Pineapple tarts

These tarts are the last batch of cookies that I made for this coming chinese new year, this time I adjust an old recipe for the pastry...

Pastry:
250g butter (I prefer to use goldencurn for its rich butter fragrant)
400g flour
1 egg + 1 yolk

Method:
1. Leave butter at room temperature for half hour, cut into smaller pieces and place in flour, use finger tip to rub butter with flour till it resemble bread crumbs.
2. Add in the eggs and mix till it form a dough(do not over mix), chill in fridge for 30min.
3. Take a portion of dough and roll between two plastic sheets, dust with little flour, use cookie cutter and cut out desire shapes, place on baking tray thats lined with pachment paper, form the pineapple paste into a ball and place on top of pastry. Apply glaze to the tarts.
4. Bake at preheated 170degC oven for 20mins.

Valerie's Sugee Cookie

Learned this cookie at Ms Valerie's class, its so easy to do, the recipe is also not very sweet compare to others, my family like this cookie...will sure do it again.

Valerie's Kuih Bangkit

I have never succeed in making kuih bangkit after many attempt, so have to attend class to learn. Was very delighted that this batch of cookies turn out nice, fragrant and of course it does melt-in-the-mouth.

Pineapple tarts

Was very busy between work and preparing for Chinese New Year that I have no free time to do some update here. Have been making pineapple tarts for Chinese New Year for the past few years, I like to try different recipes, this time I tried Zurynee's recipe and the verdict was very good. As for the jam, from past experience I still prefer to cook my own jam, but I did short cut the process instead of grate the pineapples I use food processor to blend it and it yield more jam than expected. Due to the amount of jam, this year I did alot of tarts, think should be the most tarts that I've ever made.

Cashew Scottish

I hardly made cookies, unless I have the mood to do it. I think my brain is getting a bit rusty. I made mistake in this recipe. Was thinking that doing double the recipe cos 1 portion may not be enough, the dough end up too soft and I have to pipe out the dough, so I didn't sweep the milk as mention in the recipe. Days later then I realised that I should made the dough portion by portion instead of multiply the original recipe. Recipe from the book Biscuit Code .




Ingredients:
120g plain flour (sifted)
2tbsp rice flour (sifted)
125g butter
60g castor sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla essence
3tbsp milk
50g grounded cashew nuts
adequate cashew nuts(for decoration)

Method:
1. Beat butter, castor sugar and egg till light and fluffy. Add vanilla essence.

2. Fold in sifted ingredients and ground cashew nuts mix to a dough.

3. Cover and chill for 30min.

4. Roll dough in between 2 sheets of grease proof paper, and cut with a cookie cutter.

5. Place cookies on greased baking tray. Sweep with milk.

Kuih makmur and Pineapple tarts

Only manage to make pineapple tarts, kuih makmur and 2 prune lapis for this year's chinese new year, and out of all only like the kuih makmur taste maybe due to my liking to peanuts. First time making kuih makmur using ghee, this round I use Anna Phua's recipe from her book, forgot to snap picture of kuih makmur cookies till a few days later, so the edges on the kuih may not look as sharp as when it was just out of the oven.

Kuih Makmur

Filling
150g peanut (roasted, peeled and chopped)
60g Sugar
1 1/2 tbsp shortening or peanut oil

Pastry
125g butter
50g ghee
25g sugar
3/4 egg
few drops green food colouring
225g plain flour
1/8 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
some icing sugar for dusting ( I suggest u use snow powder)

Method:
1. Mix well the filling ingredients and set aside.
2. Cream butter, ghee and sugar well. Add egg and a few drops of green colouring. Mix well.
3. Add in flour, baking powder and salt and knead to make pastry dough. Set aside for 20 minutes.
4. Mould into balls of about 8g each. Press thinly and wrap filling. Fold into half and press into leaf-like design. Place on a baking tray.
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 150 degree for 20 mins. Remove and dust with icing sugar immediately. Cool and store in airtight containers.

Gingerbread

Trenyce kept requesting me to make gingerbread since Friday night after her teacher taught the class to make it. Was not feel well on Saturday so didn't intend to make the cookies but she kept mentioning it till I can't tahan, so use the 4 cookie cutters bought some time ago and Alex Goh's recipe to make these...

Ingredient:
(A)
60g Butter
100g Sugar
pinch of salt

(B)
1 Egg

(C)
170g Golden syrup

(D)
460g Flour
2 tsp Ginger powder
½ tsp Cinnamon powder
1tsp Baking soda

Method
1) Mix (A) till well combined and then add in (B). Cream till smooth.
2) Add in (C) then (D) and mix till well blended.
3) Let it rest for 15min. Then roll in to a 3mm thickness and cut it into the required shape.
4) Bake at 180°C for 15 min.

Melting Moments

Made this melting moment last year during CNY festive season. This recipe was from one of Betty Saw's kitchen secret book, can't recall which one...


Ingredients

175 g unsalted butter
50g icing sugar, sifted
1tsp vanilla essence

Sifted together
135g plain flour
45g cornflour
1 tsp baking powder

Method
1) Preheat oven to 180°C. Line cookie tray with non stick parchment or grease, greaseproof paper.

2) Put butter and icing sugar in the bowl of electric mixer and beat until light and creamy.

3) Add vanilla essence and mix well. Stir in sifted dry ingredients until well combined.

4) Spoon mixture, half at a time, into piping bag fitted with a 1cm-wide star nozzle. Pipe rosettes about 4 cm in diameter onto prepared tray.

5) Bake in the oven for 15 min or until golden and crisp. Transfer cookies on to a wire rack to cool.