Happy Chinese New Year of the Rabbit!

I'd wanted to continue participating in the Aspiring Bakers challenge on Chinese Year Cookies but I was too busy to submit my post by the closing date of 1 Fen 2011. :P

Chinese New Year cookies has become my yearly to-do event and of course I have my favourite new year cookie, and that is almond cookies! I've never failed to make this every year after I make my first almond cookie years back with Florence's recipe. I had tried other almond cookie recipes and by far this is still my favourite recipe. I believe using toasted almonds really enhances the taste, much more than using ground almonds alone.
This year, I made my own pineapple jam, after reading Wendy's blog which gave really clear instructions on how to make it. Her instructions and tips really helped alot as I found it less intimidating to do as I had thought. The only problem was that my jam was too wet and soft, even though I had cooked it once more the next day and chill it in the fridge. Being too soft, I had such a difficult time wrapping the pastry dough over the jam.

This year, I made kok chai again with my mum's help. I used a bigger drinking glass to mould the shape of circle for the dough, for fear of the dough shrinking but it dodn't this year. Hence my first batches of kok chai were so big that we think it looked like mini curry puffs! LOL

I finally made kueh bangkit again this year after a few years of rest. :D

My favourite almond cookie.

We have just ushered into the year of the Rabbit and I would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous year ahead!

Aspiring Bakers#2: Christmas! (Dec 2010) - Cranberry Shortbreads

Few days before chirstmas, on 20 Dec 2010, my attempt to bake a oatmeal-cranberry cookie failed after I realised the oats had expired only after I mixed it into the butter-sugar batter. The next few days were christmas gatherings and I knew I would not have the time to do another baking. All thanks to my stubborn-ness, I told myself I must bake cookies for christmas this year, for it has not failed me all these years. :P

I wake myself extra early on one of the morning, prepared the cookie dough, and chill it in the fride in advance. After getting home that night, I made these cookies, with the dough prepared in advance, and finished it around 1am. Only then could I go to bed, satisfied. :)

This recipe was adapted from a recent cookie book I got - The Australian Women's Weekly:Cookies. It as a plain shortbread designd like a button but I added cranberries to the shortbread dough and cut out using cookie cutters. The red cranberries added gave a plain cookie a christmas-y feel. Love the colour contrast when added to the dough.

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers#2: Christmas hosted by Passionate About Baking. Do hop over to her blog to see other interesting christmas baking/cooking postings!

Cranberry Shortbread

Ingredients:

250g butter

75g caster sugar

35g rice flour

335g plain flour

120g cranberries, diced and chopped finely

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Line oven trays with baking paper.
3. Beat butter and sugar with electric beater until smooth. Stir in sifted flours. Add cranberries and knead to form a smooth dough.
4. Divide dough into two portions and chill dough in the fridge for about 1 hour, until firm.
5. Roll dough to about 3mm thickness (you can use the thicker end of two chopsticks as a guide).
6. Cut out your desired shapes with a cookie cutter.
7. Bake for about 12 minutes in the preheated oven (my cookie is about 4-5-cm, if your cookie is bigger, you have to increase the baking time. When cookie is slightly browned, it is ready).
8. Remove from oven to cool on a wire rack.

Adapted From: The Australian Women's Weekly: Cookies

Lavender & Almond Snowball Cookies

Bee Bee of Honey Bee Sweets has requested for the recipe of the lavender cookies and almond shortbread that I have prepared during the food blogger's gathering because her girl loved it so much! :) Of course I'm more than happy to share the recipe, so that this happiness would be able to spread on, by both the giver (the one who bakes) and the receiver (one who receives the cookies). ;)

The lavender cookie was a recipe adapted from Angie's Recipes. I find that there are not many lavender cookie recipes around online and I can't find a single one in my recipe books. I'd wanted to give a go at Happy Homebaker's lemon lavender shortbread but when I read how she described the dough as rather unmanageable, I thought I had better err on the save side by googling for a more full proof recipe, hence eventually I settled for Angie's lavender cookies. I did not make much modifications to her recipe except that I had used butter instead of margarine, reduced the sugar slightly and I made it smaller. As I did not press the cookie flat enough, the first batch that came out was a little soft, some did not have the "crunch" you'd want in a cookie. So I had to send to the oven to bake for another 3-4 minutes.


I called my almond shortbread "almond snowball" because this was the name of the cookie as printed in "Okashi Treats" by keiko ishida". The cookie looked pretty much like a snowball and is one of my favourite type of cookie because I love the melt-in-your mouth texture. It is sometimes called "russian teacakes" or "mexican wedding cakes". Unlike melting moments, which is quite similar but contains only flour and sometimes corn starch to produce this a melt-in-your-mouth texture immediately when you put it into your mouth, this recipe replaces some of the flour with almond meal that gives a more crunchy exterior and melts in your mouth only when you have bite into the interior. I actually prefer this kind of texture bcause it is not so fragile especially when you are packing it in little cookie bags, and it will not stick into your teeth that much. :)



Almond Snowball

Ingredients:

150g pastry flour (I used cake flour)
120g insalted butter
50g icing sugar + more for dusting
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
50g ground almonds (I did not have enough ground almonds hence I grounded some whole hazel nuts to make up to 50g)


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Sift flour once. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Beat butter, sugar, salt and vanilla extract until softened. Fold flour and ground almonds into butter mixture using a spaula. Chill dough for about 20 minutes.
3. Roll dough into small balls, about 8g each (I did not measure and I just roll according to my preferred size) and place on the baking sheet.
4. Bake for about 20 minutes (I used about 18 minutes as my dough was smaller), remove from heat and leave to cool on wire rack.
5. Once cooled, dust with icing sugar and store in an airtight container.

Recipe adapted from: "Okashi Treats" by keiko ishida

first food bloggers meet-up

Haha... I guess I'm one of the last few to blog about this food bloggers gathering that we had last Sunday, 8 Aug 2010. Such a memorable event it was, of course I had to record in my journal.

I may not sound as excited as I may have appeared on that day, but the truth is, I was really over-whelmed and elated when I first received Pei-Lin of Dodol & Mochi's email about a month ago, asking whether I would like to attend this gathering, and I replied without much hesitation. Even though I was a little worried about this meeting "strangers" (not because they will abduct me of course!) because I was usually quiet and shy when meeting people for the first time. But i told myself: Hey life's too short to worry about so many things! Do go and pursue what you wish to. Making friends of common interest is something I'd always love do, especially after taken up this love for baking. But my shy and passive nature probably could have hindered me along the way. So, I knew if I am gonna miss this gathering, I'll regret it!

Most of us soon confirmed our attendance, and our thoughtful Pei-Lin systematically drew up an excel spreadsheet, and list all the people who will be going, and the things we would be preparing, in case there would be any overlapping.

Edith of Precious Moments was so nice to open up her sweety home for us to feast in and be comfortable. We met at 12pm and imagine we stayed until 6pm! Initially I thought it will gonna be a short one but all of us had so much to chat that time passess so fast. I believe if we had not met up at her place, we would not be able to meet up for such a long time if we had met outside.

The blur me actually got off at the wrong station because I kept associating that station I'm supposed to get off with another station. Even though Edith had given very clear instructions on the directions to her house, I still had to ask around because I was already late. :P

Here's our eleven lovely, superb, gorgeous bloggers, ;)

Pei-Lin of Dodol & Mochi
Bee Bee of Honey Bee Sweets
Grace of Kitchen Corner
Jane of Passionate about Baking
Shirley of Kokken69
You Fei of Loving Baking
Zhou Yuan (Bakertan)of Baking Library
Edith of Precious Moments
Jess of Bakericious
Yan Ee of Sweeter Side of Life
Jo of Sugar & Everything Nice

A day before the "big day", i was busy baking these lavender cookies and almond shortbreads. When my nephew knew that I would be baking, he was as excited as I am and offered to be my little helper. Heh that excitement of his soon died down and he went off to play with other things. I thought I could get another pair of hands to help me roll the cookie but he soon found that it was "not fun" after all. ;) Knew what, he exerted too much pressure that every cookie dough was too flat. When I corrected him, he thre a tantrum. Haha... :D

These lovely almond shortbreads has a crunchy texture on the outside, and melt in your mouth texture on the inside.

These special floss rolls was a recipe from Judy Koh's cookbook. It is a swiss roll with seaweed, ham, japanese cucumber and pork floss. I thought this is an interesting dish which is both sweet and savoury.

I won't be posting the photos of the other food prepared by other bloggers because I didn't get to take many photos as I'd forgotten to bring my charged battery and the original battery went flat after a few shots. Please do hop on to other's blog to see the yummy homemade dishes!

To end the note, I enjoyed every moment of the day's meet-up. You ladies (and one guy, Zhou Yuan) are really great cooks and bakers and in terms of the amount of time and patience that you have spent in the kitchen preparing for the food, I've really got lots to learn from each and everyone of you.

Hope we'll have another gathering soon! ;)

energy bar

If you are someone who likes to grab an energy bar on the go, this recipe is the one for you. As for me, well... I don't usually buy any granola bar or energy bar as I usually have proper meals so I don't need anything for an instant "energy".

This recipe however, is worth a try since I thought it would be better to make this than buying snacks and junk food. So far most granola bar recipes that I've come across are loaded with oil or butter but this recipe does not use any oil and there is minimal sugar as the sweetness comes from raisins and cranberries. And it's real simple to make!

I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I just used whatever nuts and dried fruits I have in my baking pantry. I do have not brown rice syrup hence I replaced with yoghurt and apple juice. The bar did turned out a bit yoghurt-y. ;P

Ingredients:

30g walnuts
70g brown rice syrup
50g sugar-free apple juice
30g pine nuts
20g pumpkin seeds
50g dried raisins
20g cranberries
60g rolled oats
60g wholemeal flour


Method:

Toast walnuts at 150°C for 15 minutes withut preheating. Leave to cool, then chop into small pieces and set aside.
Combine brown rice syrup and apple juice in a bowl and mix well. Add walnuts, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, raisins, cranberries and oats. Mix until combined. Add flour and fold in.
Transfer mixture to a freezer bag. Using a rolling pin, roll mixture out to a 13x24-cm rectangle. Place in freezer to chill and set for 1 our.
Preheat oven to 150°C. Using a scissors, cut open the freezer bag, then cut mixture into 6 bars and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake bars for about 25 minutes, remove from heat and leave to cool on a wire rack.
Store bars in an airtight container.


Recipe Source: "Okashi Treats" by keiko ishida

Honey Cornflakes

I took an entire week of my vacation leave for my Phuket trip. Following my return back, I simply rest and relax at home, rotting, surfing the internet and of cos' baking. Life's ought to be like this. You can't be working like a machine 365 days. You'll hate your job even more (unless your work is your passion but hardly do we fulfill that, do we?). After a break, recharged, and set the engine to work hard again! Hopefully I'll be able to recharge back to full power at the soonest. ;)

One entire day was spent baking a birthday cake for my best girl friend for a belated birthday celebration for her. It was one of the worst birthday cake I've made but we had fun laughing and eating it :P (More to be shared!)

On another day, I wanted to bake something yet not too tedious. I chosed this simplest of all - honey cornflake cups. I bought a packet of cornflakes during Chinese New Year to make chocolate cornflakes and kept the leftovers as breakfast cereals but I hardly consume it as I've shifted my preference for wheat cereals instead. So I thought making this is the best way to utilise it. ;)

I didn't managed to coat all with the honey-sugar syrup so it deosn't stick well but I think that's fine. It would not be overly sweet then and you can just pick at any loose cereal flakes from the mini muffin cup case. I randomly googled for this recipe and found one that suits me! It's here. Thanks Jussaemon for this easy and good recipe. :D

Suji Cookies

Meeting up with my girlfriends is one of the happiest moments in life. Don't you agree? :D Even though I bake frequently whenever I could, I don't think my sistas had enough of my bakes because we don't meet so often. :) During our recent gathering, I squeezed in some time in the morning to bake this easy suji cookies before meeting them at noon. They love the cookies! Especially Kexian... :) I knew it cos I know she love melting moments, though I baked this to be more on the crunchy side.

Crunchy Suji Cookies

100g ghee

120g caster sugar (i reduced to 90g)

1 egg yolk

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

150g plain flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

egg glaze: 1 egg yolk mixed with few drops of water (i omitted this)

1. Mix ghee, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla essence till well combined.
2. Sift flour, baking soda and salt and stir well.
3. Preheat oven at 180°C for 10 minutes. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
4. Using a metal spoon, fold the flour mixture into the ghee mixture. Knead lightly to form a dough.
5. Pinch a small amount (about 1/2 tbsp) of dough and roll it into a ball. Place the cookie dough 2cm apart on the tray as they will spread during baking.
6. Brush with egg glaze.
7. Bake for 14 minutes. Let it cool for a few minutes on the baking tray before transferring to a wire rack. Allow them to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Recipe from: Oi Lin's "Delicious Asian Baked Treats"

Nice, cosy cafe but with food below our expectation. Nevertheless its the company that counts. Have not post our photos for a long time. :) Shunmei, Kexian, Kailing and me!

Almond Cookies

Among the many new year cookies, one of my favourite has to be almond cookies. I find that there are so many forms of almond cookies that I am always eager to try any types that is labelled "almond cookies" whenever I walk past shops selling new year goodies, without buying of course. :P

I have been making this almond cookie over the past few cny and even during non-chinese new year period because it is really delicious and crunchy. This year, I wanted to venture into new almond cookie recipes. I recently bought Oi Lin's recipe books on Delicious Asian Baked Treats and Delicious Asian Sweet Treats which features loads of Asian treats such as your usual pineapple tarts, egg sponge cakes, cny cookies and many more. I wanted to try most of the new year cookie recipes in her book but I only managed to try some of them his year. This is one of the almond cookie that I've tried from her book. The result is rich and crumbly and certainly worth making. This is similar to the one I've been making but it uses a mixture of almond meal and flour while the other (originated from Florence's blog) uses only flour but with lots of toasted almond nips. I actually prefer Florence's recipe because the almond nips makes the cookies extra crunchy!

The other almond cookie from Oi Lin's Asian Baked Treats is this almond cookie with nut topping. This recipe uses ghee instead of the usual butter or oil. Intially I was quite skeptical about using ghee because I always thought this is much more unhealthier, until I did a googling and understands that ghee is actually clarified butter, where the milk solids and impurities have already been removed. It is however not explicitly clear whether ghee has any difference (if any) in terms of its health benefits as compared to butter although some sites do claim that ghee is healthier than butter because of its lower fat content.

Mixing the batter of this was so easy because ghee is much softer. You literally just need to mix the ghee with sugar and salt well and fold in the other ingredients as you would usually do when making a standard cookie batter. The ghee smelt rather pungent and I was so worried that no one would dare to eat it but hey I'm wrong!

When baked, the cookie was so fragrant, once you pop a small morsel with an almond into your mouth, you just can't stop!

almond cookies with nut topping

• 120g untoasted whole almonds with skin
• 100g ground almonds
• 180g unsalted ghee
• 130g caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 250g plain flour
• Glaze: 1 egg yolk mixed with a few drops of water
• small paper cases

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Toast whole almonds for 10 minutes and ground almonds for 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.
3. Mix ghee, sugar, salt and vanilla essence. Add cooled (must be cooled) ground almonds and mix well. Sift flour over the ghee mixture. Fold the flour into the mixture and bring all ingredients to form a dough.
4. Scoop one level teaspoon of dough, shape it into a ball and place n a paper case. Arrange on a baking tray. (according to Oi Lin, these cookies must be baked in small paper cases. Otherwise the cookies will spread and result in thin and hard cookies)
5. Bake cookies in preheated oen at 180°C for 10 minutes. Remove tray from the oven and glaze the cookies with egg yolk. Place a whole almond on every cookie. Bake for another 10 minues. (Note, you should place the almond immediately once you glaze the top. Otherwise if yu glaze all the cookies at one time, the earlier ones that you have glazed would have dried up and the almond would not stick into the cookie.
6. Allow cookies to cool completely on a wire rack before storing.

Recipe from: Oi Lin's "Delicious Asian Baked Treats"

Chinese Almond Cookies

14 days to Chinese New Year. Have you started your cny baking? :) I just completed a batch of peanut puffs, aka kok chai last night when everyone should have been in slumberland. kok chai is another chinese festive snack not to be missed, especially if you are a peanut lover. Since I was young, we would always be expecting my auntie, who makes great kok chai to give us some (if she makes enough). Otherwise, we would rely on store bought which is usually not as good as homemade ones.

My mum had always wanted to learn how to make but never had the chance to learn from my auntie. This year, I decided to rope in my mum to make kok chai together. I'm only good with the oven, but if you ask me to handle woks and deep-frying stuffs, I had better do it with my expert mum by my side. ;)

Making kok chai really needs lots of patience because you need to wrap each individual puff with peanuts, seal it and make jagged patterns with your fingers. If you filled with too much peanuts that touches the outer corners of the skin, the skin would become non-sticky and difficult to seal it tightly. As we were approaching midnight, both mum and I were already tired that our productivity and patience really goes down. We just wanted to finish up all the dough, so the puffs gets uglier and bigger. *LOL* But it was all worth it because the kok chai, despite having a slightly thicker skin, were very crunchy and delicious! This is our first attempt and we considered ourselves to be successful ;)

Lesson learnt here is that never try to bake and make anything in the night time unless you are a night owl who's exceptionally energetic at night. Thanks to my great, noble mummy who stayed up with me till late!I'm sorry that I digressed so much because the recipe for this post is not kok chai but chinese almond cookies. I had drafted this post earlier with the recipe ready but I am now so eager to relate my kok chai-making experience so I decided to just go ahead and talk about it now. usually when the excitement dies down, I would not have the mood to post it again. :)

This year, due to my hectic work schedule, I had reduced much of my to-do new year bakes list as compared to previous year. As much as I wish I could bake new year goodies of all sorts, I just have to be realistic. I tried out a new recipe for chinese almond cookie but it was not this recipe. This is the kind of recipe that is similar to the chinese walnut cookie that you sometimes get when you go hong kong. It is very crispy and usually comes in bigger size. I made this because I wanted to use up the shortening left in my fridge. It is a very unhealthy cookie because of the use of lard/ shortening but it is this ingredient that gives it its unique crispiness but everyone raves about it so I think it is alright since I am sharing good stuffs with many people. ;)

This photo shot was not a freshly baked one as I managed to get this photo shot with the last one and a half piece left after a few days later. I find that this type of cookies is not commonly sold during chinese new year. So why not bake this for new year to serve your guest? :)

Chinese Almond Cookies

Ingredients:

210g plain flour

3/4 tsp ammonium bicarbonate (I replace with 1/4 tsp baking soda)

50g ground almonds

100g lard (I used shortening)

100g unsalted butter, chilled

200g fine sugar (I reduced to 170g) (do not use caster sugar)

2 egg yolks

1 1/2 tsp almond extract (I used 1 tsp vanilla essence and 1/2 tsp almond essence for some who do not like the too strong almond taste)

3/4 tsp salt

1 egg yolk beaten with 2 tbsp water, for glazing whole blanched almonds, for decoration

Method:

1. Sift flour and ammonium bicarbonate together in a bowl. Add ground almonds and whisk until thoroughly mixed together. Set aside.
2. Combine lard, butter, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl and cream until well blended. (sugar will not dissolve thoroughly, this is fine). Best in egg yolks one at a time, then add vanilla and almond extract and beat to incorporate.
3. Add flour mixture and stir until dough comes together in a ball. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least 45 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 180°C.
5. Prepare baking sheets lined with baking parchment.
6. Divide dough into 24 portions (about 30g each). - This would yield a very large cookie. I used 15g per portion and the diameter was about 6cm
7. Roll each portion into a ball, spacing about 5 cm apart.
8. Brush lightly with yolk and press a whole almond into each one, flattening each ball slightly. (I omitted this)
9. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until deep golden brown. Cookies will flatten out during baking.
10. Let cookies cool on baking sheet until they are firm enough to remove, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
11. Store in airtight container as soon as they are cool.

Recipe Source: Food & Travel - Jan 2010 Issue

I will post more pictures of other chinese new year goodies when I have the time. ;)

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these cookies for my ex-colleague who has resigned some time back as a farewell gift for her. This is a crunchy cookie (not soft, chewy type) and I must say is a good recipe cos' it stays crunchy for over a week as long as you keep it well in an air-tight container. The recipe is from 孟老师的一百道Home-made Cookie.

Please pardon me for the blur picture. I took it in the evening time when the light shining through my living room was really dim. This was the best I can have, with the enhancement of some contrast. :P

Ingredients:

80g unsalted butter

90g brown sugar

50g eggs

150g plain flour

15g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

110g chocolate chips

Method:

1. Cream butter (room temperature) and sugar until well mixed.
2. Add eggs a little at a time to the creamed mixture.
3. Sift flour, cocoa powder and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and using a spatula, mix well until a dough is formed.
4. Add chocolate chips.
5. Gather dough in a cling wrap and chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
6. Weigh about 20g of the dough, roll into a ball and press down lightly onto the baking tray. The diameter would be about 5cm.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 170°C for about 25 minutes.
8. After the cookies are baked, let it cool in the oven for about 10 minutes before bringing out to cool.

Note: This yields quite a large cookie. If you prefer smaller cookies, divide each cookie dough into smaller portions; baking time has to adjusted depending on the size of your cookie.

Recipe Source: 孟老师的一百道Home-made Cookie

Milky Bar

If you have bars of white chocolate or white chocolate drops due to expire and you can't be munching on it aimlessly, make your own milky bar! It's so much more delicious than store-bought bars because you can be generous with the cookie bits and nuts. It serves as nice gifts for those who love milky bars. :)

All you need is just:

50g oreo biscuits
200g white chocolate
50g almond flakes (I used whole almonds and chopped into pieces)

Begin by breaking oreo cookies into chunks.
Toast almonds in preheated oven at 150°C for 10 minutes. Set aside.
Melt white chocolate in a double boiler. When chocolate has melted, add in oreo chunks and almond flakes and mix evenly.
Pour mixture into a 14.5 cm by 14.5 cm sqaure tray and smooth the surface evenly.
Leave in room temperature for about 45 minutes to let it cool before cutting into bars.

Note:
Do not let in cool be keeping in the fridge. It would be harder to cut it. You may store in the fridge after chopping into bars.

Recipe Source: 孟老师的一百道Home-made Cookie

Dean Brettschneider

Global Baker - by Dean Brettschneider is a recent book that I acquired when there was this 30% off all books at Borders with a cut-out coupon. I didn't really have any books that I wanted to buy in mind but since it was such a good offer, I hopped down to Borders for a book-shopping.

Call me ignorant, or maybe not, I have not heard of Dean Brettschneider before I have his book but as I was browsing through the many cookbooks, this particular one attracted me as the recipes are not those "old-fashion" or "classic" recipes that you commonly see from American/European bakers. Owing to the fact that he is currently based in Shanghai, some of his recipes are given an Asian twist such as "red bean & sesame ring bread", "chocolate chip hot cross buns" , "chinese flower steam buns", and many other interesting cakes, bread and pastries which somehow appeals to me.This book is accompanied by a dvd showing a snapshot of a day in this baker's life in Shanghai. A little disappointing is that the entire film is probably only about half an hour. This irish soda bread is the first recipe that I tried. I have seen quite a fair bit of such bread in other baker's books such as Martha Steward but this is the first time I try making it. It seems to me an easy quick bread minus the sugar so I often wonder how it taste like. I decided to give this a try as all I wanted for next day's breakfast was a very easy-to-bake healthy quick bread. Overall, it's a nice soft bread that is good when toasted and spread with butter or jam.

Being not a too-picky eater, this bread is fine. I guess in terms of pastries, I still prefer Asian's sweet soft buns, that why I'm not really fond of muffins, but I do like Artisan hard crust bread!

If anyone is interested in the recipe, then drop me a note. :)

Ok, my second recipe here. This is your usual favourite subway cookie - if you love their cookies. Sweet, chewy, giant cookie, but you can't find in Subway, so you gotta make it yourself! White chocolate and pistachio is a good combination, sweet white chocolate pairs with salty pistachio nuts helps to balance the overall sweetness. I made this for my dd's best buddy and his wife who will be staying in Australia for two years. :)

Pistachio & White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Ingredients:

135g butter, softened

100g sugar

100g soft brown sugar (I used 80g each)

1 small egg

10ml milk

few drops of vanilla essence or extract

150g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

45g rolled oats

55g pistachio nuts, coarsely chopped

140g white chocolate drops, coarsely chopped

60g pistachio nuts, coarsely chopped, for topping

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175°C
2. Cream butter, sugar and brown sugar with electric beater until light and fluffy.
3. Add egg , milk and vanilla essence/extract and mix in.
4. Sieve all the dry ingredients, and add to the creamed mixture along with the rolled oats until well combined and evenly mixed.
5. Add pistachio nuts and white chocolate and mix again until well combined.
6. Using a tablespoon, scoop spoonfuls (about 35g) and roll into round balls using floured hands and place 10cm apart on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper. (Do not flatten, otherwise the cookies will spread too much.
7. Sprinkle a few chopped pistachio nuts over the top and bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown. You can bake for 10-14 minutes for crispier cookies.
8. Place on a wire rack to cool.

Recipe Source: Global Baker - by Dean Brettschneider

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Update: Due to some requests, I have posted the recipe of the irish soda bread here. Enjoy!!

Wholewheat Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients:

• 215g plain flour
• 10g baking powder
• 5g baking soda
• 5g cream of tartar
• good pinch of salt
• 225g wholewheat or wholemeal flour
• 20g treacle, honey or golden syrup, warmed
• 225ml milk
• 225g natural yoghurt
• rolled oats for decoration

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 190°C.
2. Sieve the plain flour, baking powder, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt into a large mixing bowl, add wholemeal flour and stir together.
3. Add warmed honey, milk and natural yoghurt and use a wooden spoon to stir the mixture together until smooth with a batter-like consistency. Do not be tempted to add more flour.
4. Pour mixture into a greased 21cm by 9cm and level the top so it is smooth. Sprinkle with rolled oats.
5. Brush the bottom edge of a large scraper with oil and push it halfway down into the batter, then remove it. This will create a split as the loaf rises during the first stages of baking.
6. Bake for 55 minutes to 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted.
7. Remove from oven and tip onto a wire rack to cool.

Recipe Source: Global Baker - by Dean Brettschneider