My Kinda Snack - Muesli Cookies

I'm the kind who hardly ever eat snacks especially those junk food that comes in packet. It's not that I'm snobbish or trying to be healthy, just that my parents forbade us to eat those stuff or munching on things in between meals as they said it will spoil our appetite. So it never became a habit even until now. Occasionally I do however itch for some bites, so I will rummage through the fridge for chocolates or left over cakes.

Recently, I came across this recipe that said crunchy muesli cookies which seems very simple and easy. As usual I don't really follow the recipe but just guesstimate my way since it's not a cake and I tend to reduce the sugar amount anyway.

I've reduced the amount of sugar so it wasn't really crunchy but rather crumbly as very little butter is used to bind the total amount of ingredients used. If you have sweet tooth, steer clear of this recipe or maybe add a little more sugar :p



What I love about this cookie is, there is the crunch from the oats and nuts; then there's the chewiness from the dried fruits. Tasted very much like my homemade granola. So if you like granola for breakfast, you'll love this cookie recipe.

Muesli Cookies 

(A)
90 g (1 cup) rolled oats
150 g (1 cup) plain flour
200 g castor sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground mixed spice
100 g (3/4 cup) finely chopped mixture of dried cranberries, raisins and dates (you can use any combination ie. apricot, sultanas, citrus peel etc)
70 g (1/2 cup) chopped almonds and walnuts (any combination of nuts will work too) 

(B)
125 g butter
2 Tbsp maple/corn syrup or even honey (I've used maple syrup)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 Tbsp boiling hot water 

Preheat oven to 160C, grease bottom of oven try and line with baking paper. Mix all ingredients (A) in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

In a small saucepan, melt butter and maple syrup over low heat. Once butter is completely melted, add in bicarbonate of soda and the boiling hot water. Remove pan from heat and cool a little. 

Pour warm butter mixture into the dry ingredients (A). Combine them thoroughly. Roll them into balls* and place on lined tray. Flatten a little with hand. Leave some space in between to allow the cookies to expand. Bake about 15 - 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool the cookies on cooling rack before storing in air tight container. 

I've roll them using about 1 slightly heaped tablespoon dough mixture and managed to get about 35 cookies.

Chocolate & Raisin Oatmeal Cookies

The weekend before I got admitted to hospital, I made a batch of Chocolate & Raisin Oatmeal Cookies from another of my fave book under Page One Publishing, 500 Chocolate Delights by Lauren Floodgate. I got a jar for Yozora but they all got eaten up by hubby whilst I was in the hospital. Will make up with Yozora with another batch soon *promised* as she gave me some of her delish Banana Oatmeal Cookies yesterday. They're of the soft kind and tasted special cos it has a wonderful banana aroma that I loved.

The Chocolate & Raisin Oatmeal Cookies are of the soft and chewy type... healthy too since the recipe needed less than 3 tbsp of oil and only one egg. As usual, my count of chocolate chips, raisins and hazelnuts (kar liew - something additional to the recipe) were extraordinary more than stated in the recipe made these cookies tasted, errrmmm, well fantabulous! If you love soft and chewy cookies, this recipe is definitely for you to keep, well don't just keep, bake a batch or two or more!

Chocolate & Raisin Oatmeal Cookies

(A)
85g plain flour, sifted
40g self-raising flour, sifted
28g porridge oats
2 tsp baking powder
55g light brown sugar
55g caster sugar

1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp sunflower oil
40g raisins
85g plain chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 190C. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine ingredients A. In a separate bowl, beat together egg and vanilla. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients until just combined (I've used a spatula to mix, easy peasy, something I learnt from watching Sugar).

Slowly add in the oil to the mixture, beating well between each addition, until the mixture start to comes away from the sides of the bowl - you may not need to use all the oil (I think I've used 2.5 tbsp of oil only.)

Stir in raisins and chocolate chips (and the nuts if using). Divide cookie dough into 12 - 15 portions and roll into balls. Place balls well spaced apart and flatten the dough slightly with the back of the spoon. (I did this by scooping and dropping the dough with 2 spoons. Worked just as well.)

Bake for 12 - 15 mins until pale golden. Store in air-tight container for up to 3 days or in the freezer for 3 months.

Ref: 500 Chocolate Delights by Lauren Floodgate

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Donna Hay's Vanilla + Almond Biscotti

Sorry for the long silence, I was extremely busy with my work assignments. Only found some time to blog now. I've tried making Donna Hay's Vanilla + Almond Biscotti using the recipe from her Modern Classics Book 2 recently. It's sad to note that I never seems to be able to get the cookies dough texture right with all her cookies recipes, first the Star Cookies and then the Shortbread and Gingerbread. Could it be the ingredients over here or it's our humid weather??? I surfed the net and found out that I'm not the only one facing this issue kekekeke... so it's not me, at least :D

After mixing the ingredients together, the mixture turned out to be sticky which resembles a batter rather than dough hence there is no way to knead the dough. Since I've a very short memory, this silly babe went and add a little more flour thinking it will stiffen up the mixture. Well stiffen it did but the biscotti turned out a little hard. As I could not shape the mixture up, I place them into baking tins lined with non-stick baking paper as if I'm baking a cake! Worked as well. So the next round I'm going to do just that instead of pandai-pandai (cleverly) add in extra flour.

After the first round of baking, the mixture turned into a cake like texture. It's rather easy to slice them up using a sharp serrated knife cos I had always wonder how those cookie sellers could make paper thin biscotti. Taste wise, its good, not overly sweet and I tried dunking some into hubby's white coffee... hmmmm mmmmmm... nice!!! I've eaten many slices in one go once whilst watching telly, its a little hard but then its still crunchy... great to munch on... and now you see how my detox diet went down the drain hehehe...

Vanilla + Almond Biscotti

2 cups (250g) plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons
baking powder
3/4 cup (150g) sugar
3/4 cup whole almonds
3 eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 160C (325F). Place flour, baking powder, sugar and almonds in a bowl and mix together. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well to form a dough.

Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead each piece until smooth. Shape ionto logs and flatten slightly. Place logs onto baking tray and bake for 35 mins. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

Cut logs into 5mm (1/4in) thick slices and place on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 10-15 mins till crispy. Store in air tight container and serve dunked into espresso coffee or liquer. Makes 40.

Ref: Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2, pg 27

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Shortbread and Gingerbread Cookies

I've made some Shortbread and Gingerbread (yikes they ryhmed :D) Cookies right before Christmas. I've used the recipes from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2. I just loved this book! All the recipes in this book worked except for the cookies haha... well the dough turned out to be too soft, maybe due to our weather, just like the supposedly-to-be-star-cookies. I could have store them in the fridge for more than 4 hours before shaping but I just don't have the time. All I did have was a mere 30 mins.

Anyway, I cheated and dusted flour on the dough after rolling so that I can press out the cookies in the cutters. So as I went along... the batch towards the end came out rather hard. Sorry to the few of the recipients of these cookies :P

Tastewise, the shortbread was nice BUT the gingerbread smelt so great whilst baking! So Christmassy... The gingerbread cookies were a tad hardy but crunchy, kinda like it as I crunch along finishing the star.

My boiboi "decorated" these shortbread with colourful sprinkles and coloured sugar.

So here are the recipes if you wish to try them yourself ;-)

Shortbread

220g chilled butter, chopped
2/3 cup caster sugar
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg

Pre-heat oven to 160C. Process all ingredients in food processor (Ive used my mixer instead, worked as well) until a smooth dough is formed.

Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead gently.

Press mixture into a 20cm x 30 cm (8in x 12 in) slice tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Smooth the surface with the back of a spoon and score the top into long bars. Bake for 1 hour or until golden. Cool in tin. Slice along the score marks, makes 22 slices.

Or you can roll into balls, place on baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper and flatten slightly with a fork. Bake for 22-25 mins or until just golden brown.


Gingerbread

125g butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup golden syrup (I replaced with honey)
21/2 cups plain flour, sifted
2 tsps ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)

Preheat oven to 190C. Place butter and sugar in bowl and beat with electric beaters until light and creamy. Add golden syrup, flour, ginger and baking soda and mix to form a smooth dough. Refrigerate for 10 mins or until dough is firm.

Roll out dough between sheets of non-stick baking paper to 4mm (1/4 in) thick. Cut out shapes from dough using cookie cutter. Place on baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 8-10mins or until golden brown. Cool on tray.

Ref: Donna Hay, Modern Classics Book 2, page 12 and 32

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Festive Cookies

In replying to Teckiee's question in my Deepavali greetings post if I was away making murukku... hahaha of course not lah! I got a tin of that from a friend of mine. Well instead of murukku, I made these...

Wahseh... colourful or not? Before these babies were coated with milled sugar, the strong colour looked kinda scary! I made a trial batch of these earlier but I've used very very little colouring and my test bunnies told me they were too light. Hmmm and I thought they looked kinda nice in pastel shades, just that they don't show much after the sugar coating.

So are they festive enough for Deepavali???

Anyways, these babies are known as Arab Cookies or Ghee Biscuits or Sugee (even though no sugee were used??) Biscuits... recipe can be found HERE.

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Not-so-Starry-after-all

Don't these cookies looked festive and nice??? Well, it was supposed to be Donna Hay's Star Cookies recipe that I gotten from the latest edition of Donna Hay Magazine. Somehow, the dough is simply too soft to be rolled out and cut out with cookies cutter. My poor boiboi... I had promised to let him cut the cookies with the star-shaped cookie cutter, anyway he had fun too sprinkling colour sugars and bead on the cookies.

I had added extra flour into the dough mix but yet it turned out sooo soft. I ended up rolling the dough into balls then flatten with the back of a fork. However, the cookies tasted superb... buttery with melt-in-the-mouth texture. I got rounds of compliments from my guinea pigs!

Star Cookies

250g butter
3/4 cup castor sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
2 1/4 cups flour, sifted (I've added another 1/2 cup flour, at least!)
1/2 cup clear sanding sugar for decor

Preheat oven to 180C. Place butter and sugar in electric mixer and beat till pale and creamy. Add vanilla and egg yolk, beat till combined. Add flour and beat till smooth doughs forms. Divide dough into 4 portions and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 15 mins or until dough is firm. (I've left it in there for more than 2 hours which is rather firm but sort of like melted right out of the fridge.)

Roll dough between two sheets of non-stick paper until 3mm thick. Remove paper and cut with star-shaped cookies cutter. Place cookies on tray lined with baking paper. Sprinkle with clear sanding sugar. Bake for 8 minutes or till golden brown. Cool on wire rack.

Ref: Donna Hay Magazine, Issue 30, Page 148

I've coloured my sugar to make them looked more festive... spoon some sugar in a bowl and drop liquid colouring onto sugar. Mix well till colour is blended. Add in more drops till you get the colour you desired. Remember to work with very small amount of colouring. Otherwise the whole batch of sugar will become too dark.

Oh yeah, leave the cookies to cool in the tray for a while before lifting out as they will still be a bit soft.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

So far I've never came across anyone who doesn't like Chocolate Chip Cookies unless you tell me you're one of the unique ones heh. I was stock taking my larder and found a bag of Hershey's chocolate chips and different bags of nuts inside. Oh my... I've gotten these to make the cookies for Chinese New Year but never got round to do it. Hence the sudden enthusiast to bake some chocolate chip cookies. It's not my first time baking them but it's my first using Donna Hay's recipe found in page 16 of Modern Classic Book 2.

I've made up the cookie dough without adding any chocolate chips and separated them into a few bowls to make a few variations of Chocolate Chip Cookies. I've omitted the dessicated coconut and it turned out fine. I've also varied the cookies sizes, from as large as my palm to bite size pieces. Feel free to experiment.

This is the Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cookies. Oooo... I simple love this because of the hazelnuts. Do use a generous amount of the chips and nuts, just play by your ear on how much to add hahaha... the more the merrier!



The next batch of dough, I've added in chips and walnut!!! Simply irresistable!



This, I've added in the chips and plenty of chopped almonds. Imagine... every bite filled with chocolates and almonds... YUMZZZ!



In another batch of dough, I've added in some cocoa powder, loads of chopped almonds and of course more chips. The cocoa powder lend a remarkable bitter chocolate taste to the cookies and it made the almonds stand out! They looked so pretty, don't they?



Due to my over generousity in the usage of chocolate chips, I ran outta them for my last batch of dough. I can't run out to get extra as BoiBoi was taking his afternoon nap and hubby was not around either. After much rummaging my larder and fridge, I suddenly got creative. Since I've used Snickers bar to make cookies before, why not use Toblerone (I've used the one in beige box which is the milk chocolate one)??? I broke up pieces of them and add them into the dough together with some chopped almonds. The result... fantabulous! The cookies were slightly chewy due to the nougat and honey content in the Toblerone. So technically this is not chocolate chip cookies but let's' just name it Toblerone Cookies hahaha... not very creative huh?



So, those were my variation of chocolate chip cookies. Are you inspired to bake some too?? Or would you rather run off to Famous Amos to grab some to satisfy your cravings??? hehehehe... (sorry if you've wet your keyboard with your own drool :p)

I'm not gonna post the recipe here due to copyright issues but you can find it here. Happy baking!

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Chinese New Year Cookout: Arab Cookies

Sorry guys, I've been super busy. I have two memes in my pocket, so gals, IOU first ok! I've loads of photos taken for the festive season but I did not have time to download and post them all!!!! Anyway, to cut things short (since it's close to 2am already!!!), this cookie which I first tasted at Kakak's Raya open house last year. Tasted super yummy as it really melts in your mouth. I managed to get the recipe from her and recreated for Chinese New Year this year. I've never been so hardworking and diligent all these while baking anything for the new year. Somehow, the simpleness of this recipe really got me in full swing and in da mood... Click on the pictures to view the enlarged version.

Arab Cookies (not sure how Arab came along in the name... anyone?)

Ingredients:
2 cups wheat flour (1 cup = 250ml)
¼ cup sugar,
measure volume, then blend to powder (use a dry miller, this eases the kneading)
Ghee (just enough to make into soft dough)
Milled castor sugar (for
coating the cookies after baking)

First mix flour, milled sugar, and ghee into soft dough, roll them into balls, about the size of a marble.

Place them unto ungreased cookie trays. Leave some gaps in between the cookies. Bake at 15 min at 150 deg C, or until the edges are very slightly brown.

Remove cookies and place then on a cooling rack. After cooling,
coat castor sugar to coat.

Thank you Kakak for the recipe ;-)

UPDATED 26 Jan 2006

I've missed out this picture of me kneading the dough. Boiboi took this using my camera phone.



AND for ghee (clarified butter), remember to use QBB brand. It's more fragrant!