auntidasthots: Hidup mesti baking

Sejak beberapa Ramadhan yang lepas, minggu seperti ini ialah minggu Auntie akan mula menggatal nak baking pelbagai jenis cookies. Semua cookies yg Auntie bake mempunyai rupa yg tak semenggah. Mesti senget-benget dan herot-petot. Walau bagaimanapun, ada beberapa cookies yg diakui oleh adik beradik Auntie (kecuali jika mereka berselindung di sebalik pujian) sebagai mempunyai rasa yg sedap. Kalau Auntie pergi rumah Qin, Qin sure akan sibuk ajak Auntie bake cookies or cupcakes. This year, Mommy pun has started baking projects with Qin coz Mommy tak larat nak dengar Qin punya pertanyaan bila Auntie nak pi KL lagi to start baking.

Auntie's favorite cookies are chocolate chips' cookies and cookies with nuts or grains. Choc chips are constant baking projects but nutty cookies may come in many, many forms, which Auntie would experiment. Last year Auntie baked almond cookies. Sedap tapi, as usual, nothing to look at. This year Auntie discovered the Anzac cookies while attending conferences in Melbourne (will do an entry on this soon, hopefully). Tried to bake them and was successful, so for sure this will be a constant in the near future. Auntie brought back some macadamia and pecan nuts from Tasmania (while on the trip to Melbourne), so Auntie's been trying a recipes to use them. This morning Auntie tried once recipe but the taste didn't turn out to be that great. Just so, so. Then this evening tried another recipe with walnuts. Can be improved. The problem is with recipes (in Malaysia, usually) that used ingredients with a view to making the cookies last for keeping, thus, the results are usually crispy and dry cookies. The recipes would normally call for icing sugar, milk powder and corn flour. In Auntie's opinion, cookies are best when they are made with just (real) butter, plain flour, castor sugar (white or brown) and eggs. And vanilla essence (or real vanilla pods, if you have the luxury). Variations should only be in the form of taste-themes eg add almond essence for almond cookies, nuts for nutty cookies, or add oatmeal or dessicated coconut for grainy taste. With these basic ingredients and with the Malaysian heat, cookie doughs don't normally turn out to be too great as per envisioned by the recipes (esp if recipes are taken from international websites), so we have to improvise somehow. In Auntie's experience, it is always best to refrigerate cookie dough after making them and before forming them into cookie shapes/ baking, for at least 20 minutes. Take a little out to form the cookies and to bake them. While they are baking, keep them remaining dough back into the fridge until needed to be used.

Auntie will also bake some cakes, hopefully by using the vanilla pod that Auntie bought in Tassie (if they are still usable).

Here are some pics of bakings that Auntie had not yet blogged about:

Nutty cookies: walnuts, pecans and macademias. But adding the chocolate was not the best choice. Would have been better if plain butter with nuts.

From oven

Cooling. Auntie baked this after sahur so didn't get to taste them until after berbuka. So-so.

Another 'nutty' attempt: Walnut tart. Pastry a bit bland and sweet (follow recipe, which uses icing sugar. Should have used a cheese pastry recipe. Would have been much more sedap)