

Ingredients/ Method:
(A) 250g butter
120g castor sugar
1 egg yolk
1 1/2tsp coffee paste

(B) 420g plain flour, sifted
60g chocolate rice

Decoration: Some chocolate chips

1) Put all ingredients A into a mixing bowl and cream till well combined.
2) Mix in ingredients B and form into a firm pliable dough.
3) Place the dough in between 2 layers of grease-proof paper and roll it to 3mm thick.
4) Cut with daisy-shaped cookie cutter and arrange the shapes on a greased baking tray. Decorate each centre with a chocolate chip.
5) Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for about 15 - 20 mins, till lightly brown. Leave to cool before storing.

Note:
1) I reduced the sugar to 100g and level of sweetness is just right for me.
2) I replaced the coffee paste with 1 1/2tsp hot water and 2tsp nescafe granules, as I didn't want to buy the coffee paste which I know I will hardly use.
3) Work on a small portion of dough at a time, and put the remaining dough in the fridge. It's much easier to work with the dough when they are just out of the fridge.

Verdict: The cookies are crunchy & crispy, the coffee taste is mild and not over-powering. For a non-cookie person, I don't mind eating them at all. T prefers this over the Sugi cookies.

I'm also submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favourite CNY Cookies hosted by j3ss kitch3n.

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.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last year, when i first 'rekindled' my baking hobby, i made a birthday cake for one of my best friends. Another best friend of mine got wind of it and called me to 'request' for the same thing, but at that time she was in Sydney doing her Master. She has since graduated and back to S'pore. I did plan to bake a cake for her this year, but since i knew that my another friend had ordered a cake for her, i decided to make something else for her. After thinking through, cookie seems to be a good choice as gift, and HHB's chocolate chip cookies immediately came into mind.

Actually the cookies were made whilst i was waiting for my carrot milk loaf to proof. The timing of bread making and cookie making is just right, and there's no time wasted ;-) For the vanilla extract, instead of the normal one, i used Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Bean Paste which i recently ordered from Elyn. I like this vanilla extract as it's a close choice to the very-expensive vanilla bean pod, and i can still see the specks of vanilla beans!

Ingredients/ Method:

115g butter, softened

115g caster sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

175g plain flour

175g plain or semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 180degC. Line baking trays with parchment paper.
2. With a wooden spoon or electric mixer, cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until the mixture turns pale and fluffy.
3. Beat in the egg gradually. Mix well after each addition. Add in vanilla extract, mix well.
4. Sift the flour over the mixture, fold in with wooden spoon or a spatula. Fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Drop tablespoonfuls of the cookie dough onto the prepared baking tray. Leave some space between the cookies to allow for spreading. Flatten each cookie dough slightly with the back of a fork, keeping the shape as even as possible.
6. Bake for 10 mins or until golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

The cookies stay crispy even until today, but i find it a tad too sweet. Will reduce the amount of sugar the next time i baked it.

My other CNY bakes

This is the first year that i made so many new year goodies, and also doing a new batch of pineapple tarts using the original recipe. Plus i also did ngoh hiang and huat kueh, both my mum's specialty and favourite.

My favourite pineapple tarts!

Almond cookies

Peanut cookies n Almond Milk cookies


Soft & fluffy Huat Kueh - my mum's favourite!

Huat Kueh

Ingredients/ Method:

500g gula melaka

500g coconut milk

500g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1. Cook gula melaka with about 150ml water until dissolve. Leave to cool before use.

2. Mix cooled gula melaka with coconut milk. Add in about 200ml water, and mix evenly.

3. Add in flour, baking powder and baking soda into gula melaka mixture, till well mixed. Mixture should look gluey.

4. Prepare steamer.

5. I use tart mould for my huat kueh. Pour mixture into tart mould lined with paper cup. For small huat kueh, steam for 15 mins. For medium size huat kueh, steam for 20 mins.

Ngoh Hiang - an inch away from my mum's standard

Ngoh Hiang

Ingredients/ Method:

1.5kg pork (五花肉)

375g fish meat

250g water chestnut

6 medium-sized mushroom

300g prawns

4 tbsp corn flour

12 pcs cream cracker

3 tbsp light soya sauce

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp five spice powder

pepper - to taste

few stalks of spring onion & chinese parsley

1 pcs beancurd sheet

1. Peel and chop water chestnut into small cubes.

2. Soak mushroom in hotwater for 20 mins. Remove the stalk. Cut the mushroom into small cubes.

3. Devine the prawns and chop the prawns into very small pieces.

4. Pound the cream cracker until powder form.

5. Cut spring onion and chinese parsley into small pieces.

6. Add all ingredients evenly and mixture ready to be rolled onto beancurd sheet. Amount of meat depends on your own preference.

7. Steam the rolled ngoh hiang for 10-15 mins. Cooled before frying, and ready to be served.

Note:

Steamed ngoh hiang can be stored in freezer for 1 month before consumption.