BUY CUTE APRONS AND SOME JAM DROPS

A designer apron was just what I needed to give me a renewed vigour to cook something-worth-blogging-about. 

Buycuteaprons.com is an online store from the UK that sells a range of designer aprons. Kirsteen, owner of buycuteaprons.com had been kind enough to send me this elegant vintage inspired Ulster Weaver's apron which I had chosen. Although the red was less vibrant than I expected it did look very pretty once I had put it on. Very Audrey Hepburn-ish. Very vintage. Very hostess with the mostest-ish. 

Buycuteaprons.com is stocked with all the top UK and American apron designs. With new styles being added regularly. Mostly feminine, some of them being vintage inspired, some retro, some sexy and some just plain cute-adorable. Designer brands include Cupcake Provocateur, Jessie Steele, Sugar Baby Aprons, Ulster Weavers and many more. They also have cute aprons for children and manly ones for men. 


But what took me by surprise was that Jessie Steele aprons have been featured in Desperate Housewives and Oprah. And in the a scene from the recent Sex and the City 2 movie a Cherry Cupcakes apron was used  by Charlotte.  Talk about celebrity status!


If that has piqued your interest in Jessie Steele's apron creations you'll be sure to find them at buycuteaprons.com. 


However, to go with the vintage inspired Ulster Weavers apron which was totally responsible for this renewed burst of energy I made some jam drops from a recipe by Ellice Handy. Her recipe book was first published in the 1950's in the then Malaya. That makes this recipe a vintage cookie recipe. And yes, I actually used the apron while fiddling with the dough. It's cotton, very comfortable, very, very light and of course it made me feel very pretty. The apron I mean. 

Here's the recipe that I made while donning this apron which had a pretty flower brooch on one side and 2 cute pockets to boot ~ I think pockets on aprons are so important. 

The Recipe ~

This recipe was so tiny I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Measuring butter by tablespoons is just not my thing. 


I have made these before when i was a dreamy newly wed but I've never made them again since because filling a small ball of dough with gloppy jam and sealing it up into a ball was not that much fun. It's no wonder that Ms. Ellice Handy made such a small recipe. 


As I had expected the jam seeped through which wasn't a bad thing because I thought it added character. I decided to crown them all with a quarter of a glace cherry so they would look a little more photogenic. All in all they do look quite vintage. Just like the apron that came all the way from buycuteaprons.com



I have to say that this cookie isn't fantastic. Mediocre at best. It would have been better if the dough had more butter in it. Apart from that the overall taste would depend on the quality of jam you used. But it does satisfy your sweet tooth if you have a craving but don't want to ruin your diet.


Jam Drops ~


1 1/2 T butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup SR Flour
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
some jam


Grease or line a baking sheet with baking paper. Set aside. Sift flour into a bowl. Set aside. In a seperate bowl cream butter and sugar until creamy. Add egg and beat until well combined and smooth.


Fold in flour and mix well until you get a soft dough. You may refrigerate the dough for  a 1/2 hour to firm it up if necessary.


Divide the dough into 16 balls. Make a hole in each ball and fill with some jam of your choice. Seal and roll up into a ball again. Arrange them on the baking sheet and bake for about 10-15 minute until lightly golden at the edges. Enjoy.

ICED GEMS

I used to spy these gems at Chinese grocery shops. They were sold amoung many other kinds of biscuits which were stored and displayed in gigantic glass jars with push-down galvanized caps, usually placed strategically at the open end of the shop and were sold by the catty. 

Apart form Iced Gems we also had our local 'Oreos', our local Chocolate Bourbons, our local custard creams and our local Jammie Dodgers.....all being delicious legacies left behind by our then colonial masters. 

KGB (not the Russian kind) manufactures these biscuits locally today, packs them in large square tins and places them on supermarket shelves. The only thing that's missing in them are Iced Gems and loads of flavour. 

So this post was inspired by what I saw at Molliemakes. I now vehemently and officially declare Molliemakes as my number one craft magazine. Trust me ~

However, it wasn't as simple as getting the weighing scale out and dusting off the flour.  I found a (only) recipe for it from a blog called Pimp That Snack. I must say they came very close in flavour to the real thing. The real thing meaning average. Let's face it...we bought these because they were pretty, adorable and colourful. And who could resist biting off that hard sugar dome which dissolved in your mouth after a few bites and crunches. I couldn't. 

The most challenging part about making these Iced Gems was finding a small enough cookie cutter to cut out the rolled out dough into tiny half inch rounds.

After much hand wiggling and mind bending I settled for the round end of a large piping nozzle. I then had a hard time easing each dough circle out of the nozzle after every stamp. I used my clean fingernail. But ...yes I suppose they were worth the effort for Nostalgia's sake. Once the rounds were cut out i then used a fork to make the characteristic lines around the edges and pressed the circles down with my finger to flatten it a little before baking them. Jeeeez.

Iced Gems ~ the recipe ~

8 oz flour
1 T baking powder1/4 tsp salt
3 oz butter
1/4 pint milk

Pre-heat oven to 375 F, 180 C.


Place all dry ingredients into a large bowl. Rub in butter until the mixture is like fine breadcrumbs. Pour in 2/3 of the milk first and bring the mixture together to forma  dough. If the mixture seems too dry to form a soft but firm dough add more milk. Roll out the dough on a floured board to about 1/2 centimeter thick. Cut into rounds about 1 cm in diameter. Mark the edges with a fork to make indentations all around the circles of dough and press down with your finger to flatten it a little because the cookie will rise upon baking. Place on a cookie sheet and brush with milk before baking for 25-30 minutes. take out from oven and cool before icing them.

Royal icing ~


450 gm icing sugar, sifted
2 egg whites
1 T lemon juice

food colours of pink, light green, violet and yellow


Whisk egg whites until frothy using a whisk. Stir in sifted icing sugar with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add the lemon juice and mix again. If the mixture seems too soft add extra icing sugar. the final mixture should be smooth but firm enough to hold a soft peak that doesn't flop over itself too much.

Divide the icing mixture into 4 seperate bowls and colour them accordingly. 


Place each bowl of icing into a large piping bag fitted with a medium sized star nozzle. I used a Wilton 22 start nozzle. you can also use a plain round nozzle. Pipe dollops onto each of the baked and cooled biscuits.


Let the icing harden and then store in air tight containers.

CHOCOLATE CREAM FINGERS

I blog in spurts.

I keep telling myself that I will never blog in spurts again. It's bad. As bad as gorging on chocolate cream filled chocolatey biscuits when you're trying to be healthy. Or trying to walk in a straight line.

Sorry for the an unplanned absence. I have been uninspired and distracted. For many reasons. The heat, mega sales, the heat, friends, the heat and family. And mainly mega sales. And the heat.

Nevertheless, these English chocolate cream filled chocolate biscuits are reminiscent of the chocolate bourbons from Marks and Spencer that I gorged on thirty years ago. So busy was I that I got yelled at by a man with a heavy load on his shoulders. I almost walked into him. I jumped out of his way in the nick of time. I'm sure he would have hit me on my head if he could.

Thank god Mary Berry had a recipe for it. Thank god I bought her Fast Cakes recipe book thirty years ago. And thank god they taste just like my memory of it. The biscuits I mean.

These are very, very chocolatey, and although they are sandwiched with chocolate icing the sweetness is cut down very much by the use of cocoa powder in the recipe. I urge you to try them if you are a chocoholic like me. Best chocolate biscuits ever. Ever, ever, ever. 

No these are not at all like our Asian KGB version of chocolate cream fingers. Never liked those...very very very bland and tasteless.

These are traditionally made in the finger shape with the required ten holes and a filling of simple chocolate butter icing. Like the Oreos they are good for dunking, for taking apart, for scraping the filling off with your two front teeth or just biting into it whole.

These are not short or buttery like shortbread of which you can tire of quickly because of its buttery richness. They are crunchy and doesn't give in as easily because there is no egg in the recipe to give it lightness nor too much butter to make it tender. It's very much like a sugar cookie. But a dark chocolate one. And definitely not as sweet. The most delicious.


The dough may seem a little dry when you mix it in and are trying to bring it together but persevere and don't be tempted to add more butter or an egg. It's meant to be. And once you roll it out it will come together rich, dark, chocolatey and neat.

The recipe ~ by Mary Berry

Makes about 12 chocolate cream fingers



4 oz plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 T cocoa powder
2 oz soft magarine or butter
2 oz castor sugar
1 T golden syrup


Filling


1 oz soft magarine or butter
2 oz icing sugar
2 tsp cocoa
a few drops of vanilla essence


Place all biscuit ingredients together in a bowl and using a wooden spoon first work them together until they are evenly distributed. The mixture will be crumbly and sort of dry. Don't despair. Turn the mixture onto a slightly sugared table and using your hands press and knead gently to warm the butter in the dough and until it just all comes together nicely and is a ball of dough. Press with hands to form into a firmer ball of dough. The dough will still be somewhat loosely held together but once you roll it out it will come together better from the pressure of the rolling pin. If the dough breaks up while rolling out just stop and patch it up and then roll again.


Roll out the dough until about 1/4 inch thickness between 2 sheets of baking paper. Remove the top baking paper and cut the rolled dough into fingers about 1 inch by 21/2 inches. Prick each finger with a fork two or three or four times. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Lift off ot cool on a wire rack.


For the filling, put all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. until smooth and creamy. Use to sandwich the biscuits together in pairs.

CHOCOLATE CASHEW COOKIES AND A WINNER FOR THE PRINT GIVEAWAY

Thanks to the Foodbuzz community these cookies made the Top 9 on 30th August 2010. Happy Buzz Day.

Dreams are strange creatures. You close your eyes again in the hope of dreaming on. Because you want to know how it ends. Like a good movie. But it never does does it? The quest for the complete dream with a beginning, a middle and an end always eludes us. I guess chasing the dream is very much like chasing the 'best ever' cookie recipe. It's endless.

So in my quest, this is another new cookie recipe for the festive season. I will still bake the same old good old but there is always room for the new cookie recipe.  This time it is a chocolate cashew sugar cookie. I got the idea from here at Fake Food Free but made them from an adapted sugar cookie recipe.

It was chocolaty but I think it needed more cashews.  

The recipe ~

6 oz plain flour
2 oz cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
4 0z  butter
6 oz castor sugar
About 2-3 oz cashews or however much you like, chopped quite finely (I did not measure this)
1 egg 
1 tsp vanilla essence


Sift flour, cooca and baking powder into a bowl. Rub in butter until like fine breadcrumbs. Mix in sugar and as much cashews as you like (leaving some to roll the dough logs in afterwards), add beaten egg and mix until it forms a dough. B ring the dough together with your hands pressing gently until it comes together to form a firm ball of dough.


Roll dough into cylinders or logs in the size you prefer. Roll to coat the logs in crushed or chopped cashews. Chill in the refrigerator and when firm slice into thin rounds.


Bake at 190 C on greased baking trays for 10-12 minutes.

Aaaaaaanndd.................the winner of my Print Giveaway by Brochures Printing Online (by random.org) is........number 18 (I still can't figure out a way to copy and paste the winning number).


Chisum's Crew you're the winner :-)!!!

CHOCOLATE THUMBPRINT DULCE DE LECHE COOKIES AND ~ A GIVEAWAY

Despite the success of my dulce de leche I have never considered cosy-ing down into a couch to shovel dollops of dulce de leche from a jar into my face. HO no. The completion of the dulce de leche was no more than a stage in a journey that I had begun when I swiped that can of condensed milk off the shelf. 

So you might think I've had sleepless nights thinking "waht do hi do? waht do hi do?". Ahh ~ truth is ...Hi had known what Hi was to do. HO yes. Hi had plans.

This is plan number one : Chocolate Shortbread Thumbprint Dulce De Leche Cookies with a Pistachio Filigree. Long  Cool no?

The Chocolate Shortbread recipe came from Oven Haven. A beautiful blog. She on the other hand got it from Nostalgia. It's rich, it's chocolatey and it's short. Add your thumbprint, roll in crumbled pistachios and flourish with a dollop of dulce de leche.  Wooooo...what a twist!

I'll let you into a little secret. These cookies are SO chocolatey!! mmm-hmmm
 

The Recipe ~

2 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup icing sugar

226 gm butter

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla essence

Some chopped pistachios

Dulce de leche

Preheat oven to 300 F (150 C)

Cream butter in an electric mixer until creamy. Add icing sugar and beat until light and creamy. Add vanilla. On low speed add flour and cocoa powder 1/2 cup at a time and mix until the dough comes together. You might want to take it off the machine and finish the mixing with your hands. 

Using a melon baller scoop scoopfuls of dough and roll into a ball. Press the ball of dough into a thick-ish disc and coat the sides of the disc with pistachios. Lay the disc of dough on a baking tray and make a thumbprint in the centre using your thumb/finger tip or the end of a clean wooden spoon.When done all......

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes of less according to the size of your cookies. I baked mine for about 15 minutes.

Take them out of the oven and using the end of a wooden spoon press down into the depression again because the depression would have puffed up a little while baking. But don't worry. Just push it down again with the back of the wooden spoon. Let cool completely and then fill with dulce de leche just before ( or a few hours) before serving.

But wait!.....the thrill isn't quite over yet. Ho no.


SURPRISE!!! 

A giveaway ~ A box of cookie presses ~

If you have been following my blog you'll know what Malaysians use tart presses for ~ they're for Pineapple Jam Tarts. Like these ~

But they're great for any kind of jam filled cookies. I have a collection of these presses and I thought you should have one too. Wherever you are you're welcome.

I'll be in a very good mood for a week until Saturday  3rd of July. So leave a comment and I'll announce the lucky winner on Sunday 4th of July 2010.


The tart presses will arrive at your door in that little red box. Isn't that fun?

SHORTBREAD COOKIE SHELLS

When a gurl gets going the going gets gurrrly. I was in the mood for something purrrrty so I made some 'oysters', filled it with nutella, inserted a silver dragee inside, pulled out my string of pearls, did everything up, around it, in pink and snapped a picture. It looked purrrty guurrrrly. When a gurl gets going the going gets purrrrty gurrrrly.

Shells are so pretty. So when I came across a cookie mould that would yield pretty dainty shell shaped cookies I did not overwork my brain. I bought it and these are what came out of it. Shortbread shells with a drop of silver in each purrrty purse. Precious!

They are made from Mary Berry's shortbread recipe. They are quite delicious although  I do think it could do with an ounce more of butter. As with a typical shortbread recipe this had a little rice flour in it which provided  those teeny bits of crunch as you bite into it. And it held its shape quite well as it baked. Unless you're moulding them into a fancy shape like I did an ounce more of butter could only make it better ~ that much more buttery with a more melt-in-the-mouth sensation as it hits your tongue.

Now to the cookie mould. This little charming mould stamped out perfect shells. It is one of the different kinds of moulds that I had made the pineapple jam tarts with. I now have a precious collection of all the different shapes available. These cookie presses are very commonly found here in Malaysia and I think in Singapore too. As the years go by more and more patterns are added. I think these are one of the newer shapes available. They would make lovely gifts for passionate bakers. They're very inexpensive too. Isn't it sweet?

The recipe ~ by Mary Berry ~

4 oz plain flour
2 oz rice flour
4 oz butter, extra for greasing
2 oz castor sugar, extra for sprinkling


Sift flour and rice flour into a medium bowl. Rub in butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Pour in the sugar and stir. Then bring the mixture together kneading a little until it forms a soft ball.


Roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper and cut out with a cookie mould, or cut into fingers (and prick surface with a fork to form little holes) or form into large circle (bake whole and cut into wedges 5 minutes after it comes out of the oven).


Place on a baking tray and bake for about 20 to 30 minutes depending on the design and size of the biscuits.  Allow to cool before storing. Or.......I sandwiched mine with Nutella.  I would have much preferred a rich smooth chocolate ganache instead. But I didn't have that.

It's just being cute ~

Them too ~

PEANUT THUMBPRINT NUTELLA COOKIES

These cookies made the top 9 on Foodbuzz today, 26th May. Happy Buzz day!

I came up with a peanut thumbprint cookie with a nutella centre. Clever me. It was very very delicious. 

The recipe for the peanut cookie was adapted from...here's the Link and Credit Tree......

                                       Malaysia Best
                                                 |
                                     A Table for Two
                                                 |
                                    Citrus and Candy
                                                 |
                                    Cherry On A Cake

Yup. We're related. Through food. I made some changes though. Instead of using 250 ml of oil I halved the amount and used butter to replace. I also rolled the cookie dough balls in chopped peanuts and then made a thumbprint and after they had baked and cooled down I filled them with nutella. I was so pleased with myself (and the cookies) because I liked the way they looked, the taste and the variety of textures that I could get all in one cookie. *A big pat on my back*. Yes I'm that pleased :)))  And it is a fusion of an Asian and a Western cookie. 

These peanut cookies (Fah Sang Peng) are a popular must-have cookie during Chinese New Year and they have a distinctive Asian flavour because of the use of oil instead of butter. But with the replacement of half the oil with butter they developed a richer flavour. They were delicious as in very delicious. 

May I also add that my indecisiveness between making a thumbprint cookie and a peanut cookie had led to this. 

The recipe ~

Yield : 45 cookies


300 gm groudnuts, ground finely
200 gm castor sugar
250 gm AP flour
125 ml vegetable oil
125 gm butter, softened


Extra chopped peanuts for coating 
Egg white for dipping
Nutella for the centres


Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat until soft and creamy. Add in ground peanuts, castor sugar, flour and mix until evenly combined. The mixture will still be dry and crumbly. Pour in the oil as the mixer runs and stop when the mixture comes together without being too soft and sticky. It should feel comfortable without being crumbly or too soft.

Roll in 1 inch balls. I used a melon baller. Roll into a smooth ball and dip in egg white and then in chopped peanuts. Place on a baking tray and make a depression in the centre either with your thumb or the end of the handle of a wooden spoon (I used the broader end of a chopstick).

Bake at 170 C for about 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cookies cool completely before filling with a swirl of Nutella using a teaspoon and swirling it with the teaspoon just before serving.

Or course you can just make them plain without the depression and serve them without Nutella. Just as delicious. 

FLOWER SUGAR COOKIES ~ A GUEST POST BY PEACE & LIGHT

What do you do when you have little kiddies, little grandkiddies or little great grandkiddies? You put them to work. That's what you do. (Aside: I'm a grandma with a dab of mean. And invisible eyes at the back of my head)

I waited a long time for this post.  I was excruciatingly eager to get this post up because colors just make my knees go all soft and translucent, like sauteed onions. I think Peace and Light knew that. They knew I would adore these candy coloured sugar cookies. And they were completely right. I do. My sweetie pies.


(Aside : We're such girlie girls, my girls and I)

At only 11 and 12 they made these all on their own. After their brother H had made the brownies, a few posts ago, Peace and Light thought candy coloured cookies would make a cool post too. And the rest they say ........is a baking tray and cookie dough.

Peace loves horses, she rides, she cooks, she bakes, she sews, she knits, she crochets (surpassing her Mom..........and me), she decorates cakes but she also has a deep passion for animals. So she might make a great a vet one day or perhaps a great pastry chef.....the way I see it.


Light did nanowrimo and completed the challenge of writing 40,000 words in a month and submitting her story. Light is the story teller, the writer, the artist, the dreamer. She is the main creator of Zoe and Bo, their one-day-to-be-very-famous-comic-strip-series she says. Now why do I get the feeling that that might just be true?

As if that isn't enough they surprised me by making some animations so that you , dear readers, will know how to put the spiral and flower cookies together. Thank god for grandkids!

And in between a million other things their mommy took the cookie photos in their lovely gravel and rock garden just before the sun went down. Aren't they gorgeous? I think she did a great job. Thank you so much dear. 

Its beginning to dawn on me, very vividly, that I may have found myself the perfect dream team. I could form a nice little blog company where I could put my feet up, sit back, relax, sit on a rocking chair, rock myself to sleep, snore, croak out orders, look flabulous, wither away and not have to slog blog away at the kitchen counter computer all by myself. My little kiddies will do all the work. heh

Take it from here sweeties ~

I am Light, and this is my first time making these cookies, and I made them with my sister Peace. They are sugar cookies, and you get to color the dough. (That might be a messy job.) These are cool, chewy cookies, and I hope you will like making them!

I've been wanting to make these cookies for a long time, and voila! Super, amazing colorful cookies just baked! I got this from a kiddish cookie cookbook, and there are five recipes for these cookies. You can freeze and color the dough one day, and bake the cookies the other day, but you can do it in all one day. 

This is how you make Spiral and Flower cookies.

Yield: 24

Sugar Cookie Dough

1 stick softened butter (unsalted)

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

You'll need this too:

Egg Wash

1 egg

Water

Crack the egg over a small bowl. Pour in some water and and beat with a fork, and that's it! 

The Cookies 

Preheat the oven to...hmmm...how about 375˚ F? Okay then, hurry up. 

Beep, beep, beep. 

Okay, next, cream the softened butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. (Use an electric mixer.) Did I say softened butter? Anyway, crack the egg into the butter-and-sugar mixture and blend very well. Then add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar-egg mixture. Voila! Dough! Amazing! 

You have made Sugar Cookie dough all by yourself! 

Separate and color the dough. Roll it around in your hands or mix it in the electric mixer. Okay, anyway, wrap and chill the dough for 15 min. (Use a timer if needed.)  

To make the spirals, separate the dough into two blobs (or balls?). Color them and smash them equally into rectangles. Wrap and chill the rectangles for 20 minutes.

                                                 * * *

Unwrap the dough carefully _ it's delicate. With a pastry brush, brush egg wash between the two dough layers and stick them together. Wait for the dough to soften a bit, then roll the dough carefully into a log. Look at the side of the log to make sure you have a spiral pattern                                                            

Drumroll please...Okay! This is the waiting time. Freeze this spiral log for 2 hours. I repeat, 2 hours. 

Grease the cookie sheets. Unwrap the dough log and cut it into cookies about 1 centimeter thick. Put them on the cookie sheet and push it in the oven. Close the door. 

Bad cookie sheet! (Time-out for the cookie sheet!)

Well, you have made Spiral cookies! Congratulations!
 
Flowers
These might be hard.

Preheat the oven. Make the dough and Egg Wash. Separate the dough into two big ones and one small. Color and freeze them for 15 min. 

Roll the two big dough balls into snakes and stick them together with Egg Wash. Use the small blob for another snake and put it in the middle of the whole snake rectangle. Roll this whole thing together to make a log. Wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze it for two hours. 

Unwrap the log and cut it into cookies. (The flowers I made didn't turn out very well.) Put the cookies on the cookie sheet and put them into the oven. Slam the oven door!
 

The flowers are done!

~Light~

Thank you Sweeties ~ I just LOVE the sugar cookies! You know that don't you?. Bite, crunch, chew and yummmmmm.

Lotsa HUGSSSSSSSSS

Grandma

Aside : Don't you think these cookies are cool? If you have anything sweet to say to Peace and Light or to ask about the recipe I'm sure Peace and light would be thrilled to bits to help you out.;)