Lychee Almond Chiffon Cake

Lychee Almond Chiffon Cake... sounds like a weird combination??

Nah, they were delicious.

My girls were rather fussy in some ways and they do not usually like any "baked fruits" in their cake. More of the traditional and simple cakes. So very rarely that "baked fruits" cake would fancy them in anyway.

To my surprise, Nic tried this chiffon cake and she told me it was very delicious.

We all loved this Lychee Almond Chiffon Cake very much.
With its soft and fluffy texture, mmmm... yummy is the word...

Recipe as adapted from Kevin Chai

Ingredients:

Egg Yolk Batter

3 egg yolks

20g caster sugar

20ml cooking oil (i use canola oil)

50g canned lychee

(i use them as chopped lychee instead of blending them with the syrup to make a fine paste)

30ml lychee syrup

70g self-raising flour

30g ground almond

20g chopped almonds (omitted)

Egg White Batter

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tar tar

60g caster sugar

Method:

1. To make egg yolk batter, blend lychee with syrup until fine. Combine with egg yolks, sugar and oil in a mixing bowl. Fold in flour, ground almond and chopped almonds until a thick batter is formed.

2. Beat egg whites and cream of tar tar in another mixing bowl, until foamy. Gradually add in the sugar, beating at high speed until stiff peak form.

3. Gently fold egg white meringue into the egg yolk batter until well blended.

4. Pour batter into ungreased 7-inch(18-cm) tube pan. Bake in a preheated oven at 170C for about 30-40 mins or until cooked.

5. Remove from oven, invert cake onto the table until completely cooled.

Cutlery Cookies - The Fork & The Spoon Cookies

I was packing up the cupboard in my office and I found these cookie cutter. My colleague had visited China last year and she had bought this cutter for me as a souvenir. This is cute isn't it??? It came just nice for the new cookie that I had wanted to try out.

I realised that recently my girls had been pretty keen on the cookies that I had been trying out.. It had been quite a while since their last thrill on my baked cookies.. Probably this time round, all these new cookies attempts were very cute & interesting??? I would think so too.:-D

The girls were all very excited as these forks & spoons were very cute. And plus the fact that they can dip them into the chocolate sauce. Only one problem was that I couldn't find anything to let my cookies stand while waiting for the chocolate to set in... No choice, I tried using my cooling rack, with its little holes to hold them.

This cookie dough was much more easier to roll on as it did not have any egg contents. I had also cut down on the sugar level as I do not want the cookies to be too sweet.

After cutting out the shapes, I had used the letters to endorsed the girls' name on the cookies...

All of them can't wait to lay their little hands on the cookies and kept asking me if the cookies were ready..

Here's Mimi, she is one of the persistent one... as the elder sisters had to go to bed early for school tomorrow, Mimi had been hanging around the kitchen, waiting for the cookies to be ready..

These little cookies were all nicely packed up for school tomorrow.

While the 3 of them were enjoying the cookies in school, their classmates were also very envying them as the cookies had their names on it... A little time consuming to bake these cookies...but the thought of it, when the cookies were very popular with the girls and that they were gone the very next day, made all the effort worthwhile..:)

Recipe as adapted from 每天都是餅乾日 by 安星美 

Ingredients:

(yeilds about 20 pieces)

120g plain flour

30g almond powder

65g icing sugar (I used 50g)

pinch of salt

20g whipping cream (I used milk)

60g butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla essence

120g chocolate for dips

How to bake:

1. Add the butter, icing sugar & salt in a mixing bowl. Mix well.

2. Add in the milk until well corporated.  Add in the vanilla essence, stir well.

3. Add in the sieved flour and almond powder into the mixture, mix well until you get a dough.

4. Roll out the dough until 0.3cm thick and cut them using the cookie cutter.

5. Bake the cookies in a preheated oven of 170~175C for about 10 mins. Remove the cookies from the tray and let it cool on the rack.

6. Dip the cookies into the chocolate and let it set. Ready to be eaten & packed:)

HAVE FUN!!!

♡Raspberry Linzer Cookies♡

Linzer sablés (German: Linzer Augen, "Linzer eyes") are a cookie-sized version, made by cutting a circle of a similar dough, covering it with jam, placing a donut-like circle with a hole in the center piece of dough on top, and dusting with confectioner's sugar.

The Linzer is named after the city of Linz, Austria.

They are made of flour, unsalted butter, egg yolks, lemon zest, cinnamon and lemon juice, and ground nuts, usually hazelnuts, but even walnuts or almonds are used, covered with a filling of redcurrant jam or, alternatively, plum butter, thick raspberry, or apricot jam.

They are a holiday classic in the Austrian, Hungarian, Swiss, German, and Tirolean traditions, often eaten at Christmas. Linzer Torte is often made like small tarts or cookies in North American bakeries.

Source as adapted from Wikipedia

I was browsing one of my chinese baking book I bought recently. So these pretty Linzer Cookies caught my attention... As the dough had to be refrigerated for about 30 minutes, I had asked my maid to help me make the dough and refrigerate it, so that when I get back home from work, I will be able to work on the dough immediately.

Though the dough was refrigerated for about 40 minutes, it was still very soft and unmangeable to cut the shapes out. So after making these cookies, I googled around for other recipes and some of them were eggless and they had refrigerated the dough for at least 1~2 hours. I will probably attempt to bake these cookies again without the egg as my hubby & maid told me that these cookies were great with the jam.. As for the girls, they liked the plain versions plus the little cut-out heart shaped cookies...

These cookies just reminded me of the almond cookies that I had made. Having the similar ingredients, the taste was almost the exact as well. A very smooth and soft texture you will get with these cookies.

Coated the top with icing sugar and spreading the jam on the other.

And the final outcome of these Linzer Cookies were successful, though I had made quite a mess in the kitchen yesterday night :-p

Recipe as adapted from 每天都是餅乾日 by 安星美 

Ingredients:

(yeilds about 20 pieces)

110g plain flour

50g almond power

70g icing sugar (I used 50g)

1g salt

1/2 egg

70g unsalted butter

3g vanilla essence

How to bake:

1. Put in the sieved flour, almond powder, icing sugar and sugar in a mixer bowl & mix well.

2. Add in the softened butter and beat till well corporated.

3. Add in the egg & vanilla essence. Beat well until you get a dough.

4. Place the dough into a ziplock bag and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

5. Roll out the dough till about 0.3cm thick. Cut the dough with your desired shapes.

6. Bake in a preheated oven of 175~180C for about 8~10 minutes.

7. Dust the top cookie with icing sugar and spread the jam on the bottom cookie. Sandwiched them together to get your yummy Linzer Cookies...:)

(do bear with me as I had translated them from Chinese to English :-p)

Almond Financiers-Would you like them as well?

A financier is a small French cake, often mistaken for a pastry. 

The financier is light and moist, similar to sponge cake, and usually contains almond flour, crushed or ground almonds, or almond flavoring. 

The distinctive feature of the recipe is beurre noisette (brown butter).Other ingredients include egg whites, flour, and powdered sugar. 

Financiers are baked in shaped molds, usually small rectangular loaves similar in size to petits fours.

The name financier is said to derive from the traditional rectangular mold, which resembles a bar of gold. Another theory says that the cake became popular in the financial district of Paris surrounding the Paris stock exchange.

Financier pans are traditionally rectangular, but other shapes are not uncommon.
As adapted from Wikipedia

Recipe as adapted from OKASHI by Keiko Ishida

Ingredients:

(yields about 16 cakes, or depending on the cake moulds used)

 50g Pastry flour/Top flour

5g corn flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

130g egg whites

(about 2~3 eggs depending on egg sizes)

130g sugar (i use 100g)

50g ground almonds

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

a pinch of salt

130g unsalted butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 220C. Lightly grease 16 small cake moulds, each about 5.5 x 7.5 cm, with a little softened butter and place them on a baking tray. Sift flour, corn flour and baking powder together twice.

2. Place egg whites into a clean bowl and beat lightly. Add sugar and mix well, followed by ground almonds, vanilla extract, flour mixture and salt, mixing well after each addition. Be careful not to overmix. Set aside.

3. Brown butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, whisking frequently until fragrant and golden brown in color. Pour into a mixing bowl and place into a larger bowl half-filled with iced water to stop the butter from cooking further and burning.

4. Add the browned butter to the egg mixture and mix well. Transfer the batter into a piping bag fitted with 1-cm palin piping tip. Pipe batter into the prepared cake moulds.

5. Bake financiers for 10-15 mins until they are light golden in color. Remove the cakes from the moulds and cool on a wire rack before serving.

Financiers will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, or for up to 1 month in the freezer.

Melting Almond Cookies - All ready for CNY perhaps??? (Revisited)

Melting Almond Cookies.. ...

These are what we wanted isn't it...???

I had made these cookies last Chinese New Year, and now another year had gone, and it's a brand new Chinese New Year...

These Almond Cookies are not one to be missed... I loved them very much as they are very easy to make, and best part is, it is soft and it melts in your mouth... Everyone had praises for these cookies. Even my helper told me to keep some for her...

Unlike the usual almond cookies that are coated with egg coatings on the top, these almond cookies are the original as they are. Try reducing the sugar as I find them abit sweet for me:)

Otherwise, enjoy baking these cookies...:-D

BUT BEWARE....
These cookies are dangerous... You can't stop eating them. You just want to pop more one after another...
hehehehe...

Recipe as adapted from Nonya Recipe Book

Ingredients:

100g icing sugar (75g)

150g plain flour

( I used self-raising & omitted baking powder & baking soda)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

50g almond powder

150ml canola oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Mix all dry ingredients into a big mixing bowl, combine well.

Add the vanilla essence and oil, and knead into a dough.

Roll it out and cut into desired cookie moulds.

Bake in a preheated oven of 180C for about 15-20 mins.

Allow to cool and store in an air-tight container.