CNY Puppy Cookies

This year is a Dog year in the Chinese zodiac. Everyone was posting their home baked CNY goodies on social media. The hot favourite was this koko krunch puppy cookies. Since it's still the Chinese New Year and we have some family bonding time, it was our turn to try it out. These cookies are pretty simple to make.

Presenting one by me, one by hubby, and one by Josie. Latte wants to join in too.

Recipe from: http://www.submerryn.com/2012/08/cute-doggies-koko-krunch-cookies-recipe.html

Ingredients:

• 200g plain flour
• 45g icing sugar 
• 125g butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tablespoon cold water
• Chocolate chips, chocolate rice, Koko Krunch

Method:

1. Sift flour and sugar. 
2. Add chopped soft butter.
3. Rub with fingers.
4. Once the dough turns into ‘breadcrumbs’ add in cold water and vanilla essence. 
5. Knead lightly.
6. Rest dough for 10 minutes.
7. Measure about 10g of dough and put 2-3 chocolate chips into it.
8. Decorate the dog. Chocolate chip as the nose, chocolate rice as the eyes and Koko Krunch as the ears.
9. Preheat oven to 160 degrees. 
10. Bake for 20 minutes.

The ingredients

My little helper

Baking in progress

Little model

Pineapple tarts

We spent our Sunday making pineapple tarts. Since we do not have the traditional pineapple tart shape mould, we just used the Pooh and Tigger cookie cutter. 

Cute huh. But the shape is alittle difficult to handle with the dough. Alittle ugly, but still cute and tasty. 

And since the first batch was such a success and we had so much pineapple paste left, we made batch 2, but in the pillow form. They taste just as nice. 

Gosh. Pineapple tarts overdose now. Lol. We made about 95 tarts in total. Woah.

Recipe from http://www.noobcook.com/pineapple-tarts/

Prep time 60 mins

Cook time 15 mins

Total time 75 mins

Serves ~45 tarts

Ingredients

1. 125 g butter
2. 420 g pineapple tart jam
3. 200 g plain or all-purpose flour
4. 20 g corn flour
5. 1/4 tsp fine salt
6. 1 large egg yolk
7. 1/2 to 1 tbsp cold water
8. 40 g icing sugar
9. Egg wash (1 egg yolk and 1 tbsp water)

Method

1. Sift and mix flour, corn flour and salt to a large mixing bowl. 
2. Rub cold butter into the flour with fingertips.
3. Add egg yolk, cold water and sugar. Gently knead to a soft dough (do not over knead).
4. Divide dough to 4 small portions. Wrap each portion in cling film, and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm it up.
5. Meanwhile, weigh and shape the pineapple jam to 6 gram balls.
6. After 30 minutes of chilling, take out one portion of dough, at a time, from the fridge.
7. Dust work surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll the dough to 7 mm thickness.
8. Dust the mould with flour before cutting out the tart shells. Brush tart shells with egg wash.
9. Space tart shell 1 cm apart on baking tray lined with parchment paper.
10. Bake the tart shells at 180°C (356°F) middle rack for 10 minutes.
11. After baking, place a ball of pineapple jam on the cavity of each tart shell.
12. Return tart shells back to oven to continue baking for 5 minutes until golden.
13. When the pineapple tarts are cooled, store them in an air-tight container.

Nutella Brownies

Inspired by a GF who made Nutella muffins with a simple recipe, I went online and found this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Nutella-Brownies-Three-Ingredients/

Here's my end results. Not very nice looking. It needs more tweaking in timing.

Since it is my first attempt, I decided to cut the ingredients by half to try out.

Serves: 5

Ingredients:

• 140g Nutella
• 1 egg
• 31g flour

Directions:

• Put it in a bowl. Mash it up. 
• Pour into muffin cups.  
• Bake at 180°C for around 15 minutes 

At 15 minutes, my Nutella brownies look... overbaked. Haha..

After trying, it taste quite nice. It is soft on the inside, and a little crispy on the outside. Hubby also thinks that it taste nice.

I would have to lower the temperature and increase the timing the next time I attempt this.