Graham-men Cookies

It is going to be Christmas and I have made an advent calendar for the kids. Instead of getting a candy everyday, they get to do a craft or an activity related to the holiday. I did plenty of research before making the calendar, and was ambitious enough to think that I could attempt something like this. After procrastinating for too long, I decided to cut down on the budget for the project (to $0!) and save a trip to the craft store by rummaging through the stuff we have at home. This is the result:

Advent Calendar with Recycled Materials

Made from recycled table mat, leftover wrapping paper, recycled ribbon and pages torn out of a complimentary supermarket magazine.

We are now down to Day 7 of December and tomorrow's activity is to make and decorate a gingerbread man. Faced with the prospect of bickering kids and messy kitchen, I resolved to limit my frustration by making the cookie dough in advance so they can fast forward to the fun step of decorating the cookies.

All gingerbread cookie recipes contain ginger (surprise! surprise). Not my kids' favourite and I am certain they can detect the ingredient despite copious amounts of sugar. This is why I decided to use a graham cracker recipe instead, which leads us to.... the graham-men cookie!

I have only made graham crackers once, and my picky little boy devoured the whole lot. I figured that means I should use that same recipe. Here it is, adapted from one of my favourite food blog, Culinary Concoctions by Peabody.


Graham-men Cookie
(Adapted from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody - Key Lime Graham Cracker Ice Box Cookie)

Ingredients
180g graham flour
125g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g dark brown sugar
2 egg yolks
2 TBS honey


Steps

1. Sift together all flours, baking soda, cinnamon and salt
2. Using a stand mixer on paddle attachment, cream together butter, sugar and honey at medium speed, until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes
3. Add egg yolk, mix until incorporated
4. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, continue mixing until all traces of flour is gone.
5. Separate into 2 balls, wrap them up in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight 
6. Preheat oven to 180C. Unwrap cookie dough, roll them out and cut them into desired shapes using cookie cutters. Bake until edges are slightly brown, about 12 minutes. Cool and store in an airtight container.  

Baking Thoughts - The Myth of Precision

Almost every baking book stresses the importance of measuring the ingredients carefully and accurately. And many bakers swear by using weight rather than volume to portion flour, sugar etc. This piece of advice caused much stress when I first started out baking. Every cup of flour was leveled with a knife, then sifted and weighed, and a little spoon used to scoop some flour in or out when there's a variance of one gram. Repeat for sugar, then baking powder and every single ingredient listed. Inevitably, I will come to the eggs, and the anxiousness starts. Large eggs? What's considered large, or small? Since American portions are usually bigger, are their "large eggs" larger than Asian eggs too? There was a time I stood at the supermarket aisle looking through the different brands of eggs, trying to figure out which eggs among the hundreds look the "largest".

Yes, my worries were extreme. All because of the advice - in baking, unlike cooking, measure your ingredients accurately

After many (failed more than successful) baking attempts, I now know better. Rather than stressing over the 5g differences, it's more important to know how to adjust the recipe when your baking results did not turn out the way you expected. How many times have you followed the recipe to the letter and find that it flopped?

If you have the time and money, the best way is of course to experiment and adjust the recipe according to your baking results. However, we rarely want to risk our costly French butter and imported vanilla beans on such risky ventures. Luckily there's an alternative, ie. do your homework (yes mummy!). There are thousands of different variations for each creme brulee, vanilla cupcake recipe, but which is the best one? In that respect, baking forums and recipe reviewers are your best friend. Here are two of my favourite websites:

www.chowhound.com
www.allrecipes.com

Both have lots of experienced cooks willing to share reviews and tips of their baking attempts.

So, stop getting all paranoid about that little teaspoon of flour that's causing the 3g difference. Instead, go through your recipe books, google the recipes online, read the reviews, incorporate the tips, and you are ready to get those electric beaters going.


.

Cat's Tongue Cookies (Langues de Chat)

Someone brought a packet of Marks and Spencer Dutch Shortcake to a potluck gathering and I fell in love with it after the first bite. It has to be absolutely THE BEST cookie I have had, ever. Crumbly and buttery, with the added richness of chocolate on one end. Selfishly, I hid it away in the cupboard so I don't have to share it with the rest of family. Alas, the packet only lasted 2 days, and with the last one, I stretched it out as long as I could, savouring each little bite with half-closed eyes, till the last crumb is gone.

Unfortunately, there's no Marks and Spencer where I live so I went on a desperate quest to look for the recipe online. This is one of the rare times when Google failed me. There seems to be absolutely no such thing as a Dutch Shortcake recipe, it looks as though this is a name M&S made up. The closest physical resemblence is the Viennese Sable. After trying the recipe twice, I was terribly disappointed. The Viennese Sable is buttery, but has none of the crispness of the M&S version.

Despite the futile search, I discovered that there are amazing things you can make with just butter, sugar and eggs. The magic is in the proportions and good quality butter. So instead of pining for the M&S cookies, I switched my affections to these

Cat's tongue cookies aka Langues de Chat, ie. the cookie crust in Shiroi Koibito cookies, =  白い恋人, which is...

Ding ding! Did I hear the bell go off in your head? That's right, these are the famous Hokkaido cookies that you beg your friends and relatives to buy for you when they go. The creamy white chocolate sandwiched by delicious, melt-in-mouth cookies. I think I've got the cookies down pat with this recipe, just need to get some good quality white chocolate to go along and it will be perfect!

Recipe translated and adapted from Ytower. I halved the recipe as it already makes so many!

Ingredients
200g sifted low-gluten / cake flour
125g butter (use good quality French butter please, I recommend Isigny)
200g sifted icing sugar
150g egg whites (about 4 eggs)
Half vanilla bean (you can substitute with 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

Steps
1. Let all ingredients come to room temperature
2. Preheat oven to 150 degrees C. Lay a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Cut open the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds out with the flat edge of a knife.
2. Beat butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy
3. Add flour and beat till combined
4. Add egg whites, one at a time till you get a gooey paste, add vanilla seeds.
5. Get ready a piping bag with a 1-cm flat tip (or a disposable piping bag and cut a horizontal hole about 1 cm across). Using a spatula, spoon the batter in.
6. Pipe a line about 4 cm long on the cookie sheet. To make a straight line, try to keep the tip close to the cookie sheet and hold the piping bag straight instead of at an angle. Leave a gap of at least 5 cm between the lines. These cookies spread a lot when baking so be sure to leave a big gap, otherwise you will have one big flat cookie.

7. Bake in the oven and check after 15 minutes. The cookies are done when the edges have a brown border of about 1cm. If not done, bake further. They burn rather quickly so be sure to check often.

8. Transfer cookies onto cooling rack. And repeat the piping and baking until all batter is used up. Store in air tight containers when cooled.

.

Sticky Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce

The first time I had sticky date pudding was at Marmalade Pantry. We were with James' friends, a couple who are true Singapore foodies. We lost touch with them following our various moves. But we are reminded of them often because we "stole" their son's name for our boy. Actually, I think THAT was the reason we "lost touch".

This is quite a straightforward recipe. Just be sure to use good quality brown sugar, especially for the caramel sauce. I like to do pudding in muffin cups and serve them right out of the oven with vanilla ice-cream (Movenpick is the best!) or Ambrosia custard. If you have any leftover, store them in an airtight container in the fridge, and heat them up in the microwave just before serving. The caramel sauce will keep in a clean glass jar with tight fitting lid, for about 2 months in the fridge. The chilled sauce will separate but come together again once heated.

Recipe adapted from Australian Women's Weekly - Cooking Class Beginners. This recipe book was given to me by my mother-in-law year ago. (Yes, I got the hint mom :O)

Makes about 8 standard size muffin cups

Ingredients
Pudding
1 and 1/2 cups deseeded dried dates
1 and 1/4 cups boiling water
1 teaspoon baking soda
Cooking oil spray
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (sift before using)
60g butter
2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour

Caramel Sauce

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
100g butter, chopped
300ml cream


Steps
For Pudding
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C, grease muffin cups with cooking oil spray
2. Put dates, water and baking soda into bowl of food processor, let stand for 5 minutes. Pulse until dates are roughly chopped
3. Beat brown sugar and chopped butter in electric mixer
4. Add eggs and beat until well-combined
5. Add flour until just combined, then fold in the dates mixture
6. Using an ice-cream scoop, divide the mixture into the muffin cups and place in oven.
7. Check if the pudding is done after 30 minutes. Gently press the top of the pudding with your finger, if it feels firm, it's done. To confirm, stick a skewer in the centre of the pudding, the skewer should be greasy when withdrawn but free of uncooked mixture. If it's not done, check after 5 minutes and repeat until cooked.
8. Remove from oven, do the caramel sauce while leaving the pudding to stand

For caramel sauce

1. Place sugar and butter in saucepan over high heat, stir in the cream.
2. Once butter melts, bring sauce to a boil. To prevent it from boiling over, either lower the heat or remove pan from heat for a moment.
3. Stir sauce constantly until completely smooth

Assembly

Remove pudding from muffin cup and place upside down on place. Pour some caramel sauce over the pudding and add a scoop of ice cream / custard. Serve while pudding is still hot.



.

Chocolate Modelling

The cake decorating trend nowadays seem to gravitate towards using fondant. Fondant does provide a very pretty and vibrant look to cakes, and are especially popular in cakes for kids. Plus it can be easily stored and made in advance so there is less stress when it comes to assembly on the actual day.

Personally, I am not fond of the taste of fondant, so I was actively searching for alternatives and came across chocolate modelling. This is an easy and tastier tool for decoration. Similarly, it can be made in advance and store well in the fridge. I used a mix of milk, white and flavoured (strawberry, orange) chocolate to get the colours. There are some websites that suggest the chocolate can be coloured using powdered or oil-based food colouring so I think I will try that next time.

Ingredients
200g chocolate
1/3 cup light corn syrup (eg. Karo)
Cling wrap
Icing sugar for kneading

Steps
1. Chop the chocolate roughly into 2cm square blocks
2. Heat the chocolate in the microwave at 50 percent power for a minute
3. Stir the chocolate. If it's not melted, heat it again for 30 seconds, keep repeating until all the chocolate is melted.
4. Add the corn syrup one tablespoon at a time and stir. Keep adding and stirring until it forms a thick ball. You may need to adjust the amount of corn syrup depending on the chocolate used.
5. Pour the mixture onto cling wrap and spread it with a spatula to about 5cm thickness. Wrap it up and put it in the fridge until it hardens.
6. When you are ready to use the chocolate, take it out of the fridge and break it into small portions. Spread some icing sugar on your hands and on the counter, knead the chocolate with your hands until soft and pliable. The warmth of your hands should help to melt the chocolate for easy kneading. If it's too hard, place it in the microwave and heat it again at 50 percent power for 30 seconds.

The chocolate dough and completed model can be stored in an airtight container for a month.



.

Mooncake Cupcakes (Bean Paste Filled Cupcakes With Date-Pineapple Cream Cheese Frosting)

In Singapore, Mid-Autumn Festival is when kids get to stay out late and play with lanterns. The best part is when someone's lantern goes up in flames, especially if that lantern looks better than mine. Nowadays most kids get those noisy electric ones that play some unidentifiable out-of-tune pop songs.

In Taiwan, people hang out along the streets outside their apartment / shopfront, with their little bbq stove and beer. No lanterns here, but there are firecrackers and fireworks!

I've been itching to try this recipe since I first saw it on Cupcakeblog. The blogger is really creative with the use of ingredients and flavours, and all her recipes are very inspiring. The bean paste takes a lot of work as it's not easy passing the paste through the sieve, I took at least an hour with short breaks in between to finally finish making it. The result is worth it though, fragrant and not overly sweet like the store-bought bean paste.

The cake is just the right sweetness for me (and my testers), but the cream cheese frosting is too sweet with the dried fruit. What I did the second time was use my own cream cheese frosting recipe and add in 1/4 cup chopped dates and 1/4 cup dried pineapple. Do not leave out the sesame seeds because they provide a nice balance to all that sweetness, and they look so pretty too!

Recipe from Cupcake Blog - Mooncake Cupcakes



.

Cream Cheese Frosting

I always have a problem with grainy cream cheese frosting until I found this method through extensive googling. The trick is to use room temperature butter and cold cream cheese. I can't really bring myself to use 2 to 4 cups of sugar for the frosting so this is my own recipe using only 1/2 cup sugar.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sifted icing sugar
70g butter (room temperature)
8oz packet cream cheese (cut up into small cubes)
vanilla essence (optional

Steps:
1. Beat butter til soft and creamy
2. Add icing sugar and beat till fluffy
3. Add cream cheese and beat till mixed in

If the frosting is too hard to pipe, beat the mixture further or leave it at room temperature for a while and it will soften.


.