November 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 58:FILIPINO DESSERTS: Chocolate and cashew nut Sans Riva

There were too many thing happened last month (the flood, people and etc.) and all of them made me forgot about the DB completely.

September 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 56:FRESH, FLUFFY, FRENCH "CROISSANT"

I can't remember the last time that I make "Croissant" it can be half or almost the years ago. So, when I saw that this month challenge is making croissant, well I was afraid that I couldn't do it.

August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 55: Candylicious! Chocolate & Almond Praline Truffles and Strawberry Paté de Fruit

 Candy and chocolate ^^, I know everyone love it!!!! And for me making any kinds of candy or chocolate makes me so happy. This month "August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 55 is Candylicious! (and may I add the chocolicious too)

July 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 54: FRESH MATCHA FRAISIERS!

I just couldn't stop thinking about the kind of Fraiers that I want to make, after reading the challenge of this month. July 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 54: FRESH MATCHA FRAISIERS! We gonna make this lovely cake!

Basic Chocolate Chiffon Cake

Chiffon cake is one of easiest cake that you can make ^^. It's versatile, you can eat it on its own or use it instead of the basic sponge. This chiffon is very soft and moist, and has some texture. The preparation for the pan is the same as the sponge because you want the cake to cling to the pan while baking and cooling, to prevent the cake to shrink.

June 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 53: From Phyllo to Baklava

I needed to know how to make the phyllo, this thought happened suddenly when I saw this month challenge. Because buying it is not easy for me.
 But when I finished reading the challenge I knew that making the phyllo is the challenge haha!

May 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 52: MARQUISE ON MERINGUE

 ^^ Finally it's the end of the month (again), and as I told you that I have so many things to do but I never wanted to skip my DB challenge.

April 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 51: MAPLE MOUSSE SERVED IN AN EDIBLE CONTAINER

 First I have to make a confession, I really forgot about this month challenge -*-. As I told you that I have a lot to do lately and I have so little time to be in front of the computer.

March 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 50: FILLED MERINGUE COFFEE CAKE

 I love to knead bread, the feeling of touching it and watching it transforms itself from a messy bit of flour into a smooth and soft dough. It's one of something so wonderful that you can make by your hand.

February 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge # 49: Panna Cotta with Raspberry Gelée and Nestle Florentine Cookies

Simple dessert that many people love ^^, I must say that, because Panna Cotta is such an easy thing to make. You don't need any special equipment, just a saucepan and a refrigerator (I believe that we have it, haha).

January 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge #48: Joconde Imprime Entremets, Chocolate Banana

I know that it's not a usual cake to bake at home but I think it's fun to make ^^. I love the feeling of thinking what pattern that I will make and what I will put together to make the  Entremets, and I know that you might think that I'm crazy, haha.

December 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #47: Stollen Wreath

 I had a lot of problems this time -*-, well, all of them came from myself not a recipe. Because I prepared a mix fruit, (I use the one from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, I really like it when I make Fruitcakes) for making Fruitcake for my sister, and I use all dried fruit that I had in my house!!!!! So I thought about to make or not to make this challenge.

And as I told you in my last post, I had a lot to do from the start of this month, I just forgot about the post date, it's an alarm for me when I had a chance to sit down and visit Daring Bakers' website, oh! I really forgot to make this.
So, my Stollen Wreath is not perfect, I forgot to put the almond into the dough (well, I read the recipe 3 times, but because I was so hurry I misread it). For the traditional Stollen, it needs a lot of icing sugar on top and I forgot, haha. It's not good at all when you're in hurry, there are a lot of fault. But I hope that I can make it better next time.
Because I had no other dried fruits to use, I use the one that I have, and I had to reduce the amount of the recipe. I made only 1/3 of the original recipe so my Wreath is very small, ^^.
Anyway, the Stollen is very delicious (and I think it will be a lot better if I made it right). The texture is soft and very easy to knead (because I made a small one I kneaded by hand). 
If you want to make these bread, plan to start it the day before you want to serve, because it need to rest in the refrigerate for 1 night before shaping.
The Stollen Wreath can be kept longer if you brush with melt butter and coated with icing sugar (3 times to make a thick coat so you can send it by mail to anyone as a Christmas present).
So, thank you Penny from Sweet Sadie's Baking, I will make a better Stollen Wreath next time.

"The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration."

  

Stollen Wreath

Makes one large wreath or two traditional shaped Stollen loaves. Serves 10-12 people

Ingredients

¼ cup (60ml) lukewarm water (110º F / 43º C)

2 packages (4 1/2 teaspoons) (22 ml) (14 grams) (1/2 oz) active dry yeast

1 cup (240 ml) milk

10 tablespoons (150 ml) (140 grams) unsalted butter (can use salted butter)

5½ cups (1320 ml) (27 ozs) (770 grams) all-purpose (plain) flour (Measure flour first - then sift- plus extra for dusting)

½ cup (120 ml) (115 gms) sugar

¾ teaspoon (3 ¾ ml) (4 ½ grams) salt (if using salted butter there is no need to alter this salt measurement)

1 teaspoon (5 ml) (6 grams) cinnamon

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

Grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange

2 teaspoons (10 ml) (very good) vanilla extract

1 teaspoon (5 ml) lemon extract or orange extract

¾ cup (180 ml) (4 ¾ ozs) (135 grams) mixed peel (link below to make your own)

1 cup (240 ml) (6 ozs) (170 gms) firmly packed raisins

3 tablespoons (45ml) rum

12 red glacé cherries (roughly chopped) for the color and the taste. (optional)

1 cup (240 ml) (3 ½ ozs) (100 grams) flaked almonds

Melted unsalted butter for coating the wreath

Confectioners’ (icing) (powdered) sugar for dusting wreath

Soak the raisins
In a small bowl, soak the raisins in the rum (or in the orange juice from the zested orange) and set aside. See Note under raisins.



This is my adaptation:
Makes 9 inches Wreath
20ml ............................... Water
3g .................................... Instant yeast
80ml ............................... Milk
50g ................................. Butter
260g ............................... All purpose flour
40g ................................. Sugar
2g .................................... Salt
1 ...................................... Egg
½tsp .............................. Orange zest
½tsp .............................. Vanilla extract
½tsp .............................. Lemon extract
100g ............................... Soaked dried fruit mix

To make the dough

 Pour ¼ cup (60 ml) warm water into a small bowl, sprinkle with yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.
In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup (240 ml) milk and 10 tablespoons (150 ml) butter over medium - low heat until butter is melted. Let stand until lukewarm, about 5 minutes.
Lightly beat eggs in a small bowl and add lemon and vanilla extracts.
In a large mixing bowl (4 qt) (4 liters) (or in the bowl of an electric mixer with paddle attachment), stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange and lemon zests.
Then stir in (or mix on low speed with the paddle attachment) the yeast/water mixture, eggs and the lukewarm milk/butter mixture. This should take about 2 minutes. It should be a soft, but not sticky ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with either plastic or a tea cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.

Add in the mixed peel, soaked fruit and almonds and mix with your hands or on low speed to incorporate. Here is where you can add the cherries if you would like. Be delicate with the cherries or all your dough will turn red!
Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and begin kneading (or mixing with the dough hook) to distribute the fruit evenly, adding additional flour if needed. The dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky. Knead for approximately 8 minutes (6 minutes by machine). The full six minutes of kneading is needed to distribute the dried fruit and other ingredients and to make the dough have a reasonable bread-dough consistency. You can tell when the dough is kneaded enough – a few raisins will start to fall off the dough onto the counter because at the beginning of the kneading process the dough is very sticky and the raisins will be held into the dough but when the dough is done it is tacky which isn't enough to bind the outside raisins onto the dough ball.

 Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

Put it in the fridge overnight. The dough becomes very firm in the fridge (since the butter goes firm) but it does rise slowly… the raw dough can be kept in the refrigerator up to a week and then baked on the day you want.

Shaping the Dough and Baking the Wreath

1. Let the dough rest for 2 hours after taking out of the fridge in order to warm slightly.
2. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
3. Preheat oven to moderate 350°F/180°C/gas mark 4 with the oven rack on the middle shelf.
4. Punch dough down, roll into a rectangle about 16 x 24 inches (40 x 61 cms) and ¼ inch (6 mm) thick.
Note from dailedelicious: I roll the dough into 14x11 inches, and place 3¼ inches cookie cutter to keep the dough's shape. 
Starting with a long side, roll up tightly, forming a long, thin cylinder.

 Transfer the cylinder roll to the sheet pan. Join the ends together, trying to overlap the layers to make the seam stronger and pinch with your fingers to make it stick, forming a large circle. You can form it around a bowl to keep the shape.

Using kitchen scissors, make cuts along outside of circle, in 2-inch (5 cm) intervals, cutting 2/3 of the way through the dough.

Twist each segment outward, forming a wreath shape. Mist the dough with spray oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap.

Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until about 1½ times its original size.

Bake the stollen for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes (my Stollen bake sooner than this about 30 minutes). The bread will bake to a dark mahogany color, should register 190°F/88°C in the center of the loaf, and should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.

Transfer to a cooling rack 

This is the part that I forgot, ^^"

Brush the top with melted butter while still hot.

Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar over the top through a sieve or sifter.

Wait for 1 minute, then tap another layer over the first.

The bread should be coated generously with the powdered sugar.

Let cool at least an hour before serving. Coat the stollen in butter and icing sugar three times, since this many coatings helps keeps the stollen fresh - especially if you intend on sending it in the mail as Christmas presents!

When completely cool, store in a plastic bag. Or leave it out uncovered overnight to dry out slightly, German style.

December 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #47: Stollen Wreath

November 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #46: CROSTATA!, Pasta Frolla with lemon curd and fresh berries

Crostata di frutta fresca: or Crostata with fresh fruits, is the version of Crostata that I make for this month's Daring Bakers Challenge.  Simona from briciole and who is the hostess for the November edition of the Daring Bakers' Challenge, want to introduce us to pasta frolla and let us experiment with it in preparing a crostata of our choice.

She give us two version of the pasta frolla, 1. Simple version, using all purpose flour, butter, egg, sugar and another one is the one that she suggest for the person who want to play with different kinds of flours (MEEEEEEEE! ^^), using almond, whole-grain barley and coconut flour instead of some of the all-purpose flour.

But because I don't like coconut in my tart, I have to change a bit, so I use the mix of almond flour and brown bread concentrate instead of coconut. And for the filling, I really want to try many things, haha, first I want to make simple Crostata with fresh fruits, the one that uses pastry cream. But when thinking about the nutty crust (the almond and brown bread concentrate make the pastry very nutty, I ate a lot of unbaked dough, haha), I want something that adds more flavor to the pastry than the plain vanilla pastry cream. 

So, I choose the lemon curd to be the filling, as it has a lovely tangy taste with a soft and smooth texture like the pastry cream, and when combine with the fresh fruits, the tangy taste makes the Crostata very refreshing. 
Actually you can use any kinds of lemon curd (good quality one from supermarket is OK), but I think making it by yourself is not hard to do and you can be sure about the deliciousness, haha. 
Many recipe will tell you to put the filling into a cool pastry shell, but for me I like to put the lemon curd into hot shell, because it will cook the base of the lemon curd and the shell will be less soggy (I brush the shell with the egg white too, so the crust won't soften easily). 

At last, I end up with my Crostata di frutta fresca, the nutty pasta frolla with lemon curd and fresh fruits, ^^, which I really like it. So, Thank you! Simona, for giving me new great pasta frolla recipe.

"The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well."

CROSTATA 

Crostata di frutta fresca

(Pasta Frolla with lemon curd and fresh berries)

Make 4 (using 11cm tart pan)

Pasta frolla:
1/3 cup [80 ml, 75 g, 2 2/3 oz.] superfine sugar 
1/2 cup [120 ml, 65 g, 2 3/8 oz.] unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup [120ml, 65 g. 2 1/4 oz.] whole-wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup [60ml, 28 g, 1 oz] almond flour, or almond meal, or coconut flour
1/4 cup [60ml, 28 g, 1 oz.] whole-grain barley flour or unbleached all-purpose flour (I use 10g of brown bread concentrate and  18g of all purpose flour)
a pinch of salt 
6 tablespoons[90ml, 85 g, 3 oz] cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract 


Filling and Topping:
........................................ half recipe of Simple lemon curd
500g .............................. Fresh berries of your choice


Red berry glaze:
½cup ............................. Any red berry jam (I use Strawberry and Blueberry Jam)
1tbsp .............................. Water


......................................... Chopped pistachio 


Directions:

Whisk together sugar, flours and salt in a bowl.

Rub or cut the butter into the sugar and flour mixture until it has the consistency of coarse crumbs. You can do this in the bowl or on your work surface, using your fingertips or an implement of choice.

Make a well in the center of the flour and butter mixture and pour the beaten egg and vanilla extract into it.

Use a fork to incorporate the liquid into mixture and then use your fingertips.

Knead lightly just until the dough comes together into a ball.

Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours. You can refrigerate the dough overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF [180ºC/gas mark 4].
Roll out a batch of the pasta frolla and cover the base of the tart pan. 

Cut a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil large enough to cover the bottom of the crust and extend out a bit over the edges of the pan.

You can use pie weights or dry beans to blind bake. Place whatever weight you’re using directly on the parchment paper or aluminum foil in an even layer.

Place the crostata shell in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

Remove the weights and parchment paper and continue baking the crostata shell until the border is light golden, about 5 minutes (watch carefully to avoid over-baking, which results in a hard shell). In the absence of weight, the crust may rise in the middle: if that occurs, gently push it back down with the back of a spoon.

Note from dailydelicious: After taking the weight out, I brush the crostata with egg whites put it back in the oven for 5 minutes, the egg white will prevent the shell to become soggy ^^. 

Remove from the oven, pipe or spread the lemon curd into hot shell, and let them cool completely.

Put jam in small microwaveable bowl, heat for 20-30 seconds or until melt, mix water into the hot jam and strain.
Dip the berries into jam glaze before placing over the lemon curd.
If using cherries, pit and dip them in jam glaze before placing them over the lemon curd,
Decorate with finely chopped pistachio. 
The crostata must be cool, but not cold, so if you refrigerate it, take it out of the fridge half an hour before serving. 
This crostata is best eaten the same day it is prepared.

November 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #46: 

CROSTATA!, Pasta Frolla with lemon curd and fresh berries

October 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #45: Let's Go Nuts for Doughnuts! Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts with Strawberry milk glaze

Doughnut? The only thing that jump into my head is "Hot oil"  and it's the only one reason why I rarely make it, haha.  Anyway, for this month Lori of Butter Me Up (who is the host for this month challenge), want all of us to have fun with the simple (and I have to say "delicious") treats.

The doughnuts come in many forms, and many kind of the dough and batter too. And host for this month (Lori) let us make the decision, she gave a lot of recipe for doughnut: yeast doughnut, cake doughnut, pumpkin doughnuts, and raspberry jam bomboloni. We can use any type of toppings and fillings,  any shape, any size and add ingredients to the batters to make flavored doughnuts. The possibilities are endless. It's a load of things which you can create from "simple doughnut"

Anyway when it comes to me it easy, I only choose the one that I never made it before, simple cake doughnut. Most of the time I made the yeast doughnut for my family, but for the cake doughnut, I really don't know why I didn't make it, haha. My decision is right, anyone in the family love this kinds of doughnut too.
I use the Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts recipe (from Nancy Silverton recipe). 
But I think that my all purpose flour has less protein than the one in the US, because I had to knead about 50g of the flour into the dough to make it manageable. So, you can use the same amount of flour as given in the recipe, then add more if the dough is very sticky. 

For the flavor, I didn't add the flavor into the dough, but using a glaze instead, the strawberry milk glaze is sweet and very fragrance ^^, anyway you can just eat the doughnut plain or sprinkle with icing sugar, it's delicious in any ways, haha.

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts 

with Strawberry milk glaze

Yield: About 15 doughnuts & 15 doughnut holes, depending on size

Preparation time: Hands on prep time - 25 minutes
Cooking time - 12 minutes 


Ingredients
Sour Cream ¼ cup / 60 ml / 60 gm / 2 oz
All Purpose Flour 3 ¼ cup / 780 ml / 455 gm / 16 oz + extra for dusting surface
(*It's too soft and very sticky,
 I have to knead 50g of the flour to the dough before cutting it)
White Granulated Sugar ¾ cup / 180 ml / 170 gm / 6 oz
Baking Soda ½ teaspoon / 2.5 ml / 3 gm / .1 oz
Baking Powder 1 teaspoon / 5 ml / 6 gm / .2 oz
Kosher (Flaked) Salt 1 teaspoon / 5 ml / 6 gm / .2 oz (If using table salt, only use ½ teaspoon)
Nutmeg, grated 1.5 teaspoon / 7.5 ml / 9 gm / .3 oz
Active Dry Yeast 1 1/8 teaspoon / 5.6 ml / 3.5 gm / .125 oz
(*I use 3/4tsp instant dry yeast)
Buttermilk ¾ cup + 2 Tablespoon / 210 ml / 225 gm / 7 ¾ oz
Egg, Large 1
Egg Yolk, Large 2
Pure Vanilla Extract 1 Tablespoon / 15 ml


Strawberry milk glaze:
Icing Sugar  200g
Frozen strawberry 36 g
Whipping cream  24g 


Directions:
1. In a small stainless-steel bowl set over a pot of gently simmering water, heat the sour cream until just warm.
2. Heat the oil to 375°F/190°C.

3. Over a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg; make a large well in the center. Place the yeast in the well; pour the sour cream over it. Allow it to soften (if using packed fresh yeast), about 1 minute.

4. Pour the buttermilk, whole egg, egg yolks, and vanilla extract into the well. Using one hand, gradually draw in the dry ingredients. The mixture should be fairly smooth before you draw in more flour. Mix until it is completely incorporated. The dough will be very sticky. Wash and dry your hands and dust them with flour.

5. Sift an even layer of flour onto a work surface. Don’t be afraid to use a lot of flour. You don’t want the doughnuts sticking to your counter. Scrape dough out of bowl onto the surface; sift another layer of flour over dough. Working quickly, pat dough into an even 1/2-inch (12.5 mm) thickness. Dip cutter in flour and, cutting as closely together as possible, cut out the doughnuts and holes. Place holes and doughnuts on a floured surface. Working quickly, gather scraps of dough together, pat into 1/2-inch (12.5 mm) thickness, and cut out remaining doughnuts and holes.

6. Drop three to four doughnuts at a time into the hot oil. Once they turn golden brown, turn them and cook the other side. Cooking times may vary, but with my oil at 375 °F/190°C, I found they only took about 20 to 30 seconds per side.

7. Once cooked, place on a baking sheet covered with paper towels to drain.

Beat all the strawberry and whipping cream, add the icing sugar, mix until well combine.
Dip the doughnut into the glaze.
Let the glaze set then serve.

October 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #45:

 Let's Go Nuts for Doughnuts! 

Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts  with Strawberry milk glaze

September 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #44: Get Creative!, My rainy and sunny day

"The sunny day"

Actually I don’t have any special occasion on September ^^. But when the host of this month challenge (Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!”), want all of us to get creative, I have to think about it again.

September is in the rainy season (but most of the time, I think Thailand has only summer season all year, haha), it’s raining almost every day. Even I love the smell and the refreshing feeling of after  the rain, but before raining the weather is the worst.

So, for me all I can think of this month is “Rain, rain and rain”, and I choose it as a theme for my creative decorating cookie. I start with the rain, that falling down and make all the place wet, everywhere is filled with mushroom ^^ (and all my mushrooms are edible, haha), and the snails are crawling across the lawn
But after that, when it’s stop, the sun will shine, the butterfly will begin to take the scene, they will fly all over the place ^^, and yes the mushroom still here to be our natural food!

This cookie is very easy to make and hold its shape very well, the cookie dough will be soften after taking out of the fridge but it’s not very fast. I have other recipe for cut out cookie that melt very easily, so if you are baking cookie for decorating, this recipe will be great. The taste of the cookie is good but accept it, it will become sweeter after you put the icing on ^^. Anyway I love it and have a lot of fun making these little rain drop, haha, so thank you Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!”.

Let’s take a look at my creative cookie, hope all of you enjoy it, and for me I hope that tomorrow it will be a sunny day, again!

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

"The rainy day"

"The mushrooms"

Basic Sugar Cookies

Makes Approximately 36x 10cm / 4" Cookies

200g / 7oz / ½ cup + 6 Tbsp Unsalted Butter, at room temperature

400g / 14oz / 3 cups + 3 Tbsp All Purpose / Plain Flour

200g / 7oz / 1 cup Caster Sugar / Superfine Sugar

1 Large Egg, lightly beaten

5ml / 1 tsp Vanilla Extract / Or seeds from 1 vanilla bean

a pinch of salt

Directions

• Cream together the butter, sugar, salt and any flavourings you’re using. Beat until just becoming

creamy in texture.

• Tip: Don’t over mix otherwise you’ll incorporate too much air and the cookies will spread during

baking, losing their shape.

• Beat in the egg until well combined, make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the sifted flour and mix on low until a non sticky dough forms.

• Knead into a ball and divide into 2 or 3 pieces.

• Roll out each portion between parchment paper to a thickness of about 5mm/1/5 inch (0.2 inch)

• Refrigerate for a minimum of 30mins.

• Tip: Recipes commonly just wrap the whole ball of dough in clingwrap and then refrigerate it for an hour or overnight, but by rolling the dough between parchment, this shortens the chilling time and then it’s also been rolled out while still soft making it easier and quicker.

• Once chilled, peel off parchment and place dough on a lightly floured surface.

• Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a sharp knife.

• Arrange shapes on parchment lined baking sheets and refrigerate for another 30mins to an hour.

• Tip: It’s very important you chill them again otherwise they’ll spread while baking.

• Re-roll scraps and follow the above process until all scraps are used up.

• Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C Fan Assisted) / 350°F / Gas Mark 4.

• Bake until golden around the edges, about 8-15mins depending on the size of the cookies.

• Tip: Bake same sized cookies together otherwise mixing smaller with larger cookies could result in some cookies being baked before others are done.

• Tip: Rotate baking sheets half way through baking if your oven bakes unevenly.

• Leave to cool on cooling racks.

• Once completely cooled, decorate as desired.

decorator's icing
3 tablespoons	meringue powder
6 tablespoons	warm water
1-pound	confectioners' sugar

In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment beat the meringue powder; water; and confectioners' sugar at medium-low speed until the icing forms stiff peaks, about 7 minutes. Thin the icing to the consistency you want by adding a little warm water, a few drops at a time.

Thin some of the icing with water (adding it drop by drop) until it's thin enough to pipe the smooth line.

In another bowl thin some of the icing with water (adding it drop by drop) until it does not leave a trail when it drops from a spoon.

Outline the cookie and pour the thiner icing over the center. Spread the icing over the cookie .

Let the icing dry before decorating with more icing.

September 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #44: 
Get Creative!, My rainy and sunny day