Christmas cookies for girls......Angelica and Katylin !

This is the Christmas cookies for little cute girls . I wanted to make something they enjoy, so it turned out this pinky cookies.

First time I made Loyal Icing for decoration... I really like the pink colour ( if I also have blue colour should be a lot more better)

Christmas Cookies

(by its gemmi)

200 g all-purpose flour, plus more for the work surface
100 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
80 g icing sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Heat oven to 160° C.

1. Beat the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer on medium-high until smooth. Add the egg yolk and beat until fluffy.

2 Add the vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low.Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and add it slowly to the butter mixture, mixing until just incorporated. (Do not over work).

3. Make it like the round dough, wrap and keep in the fridge around 6 hrs. (or until it becomes hard)

4. Roll into 3-5 mm. thick. Cut into shapes and place on parchment-lined baking sheets. The scraps can be combined and rolled out again.

5. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are a light golden brown. Cool slightly on the baking sheets before transferring to cooling racks.

Royal Icing (Frosting)

25 g egg white

125 g icing sugar

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1/2 lemon zest

1.Whisk egg white, icing lemon juice and lemon zest until has foam.

2. Gradually add icing sugar and mix until smooth (the consistancy should be not too runny or too stiff).

Dip cookies (face down) just until the surface is covered all with icing and let it dry for a few minutes.

Royal Icing (Piping)

15 g egg white
75 g icing sugar
1/4 tsp lemon juice

1.Whisk egg white, icing lemon juice with high speed until firm.
2. Add all icing sugar and mix carefully until smooth (the consistancy should be not too runny or too stiff).

I made 1 big tray and 1 small tray... my piping is not very good, as you see in the pictures, I already tried to find the best one ^ ^''

The cookie dough is not too sweet since the royal icing will add more sweetness... Very good recipe for kids. I hope the girls like it :D

Passionfruit Melting Moment

Because Ping told me to get rid of some Passionfruit in our fridge...so I made the Melting Moment..You can see it in all cafe in Australia (I think in Melbourne they call it ''Yo yo''). I used the recipe from this blog.

Passionfruit melting moments

3 passionfruit
250g butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup (80g) soft icing sugar
1 2/3 cups (250g) plain flour
½ cup (75g) cornflour

Passionfruit Butter Cream
80g butter, softened
2/3 cup (110g) soft icing sugar

METHOD

Preheat the oven to moderately slow (160°C/140°C fan-forced). Line three baking trays with baking paper.

Remove pulp from passionfruit; place pulp into a fine sieve and press down with the back of a spoon. You will need 1 tablespoon passionfruit juice for the Passionfruit Butter Cream.

Beat the butter, vanilla and sifted icing sugar with an electric mixer until pale. Stir in combined sifted flours in two batches then stir in passionfruit pulp.

With lightly floured hands, roll two level teaspoons of mixture into balls and place on oven tray about 3cm apart. Dip a fork into a little extra flour, press biscuits lightly.

Bake in moderately slow oven for about 15 minutes or until biscuits are a pale straw colour. Stand the biscuits on the trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool.

Passionfruit Butter Cream: Beat the butter and sifted icing sugar mixture in a small bowl with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat in the reserved passionfruit juice.

Sandwich biscuits with a teaspoon of the Passionfruit Butter Cream (I used piping bag). Dust with a little extra sifted icing sugar, if desired.


Turned out just too a bit much in colour I think.

but the bottom is perfect..hehe

Yeah...my first melting moment !

Anyway, I don't really like the taste...next time I should make just plain vanilla. And you know...eating this biscuits is like eating butter lol

IP Lesson 28 : Macarons, Biscotti, Piped shortbread

I love Biscotti...especially when dip in a cup of good coffee. I made it about 3-4 times and it turned out quite nice. All the recipe I have used got butter while the one in LCB have no fat at all...hehe...low fat biscuit today ^ ^

Biscotti mean twice-baked. It defined biscuits baked twice in the oven, so they could be stored for long periods of time, which was particularly useful during journeys and wars. Through Middle French, the word was imported into the English language as "biscuit''

Macaron macaron is a traditional French pastry made of egg whites, almond powder, icing sugar and sugar. This sweet pastry came out of the French courts' baker's oven as round meringue-like domes with a flat base. Lucky I tried to made at home before..so today I wasn't so excited.



Almond biscotti, chocolate macaron and piped shortbread. Chef Michael made the macaron in the kinda ''Kisses'' style which is very cute !

But I tried to make it in the style I like :)

Only piped shortbread that I think it can be better cuz the dough was quite soft before bake...so the pattern was not as sharp as chef's

IP Lesson 29 : Vanilla Horns, Jam Cookies, Basler Leckerli

Chef just changed to teach us the lesson 29 first this week...so we made some biscuits...Yeah ! I like biscuits.

Vanilla Horns is the shortbread made with almond meal that Ping (my housemate) make many times at home and everyone who tastes it loves it...so I am really excited to make it myself...Oh ! and today I am chef Andre assistant \-o-/

from left, left photo : Vanilla horns, Mailanderli, Jam cookies and Basler Leckerli

The Jam cookies look very cute.

My biscuits...hehe...I know it looks so much different from chef's one...but not too bad ...(chef said my Vanilla horns are a good shape ^ ^)

Soo jin made this cute cookies with my cutter.

Yum !!!

Lesson 12 : Florentines

Another my favourite lesson....Florentines !

I don't like eating very sweet stuffs...for example: all my coffee and other drinks..never put any sugar. But every kinds of sticky, chewy and gluey things...I love it...Such a no reason girl !

Normally, every Wednesday class we got Chef Michael, my favourite...but he was sick today so we had chef Karin again...

Florentines are a delicious mixture of toasted nuts and candied fruit that are coated with a sweet sticky mixture of honey and sugar and baked until golden brown and bubbly and finished with a layer of melted chocolate.

When you hear the name 'Florentine', you instantly think it must be from Florence Italy. Unfortunately, history does not tell us its true origin.


Chef Karin made florentines with dark and milk chocolate.

Of course, I chose the Dark one..Not only because this cookie is already sweet but also dark chocolate is my favourite. In tasting time, I ate 2 !!!!!!!! yes..2 florentines...you may think ..just 2? but if you taste it, a really buttery and sweet toffee-like cookie, then you will know that I am very good that can finish 2 ..lol

In our class, we baked florentines in foil tin which is easier than pour the whole thing in the tray and cut it after bake.

All dark....I made 13 florentines...pretty nice, eh?

I love it....and really easy to make...(now I keep eating slowly cuz afraid that i will finish it too soon :D)

Lesson 6 : Sables Diamantes and Sables Hollander

Cookies Day !!!

Today we made 2 types of cookies..Sables Diamantes and Sables Hollander.

First of all…we were introduced what those name come from and how it look like. If I am not mistaken…Chef Michael said…they call Diamantes because they think it looks like diamond and wanna make them special…And for Hollander since it came from Holland and it also can be called Dutch biscuit or checker board biscuit.

“Sables” is a classic French cookies originated in Normandie. The name Sable’, comes from the French word for sand, because of their crumbly texture. Soft and delicate they are very easy to make. They can eventually be flavored with nuts or zest.

From left to right: Spider (named by Chef Michael for the left over dough), Hollander, Diamantes with Cherries and Plain Diamantes

Chef's Hollander was so nice...he made quite a big piece, light, nice and sandy.

Diamantes can be dipped into Chocolate..but these one were still hot, then chef just piped the chocolate on top which is good enough for us ^o^

You know last nite...I was thinking "oh today will have only 2 types of biscuits, then i will try only 1 each"...finally i end up with 6-7 pieces..can't help, it was sooo good ^ ^''

My Diamantes (orange zest added)...a bit messy cause forgot to take photo after it was took out from the oven...these tray had been trying to cool down.

We used so much effort to make checker-board design cause we need to make 2 colours of dough, then measure them, cut them nice and straight, then chill them, then cut and stack them, then chill them, then slice them and bake them…erm…lots of work to do...

I also made mini hollanders (unintentionally). So cute !!!

Su Hee made a different shapes of biscuits..waww.....i should do this too..

This Lesson is the most satisfied for me...

hahaha....brought home a big box of biscuits ( I gave one box which was already shared half-half of biscuits to my cuisine friend)

Lesson 5 : Light Fruit Cake (with Streusel Topping) and Gateau Marbre (Marble Cake)

My blog seems to be too informative? Should I write less about Key Culinary Terms? Let me know what u guys think about too many letters in the blogs..ok?

Anyway, today chef Karin showed us how to make Light Fruit Cake, Marble Cake and Viennese Biscuits. Actually we have to do 2 cakes today and the Viennese biscuit is for tomorrow class, but chef Karin said we gonna make only 1 cake and 1 biscuit due to our time limit.

Light fruit cakes contain about 35-50% of their batter weight in fruits, like orange peel, cherries, sultanas, currants, nuts..etc. *tip* lightly coat them with a layer of flour before u add them into the batter (which is added last) so that the fruits do not sink to the bottom.

Gateau Marbre (Marble Cake) is a butter cake which we have made in Lesson 3 that’ s why chef choose fruit cake for today…we bake it in a Gugelhopf tin ( I like this tin, beautiful !)

Chef Karin was coating the marble cake with dark chocolate…ahhh….looked so good.

One of my classmate asking about the type of chocolate we coat. Chef said normally we prefer dark because of the color makes it more luxurious…and of course we use Couverture not Compound chocolate…because we are LCB !!!

Can’t wait for tasting time ^O^

Viennese biscuit (Piped sables): It has a bit of rum in it and there’s also almond meals. These cookies are to be piped out into cute lil florets or patterns.

Chef Karin made it so pretty. And she was very kind by dipping it into the dark chocolate for us…yeah yeah…awesome !!

These biscuits...spreaded with a lil jam inside and dipped with chocolate..

Marble cake: cross section...

My light fruit cake with streusel...

u can see the left side of the tray is a bit pale in colour...

These are my classmate's which are overmix the batter (chef told) ..If the batter is too creamy, when bake in the hot oven, the biscuit will just spread out like this..

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Normally, Peipei, my niece, doesn't really eat my sweets...Last time I baked Cranberry Coffee Cake..when she saw i put the frozen cranberry in the batter...she said..''Ja, I will give this for grandma...I am not gonna eat it''

haha..I think she is afraid of sour fruit or doesn't like cake with fruit !

BUT !! I am still good !!! She loves my cookies....

The day before I came to Sydney...Peipei asked me to bake her favourite thing again...Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies......She really really loves it....Everytime she comes to see me, always ask for it...

Tan tan tan !!!! ..........the chocolate and butter aroma wake Peipei up...

Looks so good, rite? I put Chocolate more than 1 cup actually...

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon Corn Syrup
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or can use instant espresso coffee powder)
1 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 F (170 C). Cream the butter with the sugars using an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy (approximately 30 seconds)
2. Beat in the egg and the vanilla extract for another 30 seconds.
3. In a mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients and beat into the butter mixture at low speed for about 15 seconds. Stir in the espresso coffee powder and chocolate chips.
4. Using a 1 ounce scoop or a 2 tablespoon measure, drop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. Gently press down on the dough with the back of a spoon to spread out into a 2 inch circle. Bake for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned around the edges. Bake a little longer for a crispier cookie.

Due to my small oven, I have to bake cookies for many batches...for 2 first batches, I used the Ice cream scoop..quite big one... As you can see at the top of the cookies tray...

The rest of the dough, I just used tablespoon.....looks cute though...(and good cuz can give to more people..hehe...)

Ummmmmmmm........................