Chocolate Coated Butter Biscuits for the Neighbours

My daughters wanted to distribute biscuits to the neighbours for Christmas, so I baked some heart shape butter biscuits for that purpose.

Since I have some cooking chocolate at home, I dipped half of the biscuit in melted chocolate as decoration and also stuck ice cream sticks in to a couple of them (it was difficult to stick sticks into the biscuits as they were going soft very quickly even though I'd refrigerated the dough to harden it) which the girls then called them lollipop biscuits.

♥Butter Biscuit ♥
adapted from Baking by James Peterson

You'll need :

2 3/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
268g butter
1 cup castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk

Method :

1) Mix the flour, baking powder & salt in a bowl.
2) Cream the butter with sugar and vanilla until fluffy.
3) Beat in the egg and egg yolk.
4) Sift the flour mixture over the butter mixture. Combine with a wooden spoon until it's well combined and there's no loose flour.
5) Roll the dough between baking paper into a rectangle about 1/8 or 1/4 inch thick. Refrigerate until cold.
6) When dough is cold, cut it into desired shapes. Put the biscuit on baking paper in a tray and refrigerate.
7) Preheat oven to 325F (160C).
8) Bake biscuit for 15 to 20mins until very pale brown.
9) Let cool until set then transfer to wire rack.

To coat the biscuit with chocolate:

1) Heat a pot of water on low heat.
2) Cut desired amount of chocolate into pieces and place in a bowl.
3) Put the bowl of chocolate into the pot of simmering water, and melt the chocolate
. 4) Dip the cool biscuit (whole or partially) into the melted chocolate and leave the biscuit on wire rack or baking paper to allow the chocolate to harden before storing.
The girls help to distribute the chocolate biscuits to the kids around the neighbourhood, and kept the 'lollipop biscuits for themselves.

A Stack of Pancakes

I have always made my pancakes using estimated measurement and ingredients. I.e. some flour, some milk, some sugar, an egg or two, some water. When I cooked them, I used a little bit of oil or butter. The results? Sometimes they turned out ok, sometimes they turned out not bad, i.e. not consistent.

Then I came across this recipe from Annie Bell Gorgeous Cakes. I tried it once, and boy, now, I use it all the time.

These pancakes are my daughters' favourite breakfast (for now), but I could only make them when there's no morning rush, i.e. where I could spend time in the kitchen cooking them.

♥Pancakes♥
adapted from Annie Bell Gorgeous Cakes
(makes 16~18 pancakes)

You'll need :

250g plain flour
castor sugar
pinch of sea salt
3 eggs and 2 egg yolks
600ml full cream milk
40g unsalted butter, melted

Method : (I use the blender since it's easier, but you can also do the same by hand)

1) Place all ingredients except for the butter in a blender and whizz until smooth (make sure no flour is clining on the side of bottom of the blender)
2) Leave the batter to stand for 30mins (I'd not actually have time to let it stand, since 2 hungry faces are always peeping into the kitchen to check when the pancakes are ready), then stir in the melted butter.
3) Heat a non stick frying pan the size you want the pancakes to be (mine is about 18cm).
4) Ladle in just enough batter to coat the base (no need to oil the pan), tipping it to allow it to run evenly over the surface.
5) Cook for 30seconds on 1 side, then flip over and cook another 30seconds on the other side or until both sides are cooked, then slip it onto a plate.
6) Cook the remainder likewise.
(When I have cooked enough pancakes for the whole family, I'll put the rest of the batter into an airtight container and refrigerate it. Then the following morning, we can have pancakes again.)

My eldest likes hers with grated parmessan, and my younger one likes to dip hers into a plate of sugar. Yums! That's what they say.

Soy Sauce Chicken 卤鸡

I bought a free range chicken on the weekend, and planned to cook the chicken whole. Hubs and the girls aren't a great fan of steam chicken, so I thought I'll try to make soy sauce chicken (卤鸡) instead.

I adapted the recipe from Rasa Malaysia, changing it based on what I have in the kitchen, and what I think would suit our taste more.

♥Recipe for Soy Sauce Chicken 卤鸡♥
Adapted from Rasa Malaysia.

You'll need :

For the ginger dipping sauce
2 inch ginger
2 cloves of garlic
sugar and salt to taste
1tsb oil

For the chicken
1 whole chicken 600g ~ 800g (my chicken was 600g, but I think I have enough sauce to cook a bigger chicken)
2-inch ginger (skin peeled and lightly pounded)
3 whole garlic (wash and lightly pounded)
1 stalk spring onion
2 cinnamon stick
1 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
1 tbs Chinese wine
3 dashes white pepper powder
1/4 tsp of five spice powder
120g rock sugar
4 cups water

Method:

For the dipping sauce
1) Skin ginger and garlic
2) Blend or pound ginger and half of the garlic until fine, place in a heat prove bowl
3) Finely chop the other half of garlic
4) Heat oil in small pan and fry the finely chop garlic until fragrant
5) Pour heated garlic oil over blended ginger and garlic, add salt (~ 1/2 tsp) and sugar (~ 2tsp) according to taste, stir mixture until well combined

For the chicken
1) Clean the chicken and pat dry
2) Add all ingredients (except the chicken) into a deep pot and bring it to boil on high heat for 15 minutes.
3) Add the chicken into the pot
4) and boil over high heat for about 10 minutes.
5) Lower the heat to simmer for about 30 minutes.
6) Turn off the heat and let the chicken steeped in the soy sauce mixture for an hour to soak in the flavor
7) Unless your pot is deep enough for the sauce to cover the chicken entirely, turn the chicken during 4), 5) & 6) a couple of times so that the soy sauce will coat the chicken evenly.
8 ) Dish out the chicken and chop into pieces and serve with the dipping sauce as well as the thick soy gravy separately.

The chicken has a nice brown sheen and was tasty and fragrant.

Note : For the left over sauce, you can keep it and make soy sauce egg (滷蛋) or soy sauce tofu (滷豆腐). i.e. Simmer the shelled hard boiled egg and tofu (choose the hard tofu) in the sauce for 15mins, and serve. The sauce becomes thicker and saltier with each simmering, so use just take enough to make whatever you wanted, and (do not simmer and) keep the rest for future use.

Salt & Sesame Biscuits

*sweep away the cobwebs on this site*

Gosh, I’d been neglecting my blogs. Being busy is one, feeling sluggish is another one. Every night, when I get the kids ready for bed, I too feel like hitting the sack together with them. I'm still trying to get used to the school routine, and all the homework coaching.

I really have to buck up. Back to a recipe I wanted to share, another savoury biscuit.

When I saw this recipe, I thought I had to try it. Sesame + savoury, should be good. I have this thing about sesame, especially black sesame. So far I’d already posted 2 recipes using black sesame as the main ingredient, and then this one, it shows you how much I like black sesame.

♥Recipe for Salt & Sesame Biscuits♥
Adapted from 在家亲手烤饼干by中村佳瑞子
Make 20 pieces

You'll need : 
50g unsalted butter (leave butter out until it gets to room temparature, i.e. soft to the touch)
1/2 tsp salt (recipe calls for 3/4 tsp but it was a bit on the salty side, so I think 1/2 should be better)
2 tbs milk
20g black sesame
100g low protein or cake flour

Method : 

1. Preheat oven to 180C

2. Mix butter with soft and beat until soft and fluffy. (I used a hand whisk)

3. Whisk in the milk a little at a time until well corporated.

4. Add in black sesame, and mix well with a spatula

5. Stir in the sifted flour

6. Roll the dough out to about 6cm x 2cm block. Wrap it in cling wrap, and leave in the fridge for 30minutes.

7. Cut the dough to about 5mm pieces. Place them on a baking sheet. 

8. Bake for 15 to 18mins.

Unfortunately, sesame is not my daughters' cup of tea, so it was only the hubs and I who ate them. Less man more share, I don't mind actually.

Cheese Sticks

I made these for Chinese New Year, and my eldest absolutely loved it. She told me these are like home made Cheezles, very healthy. Ha.

We all know using best ingredients is key to baking, but sometimes, we just thought.. what if??

That's what I did this round. The first batch I baked, I used parmessan cheese in a block. It cost about RM30 for a 200g block, very expensive. Then the 2nd time, I thought, what if I used powdered parmessan, which is RM20 for 500g. More than half the savings!

Anyway, here is the recipe. If you could, use the good parmessan, that way, you can really taste the fragrant of the cheese.

♥Recipe for Cheese Sticks♥
Adapted from 在家亲手烤饼干by中村佳瑞子
Make 30 pieces
You'll Need 100g unsalted butter(soft to the touch)
20g castor sugar
1 egg (room temparature)
60g parmessan cheese (use the ones in a block and grate yourself if you can)
160g low protein flour sifted


Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Beat butter until soft and fluffy (I used a hand whisk).
3. Add it sugar and further beat until well mixed and mixture becomes pale.
4. Add in the egg, and beat until well corporated
5. Using a spatula, mix in the parmessan cheese, and then stir in the flour.
6. Wrap the dough in cling wrap, and leave in the fridge for 30minutes.
7. Cut or roll the out the dough into desired strips. Place strips on a baking sheet.
8. Bake for 15 to 18mins.

December Bakes

It's almost end of January now, life is getting slightly busier because my eldest has started Standard 1, and there are more activities and classes that both the children have to attend (and I have to chauffer them to class, and accompanied them in some of their classes).
These were orders that I took in December last year, I was supposed to post these earlier, but....
Anyway, this is just for the record.
Ping Yee who reads my blog, asked if I could bake her daughter's 4th birthday cupcakes and biscuits as party favours.
The Theme of the party is flower, and she wanted something simple.
These decorated flower biscuits are for the party favours. And this is Xin Ning's flower theme birthday cupcakes. Then there's Ju, the very first person who ordered cupcake for me, asked for simple cupcakes topped with M&Ms. The Principal from the children's kindergarten, likes the taste of their birthday cupcakes; so she ordered 50 simple ones (just butter cream with sprinkles) from me for the teachers on last day of school, as a token of appreciation for the hard work the teachers have put in for the school concert. And for the neighbours, I baked more Christmas tree cookies to be distributed on Christmas eve, while the children happily exchanged presents.

Black Sesame Sauce For Pasta

If we eat in on Sundays, dinner is always something simple.
I'd always liked the Pasta that is served in Pasta Zanmai, which has strong Japanese flavour, so I was very happy when I saw this recipe of black sesame sauce for pasta, which was written by a Japanese author.

Here is something which you can try making at home, and it's rather easy too.

♥Recipe for Black Sesame Sauce For Pasta♥

Adapted from Black Vegetable (幸福黑蔬菜 by 館野鏡子)
Make sauce enough for 2 portion of pasta


You'll need

2 tbs of ground black sesame

1 pack of Maitake Mushroom (舞菇) - I couldn't find this, so I just used Shitake instead

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

4 tbs of cream - For health reason, I used only 2 tbs

3 tbs of milk

2 tbs olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Method

1) Slice the mushroom (if you are using Maitake, cut off the roots, and cut them into bite size)

2) Prepare the pasta (here I'd used spagetti) according to the instructions on the package

3) Heat the olive oil in a small sauce pan, fry garlic until fragrant. Add in the mushroom and stir fry until mushroom is cooked. Add in milk, cream, sesame powder, stir for a while, and then add in salt and pepper to taste.

4) Stir sauce into cooked pasta, and served



Although it's on the dry side (probably because I used less cream and the mushroom is not juicy), I love it. I'll try to use Maitake mushroom the next time.

Dried Shrimp Sambal / Sambal Hae Bee

I remember my maternal grandma used to make really good Sambal Hae Bee or Sambal dried shrimp. It's a sambal that goes well with almost anything, fish, chicken, vegetables either as a condiment or used it as an ingredient for cooking the dish. Served with plain rice or sprinkled on a bowl of instant noodle, it immediately adds a kick.
My maternal grandma passed away before I could learn how to make the dish from her. My mother in law makes this as well, but she being Cantonese, it tastes a little different from my maternal grandma's, her version is wetter, and less spicy.
I learn from my mother-in-law the main ingredients, and the process, and came out with my own version which is closer to my maternal grandma's.

♥Recipe for Dried Prawn Sambal / Sambal Hae Bee♥
Serves 8 for a meal, or produce enough to fill up two (jam) bottles
You'll need

250g shallot pounded or minced (I actually bought the pounded fresh shallots from the spice shop)
250g chilli pounded or minced (again, I got the pounded fresh chilli from the spice shop)
150g dried prawns
1 pc belacan or prawn paste (optional)
2 tbs sugar (or more depending on your taste)
1/2 cup vegetable oil (if you are health concious, you can reduce the oil, but the frying may get a little more difficult)


Method

1) Rinse dried shrimp under running water to clean, then soak for 30mins. After that, pound them using mortal and pestle. The sambal taste better when the shrimp is pounded. You can still use a blender, but mincing them in a blender, the shrimps are slice to small pieces so the texture is a little different.

2) Toast the piece of belacan/shrimp paste over the stove or pan until fragrant, then crush them into powder.

3) Heat oil in wok. Pour in minced shallot and chilli and fry (stirring frequently) until fragrant. Add in belacan/shrimp paste and the dried shrimp and fry some more.

4) If you are like me, who prefers the sambal to be dryer, hence keeps better, you'll need to stir and fry the mixture for about 30minutes (you can stop earlier, but the sambal will be on the wetter side). This is the toughest part. After 10 mintutes, I find my right arm began to shake, and by 20 minutes, it feels as though my arm is no longer mine. :( I normally take turns with my helper to do this bit.

5) Add in sugar and stir fry until well mixed. Add in salt or more sugar if you want.

6) Scoop out sambal to a plate. If you are bottling them (which I did with mine), wait till it's fully cooled before puting them in the sterilised bottle. It will keep for a month refrigerated.

Serves as condiment, a main dish, or as 'spice' to add into any cooking.

Cupcakes for My Daughters

My eldest and youngest daughters celebrated their birthdays respectively in November and December.

I made some cupcakes for a joint celebration in their school. I had the cupcake deisgn drawn up, and got approval from both of them. They wanted some kind of 'lollipop' toppers. Initially, they wanted lollipop biscuit as toppers, but that will be too time consuming for me to make, so instead, I use fondant.

Here are the cupcakes I made for their joint birthday celebration.

On my eldest actual birthday, more cupcakes were made. I was too lazy to think of a new design so I copied the butterfly theme instead.
And for my youngest actual birthday, I wanted to make her a green tea pound cake as she absolutely loves green tea. However, I was using a new recipe, and the recipe had suggested a pan too small. The batter overfilled mid way baking, and the end product was too ugly to be made into a birthday cake (taste wise it was fabulous).

Thanks to Cini, I had 4 cupcakes sent over after she heard about my baking disaster.

Happy Birthday to My Sugar and Spice.

Happy Winter Solstice - Black Sesame Tang Yuan (芝麻湯圓)

Today is Donzhi (冬至) Festival or Winter Solstice.

Scientifically From Wikipedia it means : The winter solstice occurs exactly when the Earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26'. Though the winter solstice lasts only a moment in time, the term is also a turning point to midwinter or the first day of winter to refer to the day on which it occurs. More evident to those in high latitudes, this occurs on the shortest day and longest night, when the sun's daily maximum position in the sky is the lowest.

For Chinese, this is the day we grow older and get wiser. And as a reunion dish, in most housewhole, we would either make our own tangyuan(湯圓) or glutinous rice balls; or buy the ready made ones.

I have mine made at home, so the girls can take the opportunity to participate in making the little balls as well.

I mixed some ground black saseme, small amount of black sesame seeds (to give it some crunch), sugar and some vegetable oil to make the filling.

I just mix it according to my taste. It'll become a very crumbly paste.

Then I roll about 1 tsp of the filling into balls, put them into the freezer for about an hour to harden and make them easier to wrap with the dough later.



♥Recipe and Method to Make Tang Yuan or Glutinous Rice Balls dough♥
(Make 20 small balls and 35 big balls with fillings)

1) Add 2 cups of glutinous rice ball with 1 cup of water and 2 tbs of sugar

2) Mix until the it becomes a soft dough.

3) Pinch half of the dough and drop it in boiling water to cook. The dough will rise when it's cooked. When the dough is still hot, mix it with the rest of the dough and knead until a smooth dough is formed.

To make the balls, take enough dough and roll into a ball, press it down with your palm, put a ball of sesame paste into the centre, gather the sides and pinch away access dough. Roll it to a ball.

You can either immediately drop the tang yuan into a pot of boiling water to cook soon after you made them, or place them on a floured plate and cook them in a batch later.

To make the soup, boil a pot of water with brown sugar and a smashed piece of ginger, we added screw pine or pandan leave just to get the extra flavour.

Happy Winter Sostice to everyone!
冬至快乐!

Butterfly Butterfly Happy Birthday

Lee Yen celebrated her daughter's 1st birthday last month, and she ordered cupcakes, and biscuits as party favours from me, all with butterfly theme.

I was under some pressure when I knew she was getting a party supplier to help her with the theme. Luckily she was very easy to work with, and she told me not to stress out as it's just a small party.

In the end, her party supplier could not help at the very last minute, and she did everything on her own. You should see what she did for the party, and maybe she can be a party supplier herself.

For me, the difficult bit was the decorated butterfly biscuits. 20 of them, all different designs but with the same colour schemes.

These biscuits were pretty big, about 8cmx10cm.



I made some smaller minimally decorated flower biscuits, these would taste more like butter biscuits, and crunchier compared to the fully decorated ones.



Each party favour comes with 1 big decorated butterfly biscuit.

Accompanied with a couple of small minimally decorated flower biscuits.

So if you want to eat some and keep some, you can do so.

And these are the cupcakes for her Butterfly theme party.

I don't think anybody really likes the taste of fondant, but fondant does make very beautiful and durable decorations. So in this case, we combined tasty butter cream frosting, with a fondant topper. We got best of both worlds!

It was a pleasure to be part of this beautiful birthday party.

Gifts to Teachers In School - Christmas Tree Biscuit

Yesterday marked the last day of school for my children, it's also the last day of kindergarten for my eldest, as she'll be entering Primary 1 when school reopens.

Both girls spent 2 years in their current school, and because their school has very low student teacher ratio, they have been very close with a few of their class mates as well as teachers.

Two days before the last day of school, my eldest wrote some cards and gave to a few closest friends, writing down my phone number, and telling them she loves them, and they'll be BFFs (Best Friend For Ever).

I'm not sure about her, but I was feeling rather sad to see her say good byes to her BFFs; none of her classmates are going to be in the same school as her in Primary 1. To me, it's like an I-May-Not-See-You-Again kind of good byes. I'll definitely try to organise some play dates, so that they'll get to see each other and enjoy each other's company again.

As for the teachers, they have taught her to be responsible, confident, and out spoken. I just hope the primary school we're sending her will not reverse all these efforts.

As a token of appreciate, I baked some biscuits for all the teachers in school, since every one of them have either taught my eldest or my youngest.

I made them Little Christmas tree biscuits which have been decorated just a little.

They are good to be eaten, and they keep rather well too. I packed them in twos, and got the girls to distribute them yesterday.

My eldest will definitely cherish her time in the school, and I hope she and some of her friends, will be true BFFs.

Hazelnut Cocoa Balls

I have a pack of ground hazelnut which is close to expiry, so I thought I'll find something to make with it.

I scanned through the many Chinese recipe books that I'd bought recently (from the hubs recent trip to China, as well from the Bookfest @ Malaysia 2010) checking the ingredient lists until I spotted 'ground hazelnut'.

This recipe comes from the famous Taiwanese baking expert Teacher Meng (孟老师), who has published many books. Not sure if you agree with this, I find the end results of the recipes written/created by a Japanese or Taiwanese more to my taste as they are normally lighter and less sweet.

♥Recipe for Hazelnut Cocoa (榛果可可球)♥
Adapted from 孟老师的下午茶 by 孟兆庆
Make 30 balls.

You'll need :
90g unsalted butter
40g icing sugar (if you like something sweeter, you can make it 50g)
110g low protein flour or cake flour
2tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
50g ground hazelnut

Method :
1) Using a spatula, mix butter and sugar until well combined, stir in sifted flour and cocoa powder.

2) Add in ground hazelnut. Mix the mixture with hand, until a firm dough is formed.

3) Place the dough ball in a bowl, cover, and refrigerate for 30mins.

4) Preheat oven to 170C.

5) Cut dough into ~8g pieces, and roll these pieces into balls. Arrange these balls on a baking tray laid with parchment paper

6) Bake them for 20mins, turn off the oven, and leave the tray in the oven for another 10mins.

7) Remove the biscuit from tray and cool them on a wire rack. Once cool, coat the with icing sugar (I put a few tea spoon of icing sugar in a cointainer with lid, put a couple of biscuits into the container and cover the lid, gently shake the cointainer until the biscuits are coated with icing sugar, repeat until all biscuits are coated with icing sugar)

The biscuits are indeed rather light, with a slight crunch, and a tinge of bitterness.

Minnie Minnie Minnie

Shereen ordered 60 Minnie cookies from me for her daughter, Janice's, 1st birthday party.

I turned down her order initially, because I didn't think I could draw Minnie's features on 60 cookies, repeatedly. She gave me the solution; she found me the design from the web, and asked if I could do something similar.



There's no features drawing involved; that's not too difficult. The difficulty lies only with trying to get the 'Minnie' colour right.

My youngest daughter kept reminding me when I was mixing the black icing, "Ma, that's not black, that's grey.".... A lot of black is used to get that black you see on the cookie. So next time you order anything 'black', on fondant, on butter icing, on cookies, do take note.



All individually packed, to allow Shereen to give away the cookies as door gifts.

Many emails, then MSN chats, and exchanging of baking experience later, I also gained a friend from this order.

Hop on to her site to see her first attempt on the fondant decorated cake she made for Janice. This woman has guts! And I think she did way better than me on my first fondant attempt.