Melt 'n' Mix Custard Shortbread

I usually shy away from recipes calling for a lot of butter, but then it is the season for sharing and gifting so why not! These shortbread cookies are an indulgence...soft, buttery, melt-in-your mouth and just lightly sweetened. I also love the flavor of custard powder and the light yellow color it adds to the cookies.

Recipe from here, adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly.

Custard Shortbread

Ingredients:

250gms unsalted butter

35gms icing/ confectioners' sugar

55gms castor sugar

40gms custard powder

360gms all purpose flour

pinch of salt

sugar for sprinkling

Method:

Line and grease a 7"x11" pan. Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F.

Melt the butter over low heat and keep aside to cool slightly.Sift the icing sugar and custard powder into a bowl and mix in the sugar.Add the melted butter and beat mixture until thick and creamy. Add sifted flour and salt and mix gently until combined.

Press the mixture into the prepared pan evenly and level the surface. Mark the dough into fingers and prick each finger decoratively with a fork and sprinkle some sugar on top if desired.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until lightly golden. Cut into fingers while still warm and cool in the pan.

If you like your cookies to be crispier, just bake for another 15 minutes or so.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies...Holiday Baking

Anushka started school last week and that leaves me with a couple of hours each day to do all those things that are otherwise impossible with an hyperactive kid at home. My to-do list just keeps getting longer and now maybe I could catch up with some of them.

I am also looking forward to bake some more. Now that Christmas is just around the corner, I have the perfect excuse to try some cookie recipes that I've had bookmarked forever. Moreover Anushka is turning out be quite the cookie lover and that's gotten me really excited.

I have made these cookies before and they are an absolute treat. Not only are they pretty to look at, they taste heavenly too. Bake them right and they are amazingly fudgy and chocolaty, like the perfect brownie. What I love about this recipe is that there is no butter involved and the ingredients have to be just mixed quickly in one bowl and the dough tastes amazing too.

The one change I made was to use substitute some of the bittersweet chocolate with unsweetened chocolate as I remember finding them a little too sweet for my tastes. With this change though they were just right. Recipe from here.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 1/3 cup unsweetened chocolate)

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional, but highly recommended

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Method:

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. 

Add the sugar and oil and mix well.

Make sure that the mixture is almost at room temperature and add the eggs one at a time, whisking well after after each addition.

Add the vanilla.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the chocolate mixture. Stir in nuts.

Cover and chill the dough for two hours or until firm enough to roll.Preheat the oven to 175C /350F.

Form into 1" balls and roll in the powdered sugar until completely coated. 

Place in a parchment covered cookie sheet about an inch apart and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Cool on wire racks. 

I baked my cookies for 8 minutes, they will be soft when you get them out of the oven, but wait for  a few seconds and they will be firm enough to transfer them to the rack and will get firmer when completely cool.

Please, do not overbake the cookies. They look the best on the day they are baked, but they taste just as great for a couple of days more.

Chocolate and Vanilla Melting Moments with Chocolate Truffle

Anushka's school closed for holidays last week and as always we had potlucks on the last days of school.  I made these cookies for one of them. They were so buttery and delicious and they literally melt in your mouth.

These snowy pillowy cookies are so apt for this season too.I can't believe that another year is coming to an end so soon, but I do love this time of the year. Love the reds and greens everywhere and the brightly lit trees. Carols playing everywhere and all the yummy treats!

I sandwiched the cookies with some chocolate truffle, but that is just optional. Adding the truffle makes them more of a dessert cookie but I loved them plain too. Recipe is adapted from the Australian Women's Weekly.

Melting Moments

Ingredients:
Vanilla Cookies:
125g  butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup icing sugar
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup vanilla custard powder or cornflour
icing sugar for sprinkling on the cookies

Chocolate Cookies:
125g butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup scant icing sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup cornflour
icing sugar for sprinkling on the cookies

Method:

Sift the flours together and the cocoa for the chocolate cookies.

Cream the butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract until light and fluffy.

Stir in the sifted flour/ flour cocoa mixture in two batches.

Take small portions of dough (I measured 10g of dough for each cookie) and roll into balls using slightly floured hands. Place about 2 inches aparton a cookies sheet lined with parchment paper.

Flatten slightly with a floured fork. Bake at 350F for about 15 mins. Let stand for 5 minutes and then lift onto wire racks to cool completely.

Sandwich the cookies with chocolate truffle, preserves or buttercream.

Makes about 25 sandwich cookies.

Chocolate Truffle

Ingredients:

100g semi-sweet chocolate

75ml heavy cream

1 tbs butter, softened

Method:

Take the chocolate into a bowl. Heat the cream until you see bubbles at the edges of the pan. Pour the cream on the chocolate and add the butter. Let stand for a couple of minutes, then mix and stir well until the mixture is smooth and well combined.

Sending this to Christmas Food Fair

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

Like I said in my last post, I had been on a long vacation to India, for three months. Had an awesome time. Nothing better than having your family close, one of the things I miss like crazy. Except for my parents, everyone was meeting me after about three years, a long time and obviously I've changed. "So you're a mom now, can't believe it", was a remark I heard very often. The same kids who called me ' Didi', now call me 'Aunty'...sigh!!...Another kid who remembered me runs up to me, "Hi Aunty, how are you? You are fatter now!!", and scurries off to play!! You can imagine my reaction.

We had a lot of get togethers with family and friends and so lot of opportunities to bake. I had these cookies bookmarked for a while from Martha Stewart and Patricia. They look too cute to eat, don't they? They were delicious, even without the chocolate and I actually left some plain without the filling. I used the back of a round measuring spoon to make the impressions and not my thumb (the cookies were really hot!!).

Shortbread Cookies

It's getting cooler by the day, the late sunrise and early sunset are just making me so lazy. Most of my days are spent curled with a book and I get up only when I have to. That's the only excuse for my long absences from blogging, plain laziness. Though I love winters, being from Mumbai since I'm not used to very cold weather and it sometimes gets a little unbearable. I'm so grateful for being in California where the weather is not so extreme and I thank God everyday, just thinking of a white winter gives me the creeps:).

I'm not cooking anything special nowadays, but I do miss baking a lot. Last week it was one of my friend's daughter's first birthday and I made these shortbread cookies by Ina Garten, that I had seen in Food Network a while back. The recipe is here.

Just cut them into different shapes...

Fresh out of the oven and of course I've already had a bite...

The cookies were incredibly buttery and delicious, just as she promised. Will surely be making this often.

Chocolate Butter Cookies and Eggless Cumin Cookies

I made these cookies for one of my friends daughters birthday. As their name suggests these have lots of butter and just melt in your mouth. The cinnamon, nuts and chocolate give these a wonderful flavor and texture.

The recipe is from the book, Chocolate by Williams-Sonoma. It yields about 4 dozen cookies, perfect for parties.

Chocolate Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

1 tbs cocoa powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 1/2 cups/ 180 gms plain flour

1 cup/ 250 gms unsalted butter, at room temperature

5 tbs/ 90 gms granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract

3/4 cup/ 90 gms chopped nuts

2/3 cup/ 100 gms semi-sweet or bitter-sweet chocolate chips

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F/180C. Line ungreased cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Sieve together the cocoa, cinnamon and flour. Set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

Stir in the vanilla, nuts and chocolate chips. Gradually stir in the flour mixture, combining thoroughly.

Drop rounded teaspoons of the dough in the shape of large marbles about 1 1/2 inches apart on the cookie sheet.

Bake for about 12 mins till done. Let cool in the pan for 2 mins. Dust with some confectioners sugar and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Eggless Cumin Cookies for Tried and Tasted

I made these cumin cookies from Madhurams blog, Eggless Cooking. They were ready so quick and took no effort at all. They were crisp, had a wonderful savory taste from the cumin and is a perfect tea-time snack. I'm going to be making this so often. Check out the recipe here.

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The chocolate cookies are going to 'CFK : Chocolate', hosted by Hema of Salt to Taste, event bySharmi of Neivedyam.

Cumin cookies are my entry to 'T and T : Madhurams Eggless Cooking' hosted right here by me.

Nankhatai

I have been pestering Manoj since a couple of months now to help me change my blog template. He finally found some time this weekend (hope you noticed the change?). In exchange he asked me to bake Nankhatai, his favourite cookies. I was more than happy, not only would my blog be ready but I now had an excuse to bake, yet again.

Ingredients:

80gms fine sugar

150gms all-purpose flour

120gms butter

50gms semolina

1/4tsp cardamom powder

1/4tsp nutmeg powder

cashew nuts, split in the middle

Method:

Cream butter. Add sugar gradually and beat till light and fluffy.

Add spices and beat. Add semolina and beat well.

Add the flour and mix gently to make a soft but firm dough.

Make small balls (this makes about 18), and place on an ungreased baking tray one inch apart.

Make a cross pattern on each with a knife and place a split cashew in the center.Press lightly but do not flatten the dough.

Bake at 350˚F/ 180˚C for about 12-15mins and then at 300˚F/150˚C for 10mins till done (the cookies may not be very firm but will turn crisp as they cool).

Nutty Meringue Kisses

I have had this recipe for a very long time (definitely from some book I found in the library) and I can't imagine why I waited so long to try it. This is the first time I made something with meringue and I'm so glad I did.

These cookies are super light and just melt in the mouth. The nuts add good flavour and texture.

The best part is that it involves no effort at all.

Ingredients:

2 extra large egg-whites at room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1/2tsp vanilla essence

1/2cup mixed nuts, finely chopped ( I used pistachios, pecans and hazelnuts )

1/8tsp salt

Method:

Preheat the oven to 275˚F.

Take the egg whites in a clean grease-free bowl. Beat the egg whites till stiff peaks form. 

Beat in the sugar a little at a time until all is used.

Gently fold in the vanilla, nuts and salt.

Drop small spoonfuls on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 50-60 mins, or until the cookies feel dry.

The cookies may not feel firm when you take them out of the oven but will harden and become crisp as they cool.

Store in an airtight container.