Spritzer Cookies
I was feeling exceedingly stressed this morning and ate four profiteroles at one shot and didn't have the spirit to make lunch or dinner, thus resorting to taking out one of my pre-made chicken pies in the fridge and just baking it.
Then my housemate came and announced to me that she bought a spritzer cookie presser and I just
had to make it.
Before that though, I drowned my sorrows in peanut butter chocolate chips cookies again. I love them - this time I tried mixing two types of chips, white and dark. Turned out alright, although I think the original is better.
Peanut Butter Mixed Chips CookiesThen I set off to make the spritzer cookies.
Spritzer Cookies - Here are the two shaped I decided to press out this time. Hearts and flowers. There's a trick to trying to get the dough off the presser which took me some time to master, also resulting in me avoiding to make the more complicated shapes. Will revisit it when I have the time and patience to try again.
Flowers
HeartsThat's it for today. More tomorrow.
Labels: Cookies
Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
I always wanted a recipe that would help me get rid of peanut butter so that I could switch to Nutella instead as a spread for my bread. I found this recipe and it is great!
It's a really simple recipe, mixing peanut butter, brown sugar, egg and chocolate chip cookies and forming them into balls and baking them. The results were delicious - the only thing I would change next time would be to use crunchy peanut butter instead of creamy for an extra peanut crunch.
Quick, simple and reasonably cheap. Definitely a keeper.
Recipe can be found
here.
Labels: Cookies
Almond London Cookies
I used to eat these cookies when I was young during Chinese New Year and now that I've found the recipe online, I need not wait for my aunt to bring them over - I can just bake them in the comfort of my own home.
Almond London cookies are really easy to make. All you need is some basic sugar cookie dough (yes, sugar cookie dough again. It's so versatile!), some whole almonds and a block of chocolate. Mix up the dough, wrap half an almond with some dough and roll it up into a ball. Place the ball into a small paper cup and bake.
Once out and cooled, drizzle melted chocolate on top. Decorations can be done either with dragees (shown) or with chopped nuts.
These are very addictive because they're small and chocolatey. I forsee making them very often in the future.
Labels: Cookies
Linzer Cookies
Linzer cookies are traditionally cookies from Austria made from ground nuts and filled with raspberry jam. However, the not-so-traditional me decided to make it with sugar cookie dough and strawberry jam. Still tasted delish, even if I do say so myself.
There's a special Linzer cookie cutter that allows you to punch the outline
and the gap in the middle in one punch. The center is interchangable so you can have different shaped holes in the middle.
I particularly like the heart shaped punched out hole. The difficult thing about this cookie is trying to handle the punched out piece without deforming it. However, I guess practice makes perfect. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I don't refrigerate the dough before going ahead with the punching - I'm too impatient.
I guess I should make it my personal mission to cultivate patience in my life.
Labels: Cookies
Flowers
After making snowflakes and hearts successfully, I decided to progress to flowers. Not easy. Making the petals are the hardest. I made the cookie with chocolate sugar cookie dough and royal icing.
Strangely, not many people seem to be able to appreciate how hard it is to make cookies like these. A friend actually had the audacity to comment that they looked 'cheap'. I'd like to point out that:
1. Cutting cookies is a big hassle
2. Flooding the background with royal icing is time consuming
3. Coloring the icing in different colors is hard work
4. Piping lines is not a walk in the park.
That said, the ingredients used
are cheap I suppose *grudgingly*. However, I maintain that they do not look cheap, but rather, cute. Or whimsical.
Just bought a Linzer Cookie cutter. Can't wait to use it.
Labels: Cookies
Iced Heart Shaped Cookies
Came home from uni and pre-heated the oven. While waiting, took my pre-made pie out of the freezer and mixed yet
another batch of sugar cookie dough to make more cookies. This time, I decided to make everything
heart shaped. Trying to spread some love all around.
My lunch - Chicken and mushroom pie. It's fairly easy to make if one could be bothered to put in the effort. I bought a pre-seasoned chicken and roasted it at home (I find it better than buying the chicken roasted from the supermaket. Also, it sounds better to say that you roasted it
yourself), then shredded it to pieces. I then put some oil, garlic, onions and mushrooms into the pan, shoved the chicken in with some cream, added some pepper, salt and corn flour and I had my pie filling. The crust is pre-made puff pastry. Also, the fact that you can make it and put it into the freezer until you want to eat it makes it even more convenient.
Heart Shaped Cookies - I am quite proud of the outcome. I didn't have enough icing sugar so I decorated the cookies all differently. Starting from the bottom clockwise:
1. Heart-Shaped Sandwich - Just the cookies pressed together with jam.
2. Iced background with cornelli lace piping on the top.
3. Just some random wiggles.
4. Cornelli lace with no background because of lack of icing.
5. Just a couple of swirls with the last of the icing and some dragees.
Will probably be working on stars or gingerbread men next.
Labels: Cookies
Baking Therapy
Baking is therapy for me. After a long day, mixing up a batch of muffins or decorating some cookies really perks me up. This is to be sort of like a photo album of all my baking efforts in the past and hopefully many more in the future.
Current Obsession: Cookies. Particularly cut-out cookies.
Current Mood: Feeling Obese. Thanks to 1/4 of a box of Merci chocolates.
Mixed up a batch of sugar cookies and managed to make these:
Snowflakes are one of my favourite shapes. Shall progress to flowers next.
Labels: Cookies
