Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies

Hello everybody~ Merry christmas! Here's another recipe made from tea! I love this recipe because I LOVE EARL GREY TEA. Okay, I think any food that has earl grey tea in it, I love it. That's it. When I came across this recipe online, I knew I had to bake it.



Recipe adapted from Lydia bakes
(Another reason that made me bake it is because of the gorgeous photos of it on Lydia's site. Hop over to see them!)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup Flour
1/3 cup Caster Sugar, plus more for dusting
1/2 tsp Vanilla Paste
1 tbsp Earl Grey Tea Leaves
1 tbsp Finely grated orange zest
150g Unsalted Butter, room temperature

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. Sift flour into a bowl and add sugar, vanilla paste, Earl Grey leaves and orange zest and mix in together.

3. Grate the butter into the flour mixture then mix with your hands until mixture resembles large crumbs.

4. Press the mixture together firmly on top of a sheet of baking paper on your bench or work surface.

5. Place another piece of baking paper on top and roll out mixture to about 1 cm thick. (I would suggest that you chill it for awhile so that it will be easier to cut when it is firm)

6. Cut into even sized pieces and carefully place on the baking tray.

7. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until slightly golden.



Once cookies are baked, remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle extra caster sugar on top.
Leave cookies to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before placing on a cooling rack to cool completely.

On Lydia's blog she drizzled the cookies with orange glaze, but in my case I omitted it because I do not want it to be too sweet. Perhaps next time I will try it out with the glaze. It makes the cookies look to enticing! :)

Before I even considered it into my CNY baking list, my mum already instructed me to bake these for Chinese New Year. Alright! Earl grey babies, we'll meet again soon! A month more to Chinese New Year!

Good luck in baking! :)

Matcha white chocolate chips cookies (version 2)

Hello people, here's the second recipe which I tried in my quest to search for the best matcha cookie. In my opinion, I prefer this version to version 1 (click here) because this has a stronger matcha taste. Anyway, both recipes make yummy cookies, it is really up to your own preference.

Recipe adapted from justonecookbook
(do visit justonecookbook for step-by-step pictures!)

Ingredients
240g all purpose flour
15g green tea powder (matcha)
150g unsalted butter, softened
130g powder sugar
Pinch of salt
2 large egg yolks
1/3 - 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Method
1. Sift the flour and the matcha powder.

2. Cream together the butter, sugar, and salt until soft and light.

3. Add the egg yolks and beat well.

4. Gradually add the flour/matcha powder mixture.

5. Fold in the white chocolate chips.

6. Shape the dough into 2 round logs and wrap them in plastic wrap. Place your wrapped log on a bed of rice to chill to remain its cylindrical shape. Chill in refrigerator for several hours or, better yet, overnight.

Preheat oven to 150C degrees. Remove the dough from plastic wrap and cut the cookie slices to 7mm (1/4 inch) thick. It might be hard to cut due to chocolate chips, so be gentle!

Bake for 20-22 minutes then cool on a rack.


I think this is one of the most photogenic cookies that I have ever baked. Brightly green in colour, surely make a good christmas cookie as well!

I love to stack them up as high as possible! It's so fun!

These cookies serve as great gifts as well! Pack them nicely in a box and they could be the best gift one ever receives this christmas. After all, nothing's better than a box of freshly baked cookies that are made with lots of love? I would definitely love to receive a box of these lovelies.

Not only christmas, I think these are great for chinese new year as well. Hence, I am thinking of baking these for CNY to treat my relatives. Hope they will love it as much as I did.

What about you?

Try it! Good luck! :)

Matcha white chocolate chip cookies (version 1)

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way~
HOHOHO, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hello everyone, I am definitely getting into the christmas mood nowadays. I really can't wait for christmas! Eager to meet all my friends, and have parties with gift exchanges!

For the festive season, I'm getting into the cookie baking frenzy! Nope, not baking the conventional christmas cut out cookies with icing decorations, but specials ones like matcha flavour. In case you do not know, matcha is japanese green tea. I love the fragrance of it. (yes, currently obsessed over matcha flavoured food as well :P) I experimented with 2 different recipes that gave me 2 completely different result. In the post I will be posting version 1, which is more like the normal kind of white chocolate chip cookie with subtle matcha flavour. Version 2 (click here)is more crunchy and has a more intense matcha flavour. I gave them to a few friends to taste, but the conclusion was both versions are nice! Depends on your own preference though.

Recipe adapted from hilarymakes.com
Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp matcha powder
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
6 oz good quality white chocolate chips

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, matcha powder, baking soda and salt

3. In another larger bowl, mix together the butter with both sugars, until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and eggs. Beat until well mixed.
Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined.

4. Fold in the white chocolate chunks.

5. Drop heaping tablespoons of the dough on a non-stick baking sheet, or a pan lined with parchment paper. Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the centre.

Makes 3 dozen


Pardon me for the lack of skills which resulted in the cookies turning out kind of ugly ): BUT, taste-wise it was really good, no joke! I stacked up my cookies into a pyramid and with my awesome photo editing skills I made a christmas tree out of it. HAHAHA. Looks decent right??

Try it yourself!

Good luck! :)

Best Pineapple Tarts

[UPDATED}


DA JIA HAO! (Hello everyone!) Chinese New Year is around the corner again~ Speaking about Chinese New Year, which part of it do you look forward to most? Is it buying new clothes, receiving red packets (definitely not giving out right?), gatherings with friends and relatives or... THE FOOD PART?? Personally, I definitely love buying new clothes for chinese new year as this is the only time that is justified for me to buy new clothes without getting nagged by parents for splurging money. However, I truly adore the food part as well! Whenever it comes to CNY there would be a table set up in my living room to store all the CNY goodies. Yes, that is the most sinful table ever. Filled with goodies like nuts, chocolates, bakgua and my absolute favourite... PINEAPPLE TARTS! I love pineapple tarts!!!!!! I love those with crust that melts in your mouth. That kind of feeling is truly bliss~

The are many types of pineapple tarts, but my favourite are those that pineapple filling are wrapped in the pastry. Pineapple tarts can be found easily in the supermarkets, bakeries and many other stores. However, I find many of them not up to my standard. Some are too sweet, some just lack the buttery taste and some simply awful. Hence, last year while I was free I went to research on pineapple tart recipes and lucky me found an awesome one. Baked according to the recipes and the outcome was a great success! :) Hence today I would like to share with all of you this wonderful recipe that gives you the best melt-in-your-mouth pineapple tarts. *thumbs up*


Recipe adopted from littleteochew

Ingredients:
400g plain flour
50g corn flour
1/4 (heaped) tsp salt
280g cold, unsalted butter
3 egg yolks, beaten
3 tsp cold/iced water
6 tsp icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp water (for glazing)

Instructions:
1. Sift flour, icing sugar and salt. Mix well to combine.

2. Using the tip of fork, rub butter into flour until it looks like fine bread crumbs If necessary, use fingertips to continue to rub lightly the bigger pieces into finer pieces.

3. Beat together egg yolks, cold water and vanilla extract. Add it int the butter flour mixture. Using fingertips, gently coax all the crumbs into one large dough ball. Do no knead. As long as all the crumbs come together, stop. Chill in the fridge for about 10 minutes, covered.
4. Use dough as desired. Glaze.
5. Bake at 160 deg cel for 20 minutes.


I'm sorry you might need to go somewhere else to look for the pineapple jam recipe if you are determined to make it yourself. I bought the ready made pineapple filling as I do not have the time nor courage to make my own. ): Would probably try doing that only when I am super free.

Trust my words, bake this recipe and make all your relatives and friends love you more (and probably get more angpows? :D)

Here are some photos of what I baked last year. Sorry my lousy old phone camera doesn't do any justice to the yumminess of the pineapple tarts.