Macadamia Nut White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Hello Nom-ember.

It's the time of the year again. Where the year end feasting begins. It's the month of birthdays. And soon, Christmas and New Year's Day will come chasing too.

Macadamia Nut White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Brown Butter Chocolate Chunks Cookies

I'm flying off to Aussie tonight for a (almost) two weeks vacation! Thus, I'll prob not be updating this space for some time. But in the meantime, I'll leave you with some crumbs cookies.

Everyone loves a good cookie. Especially a chocolate cookie. One that is made with browned butter, stuffed with tons of chopped dark chocolate, and topped with a sprinkle of fine sea salt. Right? Right. Don't mind me. That's just me answering my own question here.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chunks Cookies

Graham crackers

I've always wondered what are graham crackers. Some say that a good substitute for it is digestive biscuits, which we can get readily over here in Singapore. I've yet to see graham crackers in the grocery stores so I've always been curious to how it taste like.

I've bookmarked a few graham cracker recipes for ages now and decided to just try it out one weekend as I was craving for a non-chocolatey cookie. 

Graham crackers in the making...

Chocolate chunk cookies

Since I started baking, I buy lesser cookies since I like to bake them myself at home. Not to say I don't buy them at all, there's still stuff that I crave occasionally - think Oreos, Pepperidge Farm cookies, Lotus Caramelised Biscuit...

I'm constantly craving a good chocolate chip cookie. I recently tried a new brand of cookies - Fox's Chunkie Dark Chocolate Cookies and I really liked them. I slowly savoured the pack I had, and when I finished the last one, I knew I wanted to try my hand at making something similar at home instead of cheating and just grabbing another box of delicous-ness from the supermarket.

 Mise en place for chocolate chunk cookies

Ghiradelli's ultimate double chocolate cookies

This is the recipe I think I'll head to in future when I want a really really chocolate-y homemade cookie. No contest here. I first made it a couple of years back in my uni days and promptly forgot about them ever since.

Recently, Sis and I were at home, both craving for something chocolate-y.I flipped through my well-worn copy of sweet treats that I've baked throughout the years, my eyes settled on it straightaway. I remembered how chocolate-y these were. Perfect.

Ghiradelli's ultimate double chocolate cookies

Roasted brandied cherries chocolate ice cream

It's cherry season! At least it was until about a week ago.

 Cherry season

Osmanthas apricot crackies

Following the previous rose and cranberries crackies I made, I was also intrigued by the osmanthas crackies I saw alongside the rose ones. Osmanthas flowers? Should be a breeze to get in sunny Singapore. Or so I thought. It took me a while, but I did eventually managed to find them at Chinatown (and then ended up with a surplus as two other people in the household also bought them for me cos I mentioned that I was looking for 'em).

And so, I revisited the recipe to bake up some osmanthas crackies. As the rose one added dried cranberries, I thought that it would be lovely to add up some dried fruit in these osmanthas crackies too. I went ahead, using colours as a theme, and used dried apricots, as I thought they should complement the floral osmanthas notes. I followed the recipe, just replacing the same amount of dried roses to dried osmanthas and using only plain water (no essence cos I couldn't think of what other flavour would mesh well with osmanthas and apricot).

Osmanthas and apricot crackies

Berry ice cream and cinnamon walnut palmiers

I had leftover puff pastry in my freezer for god knows how long. And I don't think anyone in the family, aside from me is a huge fan of puff pastry.

I was going to use up the leftovers to make palmier cookies. The pretty ice cream sandwich cookies seen here made me want to make my own too. I had leftover cream from making the chocolate mango mousse cake, and Sis was leaving for her America trip, I wanted to finish the cream quickly to make an ice cream for her to try before she left. The cookies will be made only after she's gone, cos she's not a puff pastry lover anyway.

The below ice cream sandwiches? For me and me alone... 

 

Berry ice cream and cinnamon walnut palmiers

Short getaway

I can't wait! My first trip to Bintan ever! In less than twelve hours. Jumps around excitedly.

Milk + Cookie crumbs

Rose and cranberry cookies

Well, I'm still feeling a bit under the weather. I spent my whole Saturday doing some me stuff. I went shopping alone! It's been so long since I last did that. I was out hunting for a suit for work, but alas, I didn't find what I was looking for. Probably cos of the crowds in town, and my flu, I was a bit tired to really put more effort into my search.

Anyway, before the flu medication I took kicks in, I'm gonna share some crackies (cookies) pictures with you guys.

Rose and cranberry cookies

Cocoa nibs almond cookies

Ever since I started baking regularly, I'm always on the hunt for new and interesting ingredients. Before I started following food blogs online, I've never heard of so many stuff and I'm amazed by all the loot. Meyer lemons, rose water,Valrhona chocolate, pecans (yes, how can I not know what a nut is?), graham flour, oat flour, feuilletine, flax seed, cocoa nibs. The list is extensive and I'm always discovering something new in the food community out there.

I get those urges (you know, those that hit you straight "WHAM BAM" that you MUST lay your hands on XXX or else you'll be, I don't know, super sad or something. Haha.) constantly whenever I read about something interesting. It's good if I can find it in Singapore, I'll be like, HOHO! That is definitely going into my grocery bag! Just like how when I saw the bag of cocoa nibs, I felt like I was in heaven.

Cocoa nibs almond cookies

Old friends and some matcha sablés

Minhua, otherwise affectionately known as "Mua" and Tze Siew, otherwise termed "Siew" or "Siew Siew" have been friends with me for a very very long time. I can proudly say I've known Mua for 17 years, and Siew for 15 years, with us being the ripe ol' age of 23 this year. My my. That's a pretty amazing feat.

The last time Mua was back, it was during the summer hols, and in between her jetting off to other places for holidays, we did managed to catch up a coupla times for Korean food, ice-cream at Udders, and not forgetting a steamboat session during the CNY period at Siew's place.

It was our last meeting before she flew back to Canberra, and I wanted to make her something green tea-ish as she mentioned before that she liked matcha. But due to time constraint, I couldn't do anything nicer like a green tea cake, or green tea macarons. So I settled on a matcha recipe I saw previously on one of my favourite food blog, for matcha sablés.

Matcha powder; Matcha sablés

Paella, Alice in Wonderland and some date cookies

Caught Alice in Wonderland with Siew last night at Jurong Point. Before that, we met outside Bakerzin. AND. I saw that macarons were their monthly promotion. Needless to say. There is going to be a seperate post on those macarons I ended up buying... ;)

Jurong Point has undergone a huge transformation over the years, with the addition of the new area, and everytime I head there, there seem to be something new - be it the connecting bus interchange, or just new shops. They have several shops I like - such as Mitju and Bysi. What a pity it is located right at the very secluded corner of our tiny island. Tsk tsk.

We settled on Ambush, serving fast European styled dishes at affordable prices. The place was really cute, and I regretted not bringing my camera out for a few quick snaps. They had four different types of single-serve paella! Most places require at least two person minimum to share the Spanish dish, and thus, I've never actually tried the dish before. I didn't have to think long on what I was ordering. Siew ordered sausages, which came with rosti and saukeraut. The food was not bad, considering their prices. The Ambush paella I ordered came in a really cute dish, had sausages, prawns, mussels, shellfish, scallop and was topped with colourful diced peppers. It was really moist though, I wasn't sure how authentic paella should taste like cos Siew mentioned she had paella before and her previous impression was that it was dry. Who knows? I shall attempt to make paella one day. My sister had bought me saffron from her trip to Nepal last year and even though I was so excited, I have no idea what to do with those precious red threads. Haha.

Alice in Wonderland. Now. What should I say about it? We watched it in 3D (My first 3D movie!) and were given really old-fashioned looking red glasses. So cute. There wasn't much of 3D effects, and the movie itself didn't make much sense to me, probably cos I forgot the original story plot (it was way back when I was a kid when I read the book). The Alice isn't even pretty! Hmpf.

Anyways, date cookies! Dates are really sweet fruits, so when baking with them, the sugar proportions can be reduced as the fruit acts as a natural sweet enhancer. These taste similar to my normal chocolate chip cookies, just a tad healthier without the added sugars. I still have some dates leftover, I am hoarding them still to make sticky date puddings. Soon. I hope. (:

The sweet sweet date...

Dates, chocolate chips, oats; Cookies

Brown butter chocolate chip cookies

Nothing cheers me up like good old chocolate. In fact, chocolate is good for any occasion.

When I'm upset, my first thought - chocolate.
The week before my period, I crave - chocolate.
When I'm having period cramps, I reach for - chocolate.
When I'm happy, I feel like celebrating with - chocolate.
When I'm hungry, I desire - chocolate.
When I feel cranky, I buy - chocolate.
When I feel bored, I get inspired by - chocolate.
When in doubt, I choose - chocolate.

See? The list goes on. My love for chocolate shows for itself. I reckon if there's one thing in the world I can't live without, it's probably chocolate. How would I survive without knowing it? That's really too upsetting a thought. Let's not think about such depressing thoughts. Let's think about chocolate chip cookies.

This is yet again, another chocolate chip cookie recipe. Yet, one can never try too many recipes to find the perfect one. I can't say these are the best chocolate chip cookies I've made, but they're still pretty tasty nonethless. The brown butter brings out a lovely buttery taste. And with the addition of some coarse sea salt pressed into them when they are still soft from the oven, these cookies taste sweet and salty at the same time. Pretty addictive I must say.

Brown butter chocolate chip cookies

One Bite; Two bites; Three bites; Gone.

There's still an ongoing search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. In the meantime, I'll slowly bake my way through my long stash of chocolate chip cookies recipes I bookmarked. Plus other chocolate- related recipes. There can never be too much chocolate. ;)

Cookie monster

The first couple of weeks I started my internship, I made different cookies to bring to work to share and snack on. After that, I wisened up and left out baking cookies for fear of sitting all day and growing fat munching on cookies. snorts.

Anyway, I re-made these lime melts (previously lemon melts), but somehow they are starting to lose their appeal to me (probably cos of the layer of powdered sugar on the outside that made them all sugary sweet). They are still nice though. In small doses.

June baking Part 2

I had a short hiatus (say less than a week? snigger) from the last post of goodies before I baked again. This time round, in the final week before I flew off, I managed to squeeze in three more baked goods. Sticky date pudding. Lemon melt cookies. Apple tarts.


Sticky date pudding has a special place in my heart. Whenever I think of sticky date pudding, I think of Palais Renaissance's sticky date pudding. The one that the Sister and I are crazy about and would gladly fork each other to see who gets the last bite of the shared dessert. Though we havn't lunch there in ages, whenever we do, an order for sticky date pudding is always, and I mean always, placed.

It would be right to say that when I think of sticky date pudding, I think of my sister. Here's to a shared love for the dessert Sis!



I always wanted to attempt to make my own sticky date pudding from scratch. I recalled that someone had asked me whether I watched MasterChef Australia (the answer is no) and was really surprised (since I'm a foodie) and recommended me to watch it (I still did not haha!). The person, I forgot who, also mentioned about the sticky date pudding that the chefs made. Well, I googled MasterChef, and voilà, a recipe for it was available on the website! It was fate. I had to make it. The method looks easy, and it really is friggin' easy to make it.

It's the first time I bought fresh dates, and I must say, there are really interesting fruits. They are very very sticky, and has a pit in the middle. The smell of the cooked dates was quite dubious, but when I pulled the puddings from the oven, the smell that filled the house... I'm a happy girl with my puddings. And when I started making the butterscotch sauce... I was in heaven. (:

I had bought some Madagascar Vanilla Bean icecream (Coles Finest) to match with the dessert. The icecream was average, nothing spectacular, but combined with the sticky date puddings, it proved to be simply divine. Some things really mesh well together like butter on toast, coffee and chocolate and of course, sticky date pudding and vanilla icecream. One by itself is just not the same without the other.

As mentioned many times before, I love lemons. When I think of cookies, the image of double chocolate chip cookies zoom straight into my mind. Yet, I crave for alternate flavours other than the usual chocolate. I wanted something buttery, that melts in my mouth. Since I had forgotten to copy the Melting Moments recipe we use for CNY baking into my recipes notebook, I searched the web (seriously I salute the person who invented the Internet) for melt away cookies recipes. I found one that was delicious. Lemon melt cookies - The original recipe uses limes, but with an abundance of lemons at home, limes did not even cross my mind. I'll try using limes the next time round as I bet it will produce a great flavour.



I think I'll leave apple tarts for another post as I went a bit overboard snapping pictures for my babies (tarts). You'll know when you see the entry. ha!

Lost.

Oh my god. It's the end of April. In less than 2 months. I'm going to kiss QUT bye-bye. Graduation. I'm so not looking forward to it. I have so many choices I have no idea which to decide on. One thing I detest at this moment is anyone who ask the fatal question "So what are your plans after graduation?". The million dollar answer to the question is "I don't know, so stop asking me."

Pistachio paste is used for the pistachio buttercream.

Macarons from front to back - Coffee; Grapefruit; Pistachio.

Koko black chocolate is superb. I decided that since I like chocolates, and like muffins, I should just combine the two so I don't eat double the fats. snigger. Rough chunks of these in a muffin? Yummy.

Special two-in-one muffin. Nah. Actually it's leftover batter. (:

Fiona & Claudia's graduations + Ludwig's farewell. I baked green tea muffins and checkerboard cookies and dressed them up in the pretty packaging from where else but my fave store in Singapore...Daiso! (:

I tried my hand at baking other bread besides focaccia. Sweet buns dough, with various fillings.

I like the chocolate ones best. No surprise. ;)

Lemons lemons lemons. I love zesting the lemons and rubbing it in sugar. The smell oh the smell. I wish I could smell like lemon sugar. Someone should bottle the scent of lemon sugar seriously. (:

For Rick, Gerald & Esther's graduation, it's chocolate pie (tasted suspiciously brownie-like) and lemon almond oatmeal lace cookies.

Cravings for double dark chocolate cookies, so made some hugeass ones. A glass of cold milk with these is simply the best.