Christmas Cookies

This Christmas I did a lot of baking. I cooked cookies that I like to eat.

I baked milk cookies, peanut butter cookies, almond cookies, coconut macaroons and strawberry thumbprints.

The sweetest Meringue. They are crunchy and cooked to perfection.

Strawberry and Hershey kisses cookies. This cookies was also the hit at the party. They are sweet, with lots of flavors and crunchy.

I also cooked "kuih cara", a traditional dessert made from coconut milk, flour and sugar. I cooked them on the stove top. The green was made from pandan flavor and the pink was made from strawberries. They are delicious and were hit at the Christmas party.


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Sand Tart -Part 2

Sand tart is a simple cookie to bake. It has been the favorite of Mr. Big. I usually bake the sand tart for him during holidays. Sand tart is delicious and crunchy if rolled thinly. Mr. Big like it with a dash of cinnamon sugar. Even though it was easy to bake a sand tart, but rolling the dough thinly are time consuming. Firstly, I sat the unsalted butter at room temperature overnight. Since the weather is nice and cooling this morning, I quickly ate my chocolate muffin that I have bake last night and drank a cup of hot tea with milk for my breakfast before I began baking the sand tart.

Unlike in the previous years, posted here , my sand tart recipe was made from scratch, this time, I am customizing the recipe using a ready to use sugar cookies dough and mix it with a stick of butter, 1 egg and 1/2 cup of all purpose flour. Combine all of these ingredients to form a dough.

The taste was awesome. Mr. Big ate all of the cookies while I haven't finish baking all the dough. I took about 2 hours to finish the batter. The dough must be rolled thinly and each cookie is dusted with some cinnamon sugar before going into the oven at 350 degree F for about 10 minutes or until slightly brown.

For the cookies cutter, I am using a pastry cutter. I chose number 2 from the set of 6 pastry cutters. I bought this pastry cutter when I was visiting a family in England years back. When I see something I like and I know I will use it for sure, I surely will get them. This pastry cutter is very handy and durable.

I am glad my new try out with the sugar cookie dough worked. Enjoy!

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Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:
2 sticks 4 oz(113.4g) unsalted butter
2 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour( sprinkle some more if sticky)
18 oz (510g) creamy peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 teaspoon baking powder

Method:
Using electric mixer, beat butter,brown sugar and sugar until smooth.
Add egg, one at a time and beat on high.
Add peanut butter and beat until incorporated.
Add flour and baking powder small amount at a time until all done.
Use hand to test if the mixture is not sticky and could be handled.
Use more flour on the board and rolling pin if you want to cut it out into shape.
Or use a pinch of the dough and press it into the mould like in the picture above.
Bake in the oven at 350 degree F for 10 minutes or until browm.

Gingerbread House

Honey bought this gingerbread house kit for me to show my artistic taste. I thought it was cute and was surprised that he can read my mind. It has been months since I started thinking of making my own gingerbread. In 2006 I did bake gingerbread man . I love the smell of gingerbread coming from the oven. However, this gingerbread house kit has no baking involved at all. It came in a box as shown below.
The kit came with a pack of cooked gingerbread cookies in the shape of part of the house, a snowman, a pine tree and a chimney. In the box there are also packets of different shapes, colors and types of candy and a packet of ready made icing sugar. The icing sugar is the glue to the assemble the house and it's decorations.

I followed the instructions from the box. Assembling the gingerbread house doesn't take a long time at all. There was no mess too. Everything are pre-measured. I began the process by massaging the icing sugar for 1 minute. This is to smooth out the icing and easier for the icing sugar to flow out of the tube.

Then I began assembling the wall to the house. Lastly, I put up the roof and the chimney.

I decorate the house as closely to the picture from the box.
In no time, my gingerbread house is complete. Welcome everyone and Merry Christmas!

Sand Tart

What is holidays without traditional sand tart. I am using the recipe from Joy Cooking. It is the best ever. I tweaked the recipe by adding a pinch of nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon juice and vanilla. For one batch I've got about 80 pieces of cookies. It took me 4 hours to finish cooking all the dough. Cook it in the oven on 375F for about 6 minutes. Delicious! honey ate the whole 1 jar. So now I am leaving with 2 jars.




1 stick of unsalted butter. Leave it at room temperature.
1 1/2 cup of powdered sugar
1 egg and 1 egg yolk. Use the white to brush the top.
3 cups of flour
pich of nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla and lemon juice

Gingerbread cookies

Ok! I cheated on this one. I am using the gingerbread mix from the store. It turn out super good if it is not burn. LOL.




I rolled it super thin. I don't really care for the chewy guey cookies.

Christmas Fruits Cookies

This is my fruits cookies for the holiday:
1 cup of mixed colorful fruits
2 cup flour
1 cup powdered sugar
1 stick unsalted butter(4 oz/114 gm)
1 egg
1 tablespoon vanila extract





Bake in the oven on 375 degree F for about 10 minutes