White almond cookies

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year. I should be busy getting ready, really. So this will be a quick short post.

Last year, I share the recipe for peanut cookies. Yesterday, I made these cookies. I couldn't help doing some last minute baking.

To be honest, they look great and taste okay but they're not as melt-in-the-mouth as I expected them to be. Perhaps I shouldn't have added the extra oil, but the dough was way too dry and crumbly to handle otherwise.

I got the recipe from RasaMalaysia.  Here it is with some minor adaptations:

I'd like to wish all my Chinese friends a very Happy Chinese New Year. Happy eating everyone!

Valentine's Cookies

Finally, an up-to-date blog post from me. It hasn't been easy though. The first batch of dough was wrong because I copied the recipe incorrectly. Then the camera battery was out. And then, all the photos I took was corrupt and I couldn't download them! I couldn't believe it at first, but it happened, and then it occured to me that it's Friday 13th! Gosh!

Nonetheless, it's Valentine's Day tomorrow, so I took a few pictures again. I was able to download them the second time around, thankfully.

These are basic cookies. Even though they're quite simple to make and the recipe can be easily found, I do have a trick to share. I can't remember where I read it but a good way to make the jam firm and smooth on top, is to mix it with some jelly powder dissolved in water. It can be finicky if you're making a large batch though, because the mixture can solidify rather quickly. If it does, just melt it again to a pouring consistency.

You may sprinkle icing sugar on the cookies before filling in. I didn't, because I think they will mess up anyway when you pack them up.

The recipe (in pink format) is shown below. Here's wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! 

Glutinous Rice Balls for Winter Solstice

Hello there. It's been a long time since I last posted. With hectic work schedules and my father's sickness and recent passing away, I lacked the time and inspiration to post anything.

However, we've come to the end of the year. On Monday, which falls on 22 December this year, the Chinese will celebrate the Winter Solstice festival. Glutinous rice balls (or dumplings) are eaten in this celebration. Like these tiny round balls are which are symbolic of the seasons coming to full cycle, so too has my father's life come to its fullness and he is now in a happier place.

Seasons and people come and go. This year there's no Christmas tree or shopping for me. And I don't have the time the make rice balls (tang yuen) for my family. But I made some rice balls with Emma last year and took some photos. So, I'd like to share this in my blog this year. I've changed the recipe to do without food colourings. After all, nature has provided us with beautiful colours we can use in our food, as you can see below.

Here are the colourful doughs.

Here's my kiddy trying her hand at making the rice balls. In Hokkien, we call it sow ee.

Marble balls, concocted by Emma.

And more balls... by right they should be in even shape. But who wants to be fussy, right?

A good option for green colour would be to use pandan juice. But I didn't have any at that time, so I improvised. I used turmeric powder and mixed it with the juice from blue peaflower or bunga telang. The colour was a lovely green. The downside was that it had the distinctive turmeric taste. So if you can, use pandan juice. You'll get a lovely flavour with that.

So here's the simplified recipe from me. Happy Winter Solstice or Dōngzhì Festival to all. And a Blessed Christmas too.

Gula Melaka Ice Cream

I've made many kinds of ice creams. But I've always wanted to do something of a local flavour. Durian comes to mind easily but I wanted to do something different (and a little less intense). 

After pondering over it, gula melaka comes to mind. It would just replace normal sugar in a basic recipe and yet give that distinctive Malaysian flavour. So I finally gave it a try.

The result was a luscious creamy ice cream. I guess part of the reason is that boiling the milk reduces the water content further so there were no crystals formed during freezing. I added a small amount of water during boiling though, because I think too much water was going off.

The only downside is that it is very sweet. And it seems to melt very quickly. So I'll just have to eat it in small quantities, and quickly!

So here's the simple recipe. Happy trying!

Teddy Bear Cookies

I've been wanting to make these for ages. I saw them on on Pinterest and other sites and I thought my kid would love to have them (and make them with me).

The ones I saw, however, used icing for the eyes and mouth. I wasn't in the mood of making royal icing. So I thought I'd just use the dough for decoration. That way, I wouldn't have to make any icing and there's no time wasted in waiting for the icing to set. What a splendid idea! (So I thought to myself)

You can invert the colours so that you have some teddies with white face and chocolate ears and some with chocolate face and white ears, as show in the picture below.

This is how they look like before baking:

And out from the oven:

As for the recipe, I adapted it from Sweet Explorations. Here's my version of how to make them Teddy cookies.

 

Here's my Emma enjoying the finished product. I'm sorry my face is in it too. There just wasn't a better picture of her and the cookie. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this post (the blessed few of you who read my blog).   :)

Orange Poppy Seed Cookies

I wanted to make something for colleagues of mine and my husband's. Aidilfitri celebrations were hardly over so ordinary cookies wouldn't do. I wanted to make something slightly unusual (by local standards at least), yet nice and easy.

So here it is, Orange Poppy Seed Cookies. 

I put them in a cookie tin which came from a particular hotel...

I got the recipe from Simply Recipes and a good one it is! Here it is, in my own format. I hope those who had them enjoyed eating them and those who try to bake them enjoy making them. 

My Ice Cream Project

This is a much delayed post. I've been experimenting making different flavours of ice cream since I made the basic, black sesame and mango peach ice creams. 

The method is use is the "no machine" method. You don't need yogurt machine to make yogurt or a a bread machine to make bread and it's possible to make ice cream without an ice cream machine. You do need a handheld or stand alone mixer, and time at home. And some amount of good memory, since you do need to take out the mixture and whip it every 40 minutes or so.

Here are some of what I've done this year:

Blueberry

I used whipping cream instead of evaporated milk. I expected a creamier texture but it wasn't that much better. And the colour didn't turn out that blue either.

Green Tea

This was definitely a huge success. My daughter loved it and my husband said it was the best ice cream I've ever made. Texture, flavour and colour turned out beautifully.

Chocolate

This was lovely too. Except next time, I would add more cocoa powder. 

Stawberry

For this, I was hoping to get a pink ice cream. Instead it turned out light orangey. I guess it was from the egg yolks. Other than that, the strawberry flavour was noticeable and texture was okay.

Alrighty, here is my err... ice cream project summary poster, if you may call it. If you would like to have the full method, you may refer to the mango peach ice cream post.