Semolina (Sugee) Shortbread

Many years ago I baked some shortbread for my nephew, Fabian who was then observing the Lent period.  Lent is the 40 days period leading to Easter.  This is the period where many Christians observe a period of fasting, praying and repentance.  Like any other Christian, Fabian having completed his secondary school examination decided to go on a vegetarian diet for 40 days.  As his diet exclude eggs, there aren't many cookie recipes that do not have eggs. After combing my recipe books, I came across a Semolina Shortbread recipe by Delia Smith that does not have any eggs in it.

Recently, Fabian having started work in a different state got himself an oven and asked me for this recipe.  Before giving him the recipe, I thought I better bake some first so that I can be precise in documenting the steps in baking them.

So Fabian, this recipe is for you.

Ingredients

250g plain flour

250g butter

125g castor sugar

125g fine semolina (sugee)

1.  Cream butter and sugar until just combined.

2.  Add in plain flour and mix well.

3.  Add in semolina and bring the mixture together to form a dough.

4.  Roll the dough between 2 sheets of greased proof paper or cling wrap to fit a 12 inch by 9 inch pan. (I used a Swiss roll pan)

5.  Prick dough all over with a fork and bake in a slow oven pre-heated to 150C for approx 50 mins.  Shortbread should be of a pale golden colour.

6.  Remove shortbread from the oven. 

7.  At this point, the shortbread will still be very soft.  Immediately cut shortbread into squares and leave to cool.

8.  Shortbread will turn crisp after cooling down.

Note : For Step 4 above, this is what I did.  I place the dough on a Swiss roll pan lined with greased proof paper.  Then I place a second piece of greased proof paper over the dough followed by another Swiss roll pan of the same size.  Then I run a rolling pin over the 2nd Swiss roll pan.  This method will give you an evenly rolled out dough.  Remove the 2nd Swiss roll pan and greased proof paper.  Then continue with Step 5 above.

Pineapple Cup Tarts

If you are like me, love pineapple tarts (rolls) but hate to go through the motion carefully rolling each pineapple roll.  Here is the solution - Pineapple Cup Tarts. 

I found this recipe in Betty Saw's Cookies Galore.  Not only is this easy to make but looks pretty, too.

Pineapple Cup Tart

 Ingredients
250g butter
120g icing sugar
250g plain flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
pineapple jam - rolled 1/2 tsp each into balls

1.  Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence until light and fluffy.
2.  Fold in the flour and fill a piping bag fitted with large star nozzle.
3.  Pipe rosette into small paper cups and place pineapple balls in the centre.
4.  Bake at 170C for 20 mins.
5.  Cool and serve.

Butter Cookies

There are some cookies that never get out of season when it comes to Chinese New Year. One of them is the faithful peanut cookies that appear in many household year in year out.  The other cookies that have the same good fortune is Butter Cookies. 

Who can resist a sweet buttery cookie with its melt in the mouth texture.  Butter Cookies are easy to fix up.  All you need is flour, icing sugar and of course butter.  As the key ingredient is butter, a good quality butter will make a difference.  After my terrible encounter with Anchor Butter (in my previous post), I decided to use SCS butter for these Butter Cookies.  And they tasted heavenly. 

Butter Cookies

Ingredients

250g butter

70g icing sugar

200g plain flour

50g corn flour

1.  Cream butter and icing sugar till slightly pale.

2.  Fold in sifted plain flour and corn flour.

3.  Fill a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle.

4.  Pipe cookies on lined baking tray.

5.  Bake in an oven pre-heated to 170C for approximately 15 minutes.

Note - Cookies should not be golden brown but be slightly pale in colour after baking.

Green Pea Cookies

Another type of cookie that is easy to put together is Green Pea cookies.  I have never heard of Green Pea Cookie until last year.  All of a sudden, almost all the household I visited during CNY last year served these cookies.  Subsequently I found out that this recipe came from Alan Ooi's New Year Cookies cookbook.  

These cookies are slightly different from the usual cookies that are sweet and loaded with sugar.  The green colour of these cookies also make them stand out when serve amongst the usual pale looking cookies.  On top of that, the salt in the cookies contributed to the unique flavour of salty-sweetness. 

The green peas used for this recipe have been pre-fried and milled.  This is available from speciality shops that sell products used for baking. 

Green Pea Cookies

Ingredients

130g green pea flour*

100g icing sugar

1/4 tsp salt

150g plain flour

100ml groundnut oil (peanut oil)

Sift flour, salt and icing sugar into a mixing bowl.  Then slowly stir in groundnut oil.

While stiring, bring mixture together to form a dough. I prefer to do this using my hands.

Roll dough between 2 plastic sheets to 0.5cm thickness. Cut dough to desired shapes using a cookie cutter.

Arrange cookies on lined baking tray and bake at 170C for 10-15 minutes.

Cookies should not be brown but slightly pale in colour after baking.

*If green pea flour is not available, replace it with ready fried green peas available from supermarket.  But mill the green pea finely before usage. 

Almond Cookies

The couple of weeks before Chinese New Year is a crazy baking time for me.  With a 9 to 6 job, I only get to bake either on weekends or on week nights.  There aren't many weekend to consider if you wanna have freshly baked cookies.  So the next alternative is to bake on week nighs after work.  As I finish work quite late usually around 8pm, I can only start baking at 9pm and often finished off past mid night.  Though tired but the joy of seeing cute delectable cookies that melt in the mouth is indescribable.  This is one of them; Almond Cookes.  This recipe is adapted from Alan Ooi's New Year Cookies cookbook.


Ingredients
125gm ground almond
180g plain flour
100g icing sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
130ml corn oil

Egg Glace
1 egg yolk

1.  Sift ground almond, plain flour, icing sugar, baking powder and baking soda into a mixing bowl.
2.  Make a well in the centre of flour mixture and gradually stir in the corn oil.
3.  Combine ingredients together to form a dough.
4.  Scoop level teaspoon of dough and roll them into balls.
5.  Dot the centre of balls with egg glace using the round end of a chopstick.
6.  Bake in an oven pre-heated to 170C for approx. 15 minutes.
7.  Let cookies cool completely before packing them into container.

Cinnamon Kisses

These are the Cinnamon Kisses that I baked after tasting Ginger Kisses from New Zealand. [Edit : These are not cookies, they are sponge cake sandwich together with buttercream). A friend of mine gave us a packet of Ginger Kisses when she came back from her holiday trip to New Zealand. These Kisses has texture like sponge cake instead of usual crispy biscuit. It is soft and full of flavour from the ginger and cinnamon powder with the smoothness of cream sandwiched in between. These Kisses were an instant hit with Sydney.

After much persuasion from Sydney to bake some for her, I decided to comb the Internet for the recipe. Finally, I came across this recipe and decided to give it a go with minor changes. Since I do not have ginger powder, I decided to replace the ginger powder with cinnamon powder and call it Cinnamon Kisses.

Ingredients for Kisses
150g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

110g butter

60g caster sugar

1 egg

2 tsp honey

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp hot water

Ingredients for Filling

30g butter

120g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbsp boiling water

Method for Kisses

1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, spices and set aside.

2. Cream butter, sugar and honey till light and fluffy, then mix in the egg.

3. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients.

4. Dissolve baking soda in hot water and add to batter.

5. Scoop small teaspoonfuls of the mixture on baking trays.

6. Bake in oven pre-heated to 180C for about 10 minutes or until golden brown.

7. Cool completely before apply filing.

Method for Filing

1. Cream butter, icing sugar and vanilla until smooth.

2. Slowly stir in boiling water a little at a time until mixture is very light and creamy.

3. Pair up the cinnamon kisses and sandwich them with filling.

Note : Remember to make more than required. These are so good that they finish real fast.

Coconut Macaroons

As the world of gourmet goes Oooooo....and....Ahhh over Parisian Macaroons, hubby also wanted his fair share after hearing so much from me. But then, when we came across some pictures of Parisian Macaroon, he remarked that those were not the ones he wanted. Phew......what a relief. These little babies are not only delicate to handle but also skill testing in bake them right. Which I must humbly confess that up till now I have not gathered enough courage to attempt at baking them. Perhaps one day, when the the need arises I will surely give it a go and will definitely share my adventure here.

Since it wasn't Parisian Macaroon that hubby was referring to, as a dutiful wife *grin* I went through my entire collection of cookbook. Eventually I managed to find what he wanted, it was non other than Coconut Macaroon. Fortunately, I was quick in snapping some photos. Otherwise there won't be any left as hubby finished all of them in a single sitting. Verdict : DELICIOUS.

Here's the recipe:-
Ingredients
2 eggs, separated
pinch of salt
1/2 cup castor sugar
3 cups dessicated coconut
Beat egg whites and salt till soft peak form.
Beat in egg yolk, one at a time.
Gradually add in sugar, beat until sugar is dissolved.
Fold in coconut.
Using a tablespoon, spoon mixture on baking tray lined with parchment paper.
Bake at 150C for 15 to 20 minutes.
Leave to cook before removing from tray.

Note : These macaroons will only crisp after cooling down.

Pineapple Tarts

I have finally finished up my cupcake request. As such, over the weekend after buying all the required ingredients I started baking cookies for Chinese New Year (CNY). Since my family's favourite is pineapple tarts obviously that is the first bake on my list.

As a result of my carelessness in following the recipe from the Y3K New Year Cookies cookbook by Alan Ooi, I came up with this version of pineapple tart which to my surprise Hubby likes very much. That brings to memory how Rachel Green in the series, Friends in the mist of preparing trifle misread the Sheperd's Pie recipe and got a combination of meat, jello, cream, potatoes and everything else. Glad my carelessness is much more forgiveable. *grins*

I was fortunate this time to have 3 Elves (as they wanted to be known) to help me with the making of these tarts. They are Sydney and her friends, Sylvia and Chan. They did such a great job in shaping the pineapple filling and rolling the pastry into tarts.

Here's the recipe:-

250g butter

3 tbsp icing sugar

280g plain flour

80g corn flour

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

3 egg yolks

300g of ready made pineapple filling - rolled 1/2 tsp each into cylinder shape

Cream butter, icing sugar, egg yolk and vanilla essence until smooth.

Fold in flour to form a soft dough.

Fill the nastar mould with dough and press dough into strips of approx. 2 inches long.

Place a piece of pineapple filling on one end of the strip and roll up to cover the pineapple filling.

Bake in preheated oven at 170C for 15 to 20 minutes.

And tadaaaa.......here's the yummylicious pineapple tart.