Crunchy Chocolate Chips Cookies

I love making homemade cookies to give out as gifts for the christmas. When Bakertan gave away these cookies during previous bloggers' gathering, my family, especially my children simply just loved it. If you're looking for a crispy or crunchy cookie, this recipe is a very good choice. I would like to make and share with others, then decided to make half in chocolate chips and half with M&M. Wrapped it nicely and ready to give away .... to friends and colleagues :)

Source : Baking Mum and Bakertan

Ingredients:
125 gr Butter softened at room temperature
75 gr Caster sugar
60 gr Brown sugar
1 Egg, light beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
150 gr Plain flour
45 gr Cornflour
1/2 tsp Bicarbonanate of soda (baking soda)
pinch of salt
170g Chocolate chips

Method:
- Cream butter with both sugars until pale & fluffy. Add egg and vanilla to butter mixture. Mix well.
- Sift flour, cornflour, bicardonate of soda and salt together. Add to creamed mixture, mixing to a soft dough. Stir in the chocoloate chips until well distributed.
- Chill dough for 30 minutes to firm it up. Shape dough into a small ball and flatten with fork or spoon heaped teaspoons of dough onto lined cookies trays, leaving some space between cookies dough. **
- Bake at preheated oven 180C for 20-25 minutes or medium brown.
- Carefully remove to wire rack to cool.

NOTE :
** To prevent cookies from spreading, freeze shaped cookie dough for 10 minutes (with the cookie tray/s).

This is my entry for the Christmas Giveaway hosted by Swee San of The Sweet Spot. You may hop over to her blog for the details on how to participate.

Which cookies do you prefer?
And do you have a favourite Christmas cookies to share?
I want to wish you all have a Happy Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2011 :)

Crunchy Muesli Cookies

Two weeks ago I baked chewy cranberries cookies, this week I baked something similar, but crunchy. :)   Beside …... they are super easy to make, just mixing wet over dry ingredients and the results …...
simply great!
Here, I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas :)

Crunchy Muesli Cookies
Source : The Australian Women’s Weekly – Traybakes & Slices

Ingredients
1 Cup (90 gr) Rolled oats
1 Cup (150 gr) Plain Flour
1 Cup (220 gr) Caster sugar
2 tsp Ground cinnamon (I only used 1/2 tsp)
1/4 Cup (35 gr) Dried cranberries (I added 50 gr)
1/3 Cup (55 gr) Finely chopped dried apricot (I replaced with Golden sultana)
1/2 Cup (70 gr) Slivered almonds (I replaced with pistachios)
125 gr Butter, chopped coarsely
2 tbsp Golden Syrup
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tbsp Boiling Water

Method:
- Preheat oven 150C. Greased oven trays, or line with baking parchment.
- Combine, oats, flour, sugar, cinnamon, dried fruits and nuts in large bowl.
- Melt butter and golden syrup in small saucepan over low heat, add combined soda with boiling water. Stir warm mixture into dry ingredients.
- Roll level tablespoon of mixture into balls, place on trays 5 cm apart, flatten slightly.
- Bake cookies about 20 minutes. Cool on trays.

Colourful Jelly Pudding II

I made this pudding two months ago. However, after uploaded the photos to computer, I change my mind to postpone the post and wait until today. Why? I like this pudding cause it has the X'mas colour, don’t you think so?

I bought pre-mix Red Man’s Konnyaku Jelly package to make colourful jelly ball (made this one day in advance), add white dragon fruits in it and transparent agar-agar used to make the pudding. You may see here for the ingredients and the jelly ball mould pictures.

This jelly pudding will be my second submission to Aspiring Bakers #2: Christmas! (Dec 2010) hosted by Passionate About Baking.

Chocolate Cranberries Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies are really delicious and I think they would be great in the Christmas cookies exchange too. Thanks to Honey Bee for sharing these tasty cookies. Surprisingly it really have the chewy texture, very easy to get addicted to eat and almost non-stop hahahaha ….. You may also check on Wendy’s version, where she added some mixed nuts. I replaced cherries with cranberries, but I’m not too sure why my cookies spread out so much compare to theirs.

I am submitting these cookies to Aspiring Bakers #2: Christmas! (Dec 2010) hosted by Jane of Passionate About Baking

Ingredients:
227 gr Unsalted butter, room temperature
180 gr Caster sugar
200 gr Brown sugar
1.5 tsp Vanilla extract
2 Large eggs
225 gr all purpose flour
250 gr uncooked roll oats
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Baking soda
3/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
150g Chocolate (70% cocoa), cut into small chunks (you can use chocolate chips)
100g Sweetened dried cherries (I used dried cranberries)

Method:
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and both sugars till creamy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add vanilla extract and beat well again.
- Sift the flour, salt, baking power and baking soda and cinnamon. Add it to the egg mixture. Lastly add in the oats and stir well.
- If using chocolate chunks and cherries, add in the cookie batter and stir well. Chill dough for at least 2hours.
- Preheat oven to 180C. Place a sheet of parchment paper on baking pan and grease it.
- Take about 2 tbsp amount of cookie dough, roll round and place on baking pan. Make sure the cookie dough is placed about 3" apart from one another.
- Bake cookie for 13 to 15 minutes. Do not over bake the cookies, it is meant to be soft and chewy.
- Allow the baked cookies to cool on the rack before storing in air tight container.

Bread Cake

When I saw Min’s blog on her beautiful bread cake two months ago, she really inspired me to try this out :) I found that this could be interesting .... in making & eating it …. and can try both bread & cake in one slice … what a greedy mouth I have hor … hahahaha … Instead of baking this in bread loaf, I baked in chiffon tin. The bread cake tasted good and still remained soft even on the third day. But, I guess I still need a lot of practice to produce a smooth and fluffy bread.

Here is the recipe with minor modification.

Bread material:
200 gr Bread flour
1-1/2 tbsp Cocoa powder
1/2 tsp Salt
70 gr Caster sugar
140 gr Water (can try on 120 gr first)
1 tsp Instant yeast
40 gr Butter (I used only 25 gr)

Method:
- Mix thoroughly bread flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, and yeast into a mixing bowl.
- Add in water and beat till it forms into dough then add in butter and continue beating till dough is smooth and elastic.
- Prove the dough for one hour.
- Divide the dough into few portions and let it rest for 15 mins.
- Roll the dough into 23 cm chiffon tin and let it rest until double.

Cake material:
A:
20 gr Bread flour
20 gr Top/Cake flour
30 gr Caster sugar
3 Egg Yolks
30 gr Oil
30 gr Water
Few drop of pandan paste

B:
3 Egg Whites
1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
30g Caster sugar

Method:
- To make egg yolk batter: Combine egg yolks, sugar, oil, water and pandan paste in a mixing bowl. Fold in flour until forms batter.
- To make egg white foam: Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy, gradually add in sugar, beat at high speed until frothy and stiff peaks form.
- Gently fold into egg yolk with egg white batter, mix until well blended
- Pour on top of the proved bread dough.
- Bake in the preheating 180C oven for about 30-50 minutes.

Macaroni Schotel (Macaroni Cheese)

Here is another yummy food that I had bookmarked the recipe from Everything4sweets, and baked this macaroni Schotel for last week gathering. I scaled down the recipe, because I baked only in small portion.

Macaroni Schotel is actually slightly different from other normal macaroni cheese, as additional ingredients like meat & sausages add in to the recipe. So even you are not macaroni or cheese lover, you will sure like this :)

Original recipe from this site.
Ingredients:
125 gr Macaroni elbow, boil up to 3/4 cooked
2 tbsp Butter
½ Big Onion
75 gr Minced meat
2 Sausages, sliced thin
200 gr Fresh milk
100 gr Cheddar chesse, diced in cube ½ x ½ cm
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
Salt, pepper, sugar, nutmeg to taste

Method:
- In a pan, fry butter and onion till soft & fragrant.
- Add in mince meat, half cooked, then add sausages, fry until cooked.
- Add nutmeg, salt, sugar and pepper to taste.
- Add fresh milk, stir to mix well, add diced cheese, beaten eggs, stir for a while (not until too dry) and taste again before remove from fire.
- Pour in individual foil or a greased big tray.
- Steam for 10 minutes for small cup or 30 minutes for big tray.

Topping White Sauce:
1 tbsp Butter
1 tbsp Plain flour
100-150 cc Fresh milk
Salt & pepper to taste
100 gr Shredded Cheddar cheese

Method:
- In a pan, fry butter & plain flour, keep stirring.
- Gradually add in milk in small amount to dilute the plain flour until creamy.
- Add in salt & pepper to taste, remove from fire.

Assembly:
- Pour in the white sauce on top macaroni schotel.
- Sprinkle shredded cheese.
- Bake in preheated oven at 180C using top fire for 10-15 minutes or cheese melt.
- Best served while it hot.

Yields : 11 cup foils

Other pictures :

Bloggers Gathering

After previous Cook and Feed with Love Event, all volunteers decided to have follow-up gathering, so at least we can have more chance to get to know each other. However, because of busy schedule & other commitments, only nine of us finally got chance to meet and bring snacks for gathering, which held last Saturday (27.11.10) at Jane's place.

Here are the other participating bloggers that attend with me:
Christine @ Yummy Koh
Edith @ Precious Moments
Eelin @ The batter Baker
Jane @ Passionate About Baking
Josephine @ Sugar & Everything Nice
Judy @ A Busy Gran's Kitchen
Sheryl @ Sweet and Happy Ending
Zhuoyuan (Baker Tan) @ Baking Library

Please hop over their blogs for more photos and detailed write up
(I think I'm the last in posting ... :)) and finally ....
here are the wonderful snacks for Hi-Tea buffet spread:

Jane's Lemonglass Drink & Coffee Walnut Blondies

Zhuoyuan's Hawaiian Pizza Pie & Crispy Chocolate Chips Cookies

Eelin's Cointreau Chocolate Cupcakes



Sheryl's Spice Potato Salad



Judy's Sambal Prawn Sandwiches



Jo's Chicken Drumlets

Edith's Blueberry Muffins & Banana Loaf

I brought Macaroni Cheese & Konnyaku Jelly

It is so nice of Jane that she prepared Bingo game, a fun game for us to interact each other by collecting signatures of all players, and a prize too (homemade vanilla extract). Hehehehe …. Never expected, but …

I am the lucky winner. Maybe because the place I was standing quite strategic so can easily get everybody to sign for me first …. LOL. Thanks again Jane for the precious prize. We really have fun there and I really looking forward for the next gathering