Post Full of New Year Cookies!

My my , I have never deliberately neglected my blog for such a long duration of time before! I am not idling and wasting my time away, mind you. It's just that this year's pre- CNY bake has been a real busy one! Now, finally, I get some time to post it, please be warned of this LONG POST, since its a consolidation of all those cookies I baked for the past 2 weeks. :P

It all started with this idea in my mind; to make the pineapple tarts into golden nugget shapes! Sounds fantastic, but it's quite time consuming to make the shape. ^_^" But since it was so well received and several orders came in., I went ahead with it. It practically took up all of my free time, not to mention having to perform my daily duties on top of it. Although there are still requests coming in, I have to turn them down as I have already over stretched my limits...meaning I actually fell ill because of over working or over baking?! :P So lesson learn here, don't be too ambitious and remember to mark up the price to make more worthwhile, lol! Without further ado, here it is, my pineapple golden nuggets!

The recipe is actually quite similar to the one I used last year, I made minor adjustment to it. Furthermore, I was too tight down that I don't have time to make my own pineapple jam, thus store bought ones. Luckily I was still able to find one that is not so sweet and a slight tartness to it. Furthermore my customers were pleased with them, so no complains there. :)

Taste? It's light, almost melt in the mouth, except for the chewiness from the pineapple jam, you really won't feel 'heavy' or full after popping 3 or 4 of these in your mouth! I also made some flower shaped pineapple tarts for my husband's co worker. :)

Besides all these traditional pineapple tarts, I too baked several other cookies this year, namely cornflake cookies, almond cookies (my favorite), peanut cookies, rabbit shaped butter cookies and lastly Orange scented Strawberry jam Almond Swirl cookies. A little much right, hahaha!

The cornflake cookies is actually a special request from my husband's work place, so I just did it as a favor. Besides I make a little more for my kids to try to, heehee. I actually adapt the recipe from Jodelibakery. For more details on the recipe, please refer to the link.

The recipe is simple and easy to make. I added 2 different 'topping' to the cookies, one os dried cranberries and the other semisweet chocolate chips. The crunch and flavor from the cornflakes is very satisfying, not too sweet and a nice snack that you don't normally find selling in stores even during CNY. The down side however is that these cookies need to be store in air tight containers, else it turns slightly chewy after awhile.

Next up is almond cookies....my favorite! This is the first time I attempted to make this myself. Why wait so long? Well, My standard is so high, I worry I might just disappoint myself, lol! Anyway, here it is, my almond cookies:

Not too shabby huh? For this recipe, I adapted J3ss's version, but replaced portion of the vegetable oil with ghee since I like the buttery scent from the clarified butter. :) Overall the texture and sweetness was really good, melt in the mouth but with bits of almond crunch in it, which is what I like. :)

However there is just one mistake I made....adding almond essence to the it. Somehow that 1/4 tsp of essence just made the cookie taste a little artificial. :P I swear the next time I make these, I am not gonna add any essence to it....natural is good. :) I just have to toast those almonds real good to get it's natural flavor out.
Next is peanut cookies. Since I love peanut, so I always make a point to make some every year. Here they are!

I love peanut cookies, it's almost a must for me in CNY. However, the dreading part I believe for most of us is to roast, de-skin and ground the peanuts. Although it only took me 3 hours to perform that task, I still didn't enjoy it any bit. But store bought ones are also not an option, so I guess I just have to suck it up and do it, lol!

Taste? It's almost melt in your mouth of course! I adapted the recipe from Wendy but I made some changes to it; i.e less the powder sugar by 10% (but still too sweet for me) and used ghee in place of 50% of the vegetable oil needed in the recipe (Plus 3 tbsp more). A wonderful recipe, but I will remember to reduce the sugar by 15 or 20% next time.
This year I made butter cookies mainly because it was actually a special request from a neighbor. So I decided to cut them out into rabbit shape to make them a little more festive, heehee!

Sorry, forgotten to snap a few photos of the cookies before I bottled them up. :P There are 4 different rabbit shapes in there. :) This recipe is the same butter cookies as the one I made before.
Last of them cookies I made this year would be Orange Scented Strawberry Jam Almond Swirl cookies which I got from 孟老師的下午茶 which I borrowed from the library. :) My kid loves jam cookies, so whenever I see any new recipes, I would jump to try it out. ;)

The addition of almond flour in this recipe makes it really special and delicious. ;) My girl loved it so much that she brought it to school for a consecutive 4 days!

However due to the presence of moisture in the jam, the cookies turned kind of soft after a couple of days. :P But the flavor is still good, so it was all eaten up as well. :D Here is the recipe for this delicious cookie:

Ingredients for Orange scented Jam Almond Swirl cookies (makes about 15 to 20)
Set A:
80g unsalted butter
50g ground almond
50g powdered sugar
1/4 tsp salt
25g egg white
Finely grated orange peel of 1 orange (without the white part)
100g cake flour

Set B:
Fruit Jam (I used strawberry jam)
Method:

• In a mixing bowl, cream the butter, sifted ground almond flour and powered sugar together till well combined.
• Add in egg white and orange peel to the butter mixture and again mix well.
• Preheat oven to 170C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
  
• Add cake flour in directly and stir gently but not over mixing it. Scoop batter into piping bag with a large flower tip.
• Pipe out the cookies in circular discs, leaving about 3 cm apart from other cookies. Repeat till all the batter is piped out.
• Bake the cookies in the oven for 15 minutes, then remove from oven and place about 1/4 tsp of jam in the center of each cookie. Put the half baked cookies back into the oven to continue to bake for another 10 minutes.
• Once the cookies a slight golden brown, remove from oven and let cool completely before storing them in air tight containers.
  

After all this, I shan't forget to do this before I sign off. That is to submit this to Aspiring Bakers #3 : My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011) hosted by Jess of i3ss kitch3n. Hope I am not too late for that! :D

Just in case I don't get the chance to post something up before the arrival of the Lunar New Year, I want to take this opportunity to wish one and all:

富貴滿堂, 万事如意,

身体健康, 新年快乐!

Cheers all! Happy Rabbit Year!!