Cornflakes with Chocolate Chips Cookies

This is another one of my favourite to-bake cookies for the Chinese New Year or even just for normal consumption - Cornflakes with Chocolate Chips Cookies.

I have been having this recipe since the schooling days, so long ago that I can't remember the source of the recipe.

Anyhow, this is a recipe that is worth sharing.

Cornflakes with Chocolate Chips Cookies

Cornflakes with Chocolate Chips Cookies

What You'll Need:

• 210g flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 225g butter
• 200g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 1/2 cups crushed cornflakes
• 1 cup chocolate chips

How?

1. Preheat oven to 170 C
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt
3. Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy
4. Add eggs and vanilla essence. Mix well.
5. Add the flour mixture and mix well.
6. Add in cornflakes and chocolate chips.
7. Spoon dough into the cookie tray.
8. Bake in 170 C for about 15 minutes.

 

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Chinese Walnut Cookies / Hup Toh Sow (合桃酥)

CNY is round the corner and that means I have to start thinking of what to bake besides cleaning up and decorating the house.

Last year I tasted some good Chinese Walnut Cookies from Australia Cake House in Seapark, so I've decided to bake some this year. If I couldn't get any good recipe of it, I will just have to buy from them.

After searching on the WWW,  I came across this simple recipe and decided to try it out. It took me 2 rounds of testing & tweaking before I finally get the aromatic taste and "loose" and crunchy texture that I wanted.

So, here's the recipe.

Chinese Walnut Cookies (合桃酥)

Chinese Walnut Cookies (合桃酥)

adapted from My Kitchen Snippets and No-Frills Recipes

What You'll Need:

(edited 28 Jan 13)

140 gm butter (salted, room temperature)
2 tsp peanut oil
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
250 gm self-raising flour
80 gm caster sugar
75 gm coarsely chopped roasted walnuts
1 egg beaten + a pinch of salt, for glazing

How?

1. Sift the self-raising flour into a mixing bowl.

2. Cut in the butter; add in the sugar, peanut oil, vanilla essence and the chopped walnuts.

3. Mix thoroughly till the dough does not stick onto the hands.

4. Pinch off some dough and lightly form into a ball, make a small dent in the centre. Place the biscuits onto a baking sheet, leaving some room between each biscuit.

5. Brush them with beaten egg wash.

6. Bake in preheated oven 190 degree C or 350 degree F for about 30 to 35 minutes or till golden brown.(Mine was in bite size, so I baked for about 15 minutes to reach golden brown)

7. Cool completely before storing in cookie jar.

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Vanilla Sugar Cookies

A good activity to kill time during the weekends with your toddler: Cookies making. :)

K-boy decorating the cookies to Xmas theme

The X-mas theme cookies

Vanilla Sugar Cookies (as seen in foodnetwork.com)

Yield approx 12 3-inch cookies

What You'll Need:

• 2 1/3 cups plus 2 tbsp (11 oz) All purpose flour
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 3/4 cup Unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp (4 oz) Granulated sugar
•  1 Large egg
• 1 tsp Pure vanilla extract

 

How?

1. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside

 

2. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugar and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined.

 

3. Add the flour mixture in 2 batches, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Beat until the dough just comes together, being careful not to over mix.

4. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Form the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5. Place the ball of dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper and roll out to 1/4 inch thick. Keeping the dough in the parchment, transfer to a cookie sheet and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. (I put in the freezer for 15 mins instead)

6. Preheat oven to 350 F

7. Cut out the cookies in the desired shapes and place on a half-sheet pan lined with parchment paper or an ungreased nonstick cookie sheet, at least 1 inch apart. Transfer to the freezer and chill for at least 15 minutes or until they are stiff.

8. Bake until the cookies are light golden brown, about 10 minutes.

9. Let cookies cool completely on the sheets before decorating. (They will still be soft when they come out of the oven and may break or become misshapen if they are moved off the sheet before cool.)

Variations:
Citrus cookies : add 1 tsp of finely grated lemon or orange zest to the butter and sugar mixture in step 1

Almond cookies : replace the vanilla with 1 tsp of pure almond extract

Hot tip:
This dough can be made up to 2 weeks ahead of time. Roll out the dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper, wrap in plastic and freeze. Defrost until the dough is pliable enough to cut, about 10-15 mins. Continue from step 6.

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Chocolatey-Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chinese New Year is round the corner, and apart from the spring cleaning and house decorating to get into the CNY mood, baking is another good way to get myself into the CNY mood. However, now with 2 kids, I could no longer bake some varieties of cookies for the festive season. So I have decided to bake some chocolate chips cookies over the weekend, and found this yummy recipe from All Recipes.com. I've always loved the choc-orange combo, thus I've made some changes to the recipe.

Chocolatey-Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

INGREDIENTS
225 g butter, softened
270 g white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
250 g all-purpose flour
55 g cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
Zest of 1 orange
335 g semisweet chocolate chips
60 g almond nibs

METHOD

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2.In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, orange zest and vanilla until light and fluffy. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Mix in the chocolate chips and almonds. Drop by rounded teaspoonful onto ungreased cookie sheets.

3.Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or just until set. Cool slightly on the cookie sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

For original recipe, click here.

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Melt-in-your-mouth Vanilla Butter Cookies

Recipe adapted from http://www.food.com/ and made some tweaks in between.

What You'll Need:

• 1 cup butter or margerine
• 3/4 cup sugar (I reduced to 1/2 cup since I didn't want it to be sweet for lil K)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups flour (I used 2 3/4 cups because I find the dough too soft to be rolled)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

 

How To:

1. Cream butter or margarine with sugar.
2. Add eggs and vanilla and mix.
3. Add flour, baking powder and salt and mix well.
4. At this point you can either roll out and cut with cookie cutters or roll dough into 1 inch balls and flatten on cookie sheet. (Cookie cutters take longer time, so rolling the dough to balls and flatten them is best if you want to save time)
5. Bake at 160C for 8-10 minutes till golden brown.

Verdict: The cookies really melt in the mouth as the title says,  even though I added another 1/4 cup of flour to the batter. And because I used superfine flour, the texture is really soft and fine! A yummy easy to make cookie.

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