Melt-In-Mouth German Cookies

Baking marathon! I have been baking almost everyday since last two weeks. So much recipes in my mind to try for CNY. 

I have seen a lot this recipe from baking bloggers, melt-in-mouth german cookies. I never tried this cookies before and after seeing so many bloggers rave about this cookies, I told myself, I should try this! The recipe is quite easy and only needs 4 ingredients. 

I baked this babe last night. As it is my first time baking german cookies, I will start off with original flavour, vanilla. First thing I reached home after work is get the butter from fridge and leave it at room temperature before I have my dinner. This is what I usually do if I plan to bake for that night. :) As it was my first time tried and baked this cookies, I have nothing to compare whether it is good or not. It is indeed melt in mouth. As I have stuffy nose since yesterday afternoon, it blocked my taste bud. I can't really comment whether it is nice or not. My 3 year old girl, being my biggest fan for now, gave me thumbs up and asking me to pack some in her bento box tomorrow morning before I go to work this morning. LOL. 

I bring some to office for my colleagues. Colleagues in 20s commented that it is very nice buttery and vanilla fragrant. The melt-in-mouth texture is good! Colleagues in 30s and over commented that it is too plain and suggested me to mix with ground almond. 

Melt-in-mouth German Cookies

(adapted from Small Small Baker)

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter, room temperature 

40g sifted icing sugar 

125g potato starch

80g superfine flour/cake flour

1 tsp vanilla essence optional

Method

1. Cream the butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy.

2. Add in vanilla (if any).

3. Sift in potato starch and superfine flour. Mix well with spatula to form a soft dough. Note: my mixture appears too soft, sticky and wet to shape. I keep the dough to chill in the fridge for about 15 minutes. 

4. Roll the dough into small balls and arrange on lined baking pan and press lightly with a fork. Remember to dip the fork in the water after each press to prevent cookie dough from sticking to the fork. I didn't in the beginning and the cookie dough keep on sticking on the fork and it really frustrated me and I almost wanted to throw away all the dough! LOL. I keep the dough back to the fridge to chill while waiting the first batch to bake in the oven. You no need to do this if your oven able to bake all at one time (my oven is small). 

5. Bake in pre-heated oven at 170degree for 15mins, upper rack (need not bake till cookies turn brown). I baked at 160degree for 16-17 mins as my oven only has even number temperature. :p

Try bake this babe at your own and let me know your verdict! 

I am submitting this post to the Bake Along event hosted by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Joyce of Kitchen Flavours and Lena of Frozen Wings for the theme of: Chinese New Year Cookies. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

I love chocolate chip cookies that I keep looking for good chocolate chip cookies recipe. I shared in my blog before on the chocolate chip cookies recipe that I used to bake since last year. I received lots of compliments on that chocolate chip cookies from my colleagues and friends. :) However, I am still searching for nice chocolate chip cookies that resembles Famous Amos cookies. I'm happy that I found it, from Wendy. :)

I baked again in whole lots for my friends and colleagues as Christmas gift this year and all of them love it! They said it is really taste like Famous Amos cookies. Even my hubby loves to munch them one after one while watching TV (he is not chocolatey person). 

I am happy with this recipe and I am going to bake this again for CNY. 

Ingredients

(recipe adapted from WendyinKK)

250g unsalted butter, room temperature I used SCS unsalted butter

200g brown sugar

1tsp salt I replaced with sea salt

2tsp vanilla essence 

2 eggs

500g chocolate chips 

400g flour

2tsp baking powder

Method

1. Line baking tray with parchment paper and pre-heat the oven to 180C.

2. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

3. Add in eggs (one at a time), vanilla essence, salt and mix until well combined. This is wet mixture.

4. Sift in the flour and baking powder together. Gently fold in the chocolate chips. I used balloon whisk to mix them well. This is dry mixture.

5. Put the dry mixture into wet mixture and combined well using spatula.

6. Scoop 1tsp of cookie dough onto baking tray (line with parchment paper), leaving some space in between each cookie (they will spread!).

7. Bake at 180C for 15 mins.

8. Leave it cool completely before store them into airtight container. 

I am submitting this post to Bake Along event, Chinese New Year cookies again. :)

Almond Crisps Recipe

Hello all! I have been stopping to blog on my bento for quite some time. The reasons are because I only pack very simple snack bento for my little girl to daycare/nursery which I don't think the bento is worth to blog about. It is just very simple one. But I do take photos of the bentos I made occasionally. I update in my IG very timely usually. LOL. 

As Chinese New Year is around the corner, everyone is rushing to do spring cleaning and baking. For me, I have not started on spring cleaning yet, but I started baking. I started with almond crisps this year as I found this recipe for quite some time and I just can't wait to try! This almond crisps is a hit for my little girl and big man in the house! I uploaded my almond crisps photo to my fb wall and also baking group, and it was a hit among the baking mommies too. Many requested for the recipe, so I think it is better for me to quickly share the recipe here, so you guys manage to try this recipe for CNY bake. :)

Almond Crisps Recipe

(recipe adapted from food-4tots - you may check out this page for step-by-step photo tutorial)

Ingredients

2 large egg white, room temperature

50g plain flour (sifted twice) I used organic unbleached plain flour

60g castor sugar 

30g unsalted butter (melted)

100g almond flakes

Instructions

1. Line the baking tray with parchment paper.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 160 degree Celcius.

3. Whisk the egg white with hand whisk until you see white bubbles. Add in castor sugar and beat until the sugar dissolves.

4. Add in sifted flour and mix well until no traces of flour and lump-free.

5. Use spatula to fold in the almond flakes gently so not to break the almond flakes.

6. Stir in melted butter and mix well.

7. Spoon 1 teaspoon of mixture on the baking tray. Spread out the mixture using fork. Try to spread it very thinly and evenly (no overlapping of the flakes).

8. Bake at 160 degree Celcius for 13-15 minutes. 

9. Remove from the oven and leave it cool completely before store them into the air tight container. 

I am submitting this post to Bake Along event, Chinese New Year cookies for the first time! Please kindly click on the image below to check out more Chinese New Year cookies recipe. 

Animal Palz Mini Sandwich & Egg Press

Aiks. I have been lagging again. I have so much to share, yet so little time to blog. 

After long wait, here comes Animal Palz Mini Sandwich & Egg Press. One of the cutest and must have sandwich cutters for all bento mamas! 

This set of sandwich cutters are way more functional than you thought! It is capable to make cute sandwiches, be it sealed sandwiches or non-seal sandwiches, your call! Make cute hard boiled egg, cookies, vegetables and even acting as food cup! One of the bento mama even use this as rice mould! How creative! You can look at it here!

This was what I did with the cutters. 

It is a very simple fruit jam sandwich for my little girl. 

Lunch Punch Review & Giveaway

I have been wanting to do this giveaway last month, but I am just so busy that I have no time to write. Finally, the internet at my home is up! And I finally can blog. :)

The Lunch Punch team generously sent me a set of Sweet sandwich cutter and a set of Match & Munch cutter last August. I have Match & Munch set in my kitchen cabinet, so, I will be reviewing Sweet set in this post. The extra Match & Munch will be giveaway at the end of the post. 

Lunch Punch series have total of 5 different designs sandwich cutters, and each of them are really cool design. Sweet, sandwishes, vrrrm!, critter cutters and match & munch. The sweet set comes in so timely as I can use them to make cute sandwich for the kids in my daughter's school during her birthday celebration in school. 

Each set comes with 4 different cutters for you to play with. For this sweet set, they have cupcake cutter, birthday cake, gumball and ice cream.

I used this set to make 15 sets of bento for the kids in school. They are very easy to use and really saved my time in the morning. Imagine I need to prepare 15 set of sandwiches in the morning. 

The cutter is so easy-friendly to use, and the size of each cutter fits most of the bread perfectly. Fyi, I was using local brand Gardenia white loaf bread. Besides, it is dishwasher safe, BPA free, PVC free and lead free too! It is also made of FDA certified food-grade plastic and the packaging are 100% recyclable. How environmental friendly it is! Super like it! :)

This is how I make the cute sandwiches. Place your favourite shape cutter on top of a piece of bread and press on it to cut the bread. The bread may stick on the cutter. Turn to the back of the bread and use your finger and lightly press the bread onto the the cutter to get the imprint. Repeat this step for another piece of bread and now you have two cute shaped bread. Spread the fruit jam on your choice on a piece of bread. I used margarine and no sugar strawberry jam. 

Sorry that I did not have time to take step by step photo and the not so nice photos, as I was rushing to prepare all this before 930am. I need to send them to school before 10am. 

These were what I prepared for the kids in school. A simple bento which includes homemade chocolate muffin, homemade panda cookies and also a cute shape sandwiches. Besides, I also packed mini raisins and Appeton Vit-C pastilles for the kids to substitute the junk food. A sticker puzzle as a little gift to them as well. :) 

Now, it is time for giveaway. As said, I have extra set of Match & Munch to giveaway. 

To enter the giveaway, you are compulsory to complete the first 4 steps. Please do come back again daily to earn extra entry by share the giveaway in your facebook or instagram. Invalid entries will be disqualified. 

The giveaway is opens internationally and it closes on 15 October 2013.The winner will be picked randomlu using Rafflecopter widget and the winner will be announce on 16 October 2013. I will contact the winner through email and he/she has 48 hours to reply my email. Failing to do so, a new winner will be picked.  Please do check back this post for the winner after the giveaway closed. Good luck!

While if you are interested on where to get the lunch punch sets, Bento With Yenn carries them. =)

a Rafflecopter giveaway