Doggie & Almond cookies

Today my 2nd daughter has a year end party at her playschool. It also marks the end of her "school days" over there. Frankly I'm quite depress since I won't be able to meet up with the mothers there regularly now. The thing is it's actually quite therapeutic for me to have regular conversations with the mothers there, rather then all those kids talk with my girls all day, if you know what I mean, haha.

The mothers and the organizer at the playschool has been more then nice to me and I really appreciate that. :) Anyway, I hope I can stay in touch with them as I have come to treasure the friendship they gave me. So if you're one of them, and reading this, I just want to say "THANKS!" ;)

I made 2 kinds of cookies for the party today. One of them is the Chocolate Doggie cookies you see below. I got the cute design from one of my favorite blogs Happy Home Baking. However I made changes to the cookie recipe.

Ingredients (makes about 30 to 35 Doggies):

200g unsalted butter (room temperature)
60g Milo powder
60g cocoa powder
200g cake flour
80g caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
Koko Krunch enough for 30 to 35 Doggie cookies' ears
Chocolate Chips enough for 30 to 35 Doggie cookies' noses
Chocolate rice enough for 30 to 35 Doggie cookies' eyes

Method:

• Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
  
• Sieve cake flour, salt, Milo powder and cocoa powder into the butter mixture and mix until well blended and the color is uniform.
• Diving the dough about 12g each and roll them into a ball.
• Preheat oven to 150°C.
• Using the chocolate chips, pressing the pointy side into the dough to make the nose. As shown below:
• Using 2 chocolate rice, as the Doggie's eyes, as shown above
  
• Using 2 Ko ko Krunch as the Doggie's ears, as shown above.
• Put the Doggies cookies into the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
• Let cool on rack completely and store in air tight container.
  

Try them, I'm sure the little ones will love them!

The other cookie I made for the party was a Almond Shortbread cookie. Saw a recipe online, but made some changes to it to suit my taste. :)

Ingredients (makes about 40 cookies):

225g unsalted butter, room temperature
150g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
180g all purpose flour
100g almond flour (toasted ground almonds)
1/2 tsp salt
30g cornflour

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 150°C.
• Butter or place parchment paper on baking pan.
• Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Add in vanilla essence and mix well.
• In another bowl, using a whisk, mix all purpose flour, almond flour, cornflour and salt together until no clumps.
• Using the palm of your hands, form the dough into balls about 12g in weight each.
• Put the dough balls on the baking tray, using your thumb, press it down slightly, then using a fork, dip in plain flour and press on the cookie to make the patterns.
• Bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes or till light golden brown on the side.
• Cool completely and store in airtight container.

It's light and almost melt in your mouth. Goes great with a cup of tea in the afternoon. If you like, you can add almond essence to it to enhance the almond taste. Enjoy!