Butter Cookies

My children in particular G has been bugging me to bake butter cookies. They love the butter cookies that Grandma used to bake. Grandma somehow has not been baking for the past few years and especially now with her oven not working.

I modified her recipe and some of the recipes that I googled for. The cookies turned out really well and they are really melt-in-the-mouth.

I used a cookie press for these cookies and decided to keep the dough in the fridge for the next day. However, when I tried to use the cookie press the next day, somehow it couldn't come out nicely. The lesson learnt is to use up all the dough and finish baking the same day.

Ingredients

5 cups plain flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1.25 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp salt
500g butter
1.5 cup icing sugar/fine sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method

1. Mix dry ingredients well.
2. Beat butter and sugar until light.
3. Add in eggs and vanilla essence.
4. Reduce speed and add in flour.
5. Bake at 180 degree Celcius for about 20-25 minutes.

Almond Cookies

Baking Almond Cookies is a MUST! every Chinese New Year for me. It has kind of become synonymous with my festive giving. A good friend CT in particular wanted to order the cookies from me. Where do I find the time to take orders and bake? It's more of a joy to bake for all my dear friends and relatives and those who appreciate the cookies. A colleague of mine also loves these cookies. She once ordered 12 bottles of peanut cookies when I baked some to raise funds for a mission trip for the church.

Thanks to my cousin's wife who gave me the recipe when she came to my place for Christmas dinner a few years ago. She is great at baking and she would take orders every CNY. It seems that she can meet orders of up to a few hundred bottles of cookies/tarts every CNY! I really admire her for she does this even though she is working! She would bake the moment she reaches home from work and would not stop until midnight for the few weeks prior to CNY.

This recipe also works well for ground peanuts. For peanut cookies, I put in more than 250g, maybe about 300g. This makes the cookie really crumbly and melt-in-the-mouth.

Ingredients

1. 250g ground almond/peanut
2. 220g fine sugar
3. 550g plain flour
4. 1/2 tsp salt
5. 3 tsp baking powder
6. 2.5 tsp baking soda
7. 1.5 bowls of canola oil

Method
1. Fry ground almond without oil until fragrant.
2. Mix everything together except the oil.
3. Add in oil to form a firm dough.
4. Roll out dough to about 1/2cm thickness and cut into desired shapes with a
cookie cutter.
5. Bake at 180 degrees Celcius for about 20n minutes.

Kueh Bangkit

Kueh Bangkit is one of my favourites. J loves it too. I will try to bake it every new year and seem to be modifying a little of the recipe every year. The taste is good and authentic but somehow it still has not achieved my ideal standard of melt-in-the-mouth texture. Happened to talk to a good friend Tan whose mum makes fabulous Kueh Bangkits. Tan said he mixes sago flour and rice flour to achieve that texture. I tried to get sago flour from the nearby shops but couldn't find it. But I will certainly try out his recipe!

Ingredients:
1. 500 gm tapioca flour, and some extra for lining purposes
2. 3 pandan leaves, roughly cut into 3-inch length pieces
3. 3 egg yolks
4. 150 gm castor sugar
5. 250 ml thick coconut milk

Method
Fry tapioca flour together with the pandan leaves over a medium heat till light and dry, then sift and leave aside to cool thoroughly.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until the sugar dissolves.
Add thick coconut milk a little at a time. Sift in tapioca flour and mix.
Knead well into a pliable dough.

Roll out dough to a thickness of 1/2 cm on a lightly-floured tabletop. Stamp out desired shapes with cookie or kuih bangkit cutters.

Place on a baking tray (lightly floured with tapioca flour). Bake in a preheated oven at 170°c for 20 – 25 minutes or until the kuih bangkit turns dry. Cool before storing.