Melting Moments

Husband said I should bake some cookies instead of baking cakes; since his birthday is just three weeks away, I decided to try bake for him some almond cookies! This is my first trial of melting moments which I got the recipe from here. And as what it is being called, it melted in the mouth!! ^o^

Shapes are a little 'out' as I piped them instead of making round dough!

Ingredients

227g unsalted butter, room temperature
175g all-purpose flour
90g cornstarch (corn flour)
¼ tsp salt 35g icing sugar
1 – 1½ tsp almond essence
almond bits or flakes for decoration

Method

1. Sieves flour, cornstarch and salt together. Set aside.
2. Use electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the almond essence.
4. Add the flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Do not over mix.
5. Cover and refrigerate the dough for at least one hour or until dough is firm.
6. Floured your hands with all purpose flour and roll dough into small balls and place on a lined tray.
7. Flatten the dough slightly with a floured fork.
8. Decorate the dough by added some almond bits or flakes on top.
9. Bake at 190C for about 10 minutes or until the edges start to brown.
10. Cool and store in a airtight container.

Homemade Soy Bean Milk

We have been eating quite a lot for the past few days, therefore I decided to go for something light these few days. That would be soy bean milk with bread for lunch!

Last year, husband and I lugged this soy bean maker from our Xiamen trip. Though it was rather heavy, was indeed worth the effort to carry it all the way back here; as one local departmental store is selling more than double the price we've paid!! Everything looks exactly the same except that, brand was not printed on the equipment.

Now we can enjoy a nice warm soy milk anytime at home! Cheers! (^o*)

Christmas Fruit Cake

Here's my imperfect Christmas fruit cake which I promised to bake for my sis. The fruits that went into the cake was pre-soaked for more than 3 weeks; this time, I added lots of rum and had been constantly stirring them so that they will be soaked evenly.

Before presenting it, I added some icing sugar to hide the flaw and was happily playing with my 'Christmas toys' while decorating it! HO..HO...HO!!!

Durian Puffs

I long wanted to try making puffs and since we have some remainder durians kept in the freezer from our KL's trip, I decided to bake some!

For the puffs fillings, I merely mashed up the durians and piped them into the puffs so that everything is original! Husband reserved some plain choux pastry to go with his ice-creams...Yummy!! ^o^

The recipe came from Florence blog.

Ingredients (make approx. 25 medium size puffs)

Choux Pastry

170ml water

100g butter

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

100g bread flour

40g cake flour

4 eggs (lightly beaten)

Method

Choux Pastry

• Cook water, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan till bubbling hot. Turn the heat to low.
• Add in the flour mixture in one go and mix with a wooden spoon till a dough is formed.
• Still on low heat, cook the dough for 1 - 2 minutes till a thin white film is formed at the bottom of the saucepan.
• Transfer dough to a mixing bowl and beat till it is lukewarm.
• Add in egg by thirds and mix till well blended and smooth.
• Add in vanilla essence and mix well.
• Place batter into piping bag and pipe it onto a lined pan in rounds of about 5cm in diameter. Spray some water on it.
• Bake at 200C for 25 minutes then 180C for 8 - 10 minutes or till dry and golden brown in color.
• Turn off the oven and let it cool in the oven for 30 minutes.

Cookie Cutters

I brought these Pooh bear and friends cookie cutters from Hong Kong. The only thing which I requested to buy from our less than 24 hours stay in HK from Xiamen. I was told that only SOGO has these, so husband and I headed to the largest SOGO at Causeway Bay.

I am not sure for the rest who visited HK; for me, I realized that the population has increases tremendously!! Take for instance, at the SOGO departmental store; it was flooded with Chinese and there were long queues at certain branded boutiques. The roads nearby are flooded with human traffic on Monday evening, which is probably twice as many people found in our weekends Orchard road! Likewise for crowds in the public transport, our MRT is no way compare to that of the crowds of their MTR (*0*) !!