Almond Puff Fingers ???

These are called Almond puff pastry if you ever see them in Baker�s Cottage (a Msian bakery chain). I prefer calling them almond puff fingers, as they are finger sized.

This is a copycat version of those found in Baker�s Cottage. Not as buttery as theirs, as mine uses frozen store bought puff pastry. More convenient!!! Sacrificing on flavour.... 'sigh'

I tried this 2 times, doing it better the 2nd time around. First time, the top was a bit chewy because I used pure egg white and Hub said it�s not sweet enough. 2nd time, I mixed the egg white with sugar and it tasted similar with the ones bought from BC.. 2 thumbs up from Hub.

1 pack puff pastry
2 Tbsp egg white
2 Tbsp fine sugar (not icing sugar)
80gm almond flakes
2 Tbsp fine sugar

Method:
1. Roll out pastry in between 2 sheets of plastic to thickness of 5mm.
2. Mix egg white with 2 Tbsp sugar.
3. Peel upper sheet of plastic and spread egg white mixture evenly on top of pastry.
4. Sprinkle almond flakes all over pastry.
5. Replace top sheet of plastic and lightly roll to press almonds onto pastry.
6. Remove upper plastic sheet and sprinkle remaining sugar over almonds.
7. Put pastry into the freezer for half an hour to set the topping.
8. Preheat oven to 180C(fan)/200C.
9. Cut pastry into finger sized pieces. ( I cut up 40 pcs of them ) Place them onto a baking sheet. No need to grease baking sheet.
10. Bake for 12 mins on 180C and 30 mins on 140C.

*****
Period of baking varies depending on ovens. The first bake of 180C should end when the almonds achieve a very light golden colour and the pastry is well risen. 2nd bake of 140C is to make it crunchy. You may need to bake it longer if it�s still not crunchy enough. But raising it to 150C may produce a slightly browner colour. Do what you may think is suitable for your preference of colour.



Almond flakes sprinkled onto rolled out pastry that had been applied with egg white and sugar


Sprinkle on more sugar...


Cut them up into finger sized pieces


All puffed up and ready to be munched!!!

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

180C baked 15 mins

I first made this based on Van Houten�s chocolate chip wrapper when I was 17� My friends nicknamed my cookies Famous Wendy. Well, they said, it tasted similiar with Famous Amos.

Last year I had to made huge amounts for a fund raising event.. So, I experimented with ways to skimp on the ingredients, and to use up ingredients per batch by the packaging.. but yet.. making a delicious cookie.. It doesn't taste that similar anymore.. but still, good..

So, here�s my much skimped recipe. It spreads a little

250gm butter
330 gm brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
250gm choc chip
500gm flour
2 tsp baking powder

And here�s one that I changed a bit again for own consumption.. as I found the original recipe (Van Houten's) a bit too oily..and this recipe doesn't spread much

250gm butter
200 gm brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
500gm chocolate chips
100gm coarsely chopped almonds
400gm flour
2 tsp baking powder.

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugar together.
2. Add in egg, vanilla, and salt and mix until well combined. This is the wet mixture.
3. Sift flour and baking powder together. Mix with choco chips and almonds. This is the dry mixture.
4. Put the dry mixed ingredients into the wet mixture and combine well.
5. Scoop 1 tsp of cookie dough onto baking sheet, leaving some space in between each cookie.
6. Bake at 180C for 15mins (for browner finish, but more fragrant) or 170C for 16 mins for a lighter colour.

******

I like mine having a rugged surface rather than a smooth round patty.. So, I just spoon them.

These fair ones are baked 170C for 16 mins

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No Bake Strawberry Yoghurt Tart ?????

Actually I planned to make Yoghurt Cheesecake�. a Secret recipe copycat.. But I didn�t get hold of cream cheese and my yoghurt�s coming to it�s use by date.. And I got a lot of fresh strawberries in the fridge (just went to Camerons the week before, Strawberries were on sale, RM20 /2kg @ 4 big boxes).

So, this came as a sudden idea. I planned to use digestive biscuits for this, but the minimart nearby didn�t have it. So, I changed plans to use Oreo and Weetameal instead.


No Bake Strawberry Yoghurt Tart Recipe

Ingredients:

Weetameal Crust
130gm Jacob�s Weetameal (1 small pack)
2 Tbsp honey
65 gm melted butter

Oreo Crust
150gm Oreo (1 tube)
50 gm melted butter

Yoghurt Filling
500gm / 2 cups good creamy strawberry yoghurt
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp sugar
1 � Tbsp gelatin
2 Tbsp water

Topping
2 cups of strawberries (cut into halves)
1 cup water
2 Tbsp sugar
� Tbsp gelatin

Method:
1. Weetameal crust: Blend biscuits in a food processor, mix in honey and melted butter. Mix well.
2. Oreo crust: Blend whole cookies in a food processor and mix in melted butter. Mix well.
3. Press crumbs into a deep dish or tart foils. Freeze.
4. While tart cases are freezing, prepare filling. Bloom gelatin in water. Boil milk and sugar. Pour onto bloomed gelatin. Stir until gelatin is totally dissolved. Leave to cool down.
5. Pour yoghurt into milk, mix well. Ladle yoghurt mixture into chilled tart cases.
6. Place tarts into the fridge again to set and then prepare topping.
7. Boil water and sugar, remove from heat and sprinkle in gelatin. Stir to dissolve. Leave to cool until syrupy consistency.
8. When yoghurt filling has set, arrange strawberries on top of filling and spoon in a 5mm layer of gelatin mixture.
9. Chill in fridge until everything is set.




The tarts I made, 2 big and 2 small




Weetameal crust






Weetameal crust cut up







Oreo crust







Oreo crust cut up



****

I personally prefer Oreo crust

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Barazek (Middle Eastern Pistachio Sesame Cookies)

My hubby's aunt brought these wonderful cookies back from Australia, and I fell in love with it.
And I found out that they were middle eastern cookies.



I found a recipe on the internet with pictures that matched what I ate because I saw many barazek pictures that didn't look like what I ate.



Ingredients
3 cups sesame seeds
1/2 cups honey

1 1/4 cup ghee (clarified butter)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 cups flour
2 cups sugee (semolina)
1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup chopped pistachios

Method:

Topping
Mix the sesame seeds and honey.

The dough
Cream ghee, eggs, sugar and salt.
Sift in flour, sugee and baking powder.
Mix well.

Assembly
1. Take 1/2 tbsp dough.


2. Drop dough onto chopped pistachios that has been placed on a flat plate.Lightly press dough onto pistachios.

3. With the dough sticking on the back of the spoon, drop the dough pistachio nut side up onto the sesame honey mixture.Lightly press the dough

4. Spoon out dough with generous amount of sesame sticking at the bottom.

5. Place dough sesame side up pistachio side down onto baking tray. Lightly press them flat.

6. Bake at 170C for 15 minutes

7. Cool on baking tray for 2 minutes before transfering to wire rack to fully cool down.

Yummy yummy!!

***

I made this for Chinese New Year. Hub's side of family loved this, my side who were not sesame fans... were just so so about this.

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Egg Tarts ??

This a cookie crust egg tart..not puff pastry like with layers, neither is it firm or crunchy.. It's a rather fragile egg tart. I'd recommend eating this with a spoon.

I've tasted something like this from Bee's Bakery in USJ Taipan, they call it Hong Kong egg tart.

My colleagues love this. My family loves this too... Maybe you'll like it too...

Please don't substitute this with margarine or "Buttercup" or "Farm Cows".. It will not taste the same, definately.

Egg Tart Recipe

Pastry
250g plain flour

2 tbsp castor sugar

1 egg yolk

150g butter,

Filling

150g castor sugar

150ml hot water

250ml milk(1 small pack of milk)

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

3 large eggs

1 egg white (From the same egg where the yolk was used in the crust)

Method

1. Cream the butter with the egg yolk and sugar.
2. Add in flour. Mix well. (If the dough is sticky for you , well maybe your yolks are larger than mine, add in extra flour by the teaspoon until it no longer feels sticky, but got a slight flour feel to it, but not too much though, as it will toughen the crust. the borderline of stickiness and dry feel is very thin.. so, add extra flour with caution)
3. Roll out pastry in between two sheets of plastic into thickness of about 4mm. Stamp out 9�10cm circles of pastry with a pastry cutter.
4. Lightly press the pastry circles into foil tart cases(I�m lazy to wash up the tart tins).
5. Refrigerate the lined foil cases for 2 hours (I left them overnight)
6. Melt the sugar in hot water, add milk, salt, vanilla essence. Beat all the eggs lightly and mix in all together.
7. Sieve egg mixture and pour into the cold tart crust.
8. Bake at 180C (fan)/200C for 25 minutes.

**

I used disposable foil tart cases... this pastry is rather difficult to be removed from the regular tart moulds. They cost me RM6 .25 for 125 pcs, bought from Bake with Yen.

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Peanut Cookies ???

Not so traditional peanut cookies


When I was a small kid, I love the peanut cookies that my aunts (maternal side) made. Every Chinese New Year, my brothers will look forward to their kuih kapit, but I am waiting for the peanut cookies instead.

The traditional recipe calls for lard, but thinking of my mother who has hypertension, better not. Changed the tasty unhealthy fat to corn oil. So, it's not-so traditional already. It's not as soft, but still it's soft enough to be scarred and chipped by fingernails. So better be careful when transfering them. Many scarred ones went into my mouth and my hubby's mouth... It still melts in the mouth.

Yummy yummy! This is my first attempt..hehe.

Peanut Cookies

Ingredients:
1 kg flour
1 kg peanuts (the raw weight, then roast it, deskin and ground til fine)
1 kg of fine sugar (not icing sugar, can use caster sugar or fine granulated sugar)
400 ml corn oil (might need more depending on oil level of peanuts used)

1 egg (beaten)
1/2 cup peanut halves for deco

Method:
1. Mix flour, sugar and peanuts until well blended together.
2. Pour in the oil and knead until the oil is well incorporated. Add more oil if dough is dry.*
3. Take a small amount of peanut dough onto palm and roll into a small ball the size of a marble.
4. Place the peanut ball onto a baking tray and place a peanut half onto it. Lightly press the peanut half.

*If you reduced the sugar, you will need more oil to bind the dough together
*If you used icing sugar, the effect will be SWEETER




5. By using a chinese calligraphy brush (mopit), glaze the peanut ball with a beaten egg.



6. Bake at 180C for 12 minutes or until the egg glaze turns golden.







Tada!!! Nice and golden. Hubby can't wait to pop one into his mouth!

I made about 550 pcs of peanut cookies with this amount of ingredients. Cost? Around RM11 only not inclusive of electricity of course.. Cheap hoh!! But darn lot of work, especially preparing the peanuts:- roasting, deskinning, airing and grinding!! One afternoon for the peanuts, one for the cookie. 2 afternoons to make 550 pcs of peanut cookies. Quite time consuming actually, but if one has the time, can save a lot of money instead of buying them at RM15-20 for 100 pcs.

I'm making this again next weekend... cos I don't think what I made today is enough to be shared among my relatives.


Note: (26/12/2011)
The dough will become dry if you do these 2 things
1. Reduce the sugar
2. Use store bought roasted peanut nibs.

So, roast your own peanuts (those with skin) and do not reduce the sugar. If you do reduce the sugar you need more oil to bind the dough. So choose, oil or sugar, up to you to keep the dough intact.


Note: 24/1/2012
If you prefer floury, fine peanut cookies, mill the peanuts together with the flour, this way your peanuts will be as fine as flour. Then use icing sugar, but reduce it to about 750gm (icing sugar taste sweeter), then you will need more oil, probably, 500ml or more. Gauge it as you form the dough.
If you want a really melty peanut cookie, that doesn't need any effort to eat, use LARD (pig fat), or GHEE.
This cookie is crumbly, but not really that fragile. If you prefer yours with some mouthfeel, not too fine, then just follow the recipe exactly, use caster/fine sugar and stick to the amount. Somehow I find too fine peanut cookies stick to my throat and I prefer this version is isn't too fine, tooooooo melty. Up to you :)

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Tangy Melting Hearts ???

Chinese New Year coming soon....

I had this idea of creating a melt in the mouth cookie with a strong citrus taste.

This is the first attempt. I like them a lot..... but my hubby who doesn't like sour stuff find them not so appealing. He asked me to substitute the taste, but retain the texture.

So, any suggestions? Maybe orange... hmmm....

Tangy Melting Hearts Recipe

125gm soft margerine, softened
100 gm icing sugar, sifted
1 pinch salt

Cream the above together
This is (A)

half egg, beaten
juice from 1 lime (limau nipis)
juice from 1/2 lemon
grated zest from 1 lime, 1/2 lemon

Combine and put into (A). Mix well and this becomes (B)

Sift 150gm corn starch, 50gm superfine flour, 1 tbsp custard powder and combine with (B) until smooth.

Pipe out heart shapes and decorate with a sugar heart in the centre.
Bake in a preheated oven 180C for 7 minutes.

Practice makes the heart shapes better, tho not perfect

All ready for the oven.

Try not to brown the cookie, and if the cookie base is not totally dry from the baking and cooling, place cookies overturned in a flat plate , microwave on medium for 1 minute or 2. U'll get crispy cookies after that.

The centre piece was nice and not browned, I baked it for 6 minutes, and microwaved on med for 1 min. The other 8 surrounding the fair one was baked for 7 mnutes.

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