Crispy Almond Butter Cookies

 

This is another cookies I was wanted to bake last year and did not manage to do so . When I fail badly making the open face Pineapple Tarts last year , I decided that is the end of my CNY cookies for the year. Is too hot , is too tire and after all I am still learning to take care of a newborn . Breastfeeding take up a lot of my time and I need to take good care of myself so my milk supply is sufficient.

This year I will not let this slip. Told you I have a plan !! When my baking mode is on , I just wanted to bake myself to the max !! Interesting enough is staying in Australia we do not do the usual thing as visiting other people house during the period. So I wonder who will help me finished all my cookies. I bet you the most happy person at this point is my husband. He told me he is happy to sacrifice and assist in any eating that is required. Well , I suppose is still a good gesture to give out what we bake to others. So there will be some home bake cookies for my friends then to let one sacrifice himself too much .

For the recipe I follow ->NasiLemakLover

Ingredients :

190g Butter ( at room temperature)
100g Icing Sugar
50g Egg White
220g Cake Flour
2Tsp Custard Powder ( I omitted this )
50g Almond Meal ( to have it more almondy I will increase the ground almond more next round)

Almond Flakes
3 Egg Yolks + 1 Tbsp of Milk as egg wash

Method :

1.Cream butter and icing sugar with hand held electric mixer till light and fluffy. It take about 3-4min.
2.Add in the egg whites and mix on medium speed for 1 min.
3.Add in the almond meal mix well with the spatula. Sifted in the cake flour and mix well till soft dough in form .
4.Spread the dough onto the tray ( 14"x14") . I used the flat scrapper to spread it evenly on the tray .
5.Preheat oven till 165C ( lower rack fan forced). Bake the cookies for 4mins until half cooked.
6.Take the tray out from the oven let it cool down for 1min. Use a pizza cutter to slice into rectangles.
7. Brush with egg yolks and place 2 pieces of almond flake .Do not brush the whole tray with egg yolk at one time , as it will dry up quickly and the almond flake will not stick on it.
8.After done putting almond flake on the cookies, return tray to oven at 165C and continue to bake for 12min until golden brown. I rotate the tray few times to have the cookies bake evenly.
9.When the baking is done, remove tray from the oven and cool on the rack. When the cookies is cool , store in air tight container.

Spreading the dough on the tray is a bit of struggle as the dough is soft and I want to make sure is evenly spread and the cookies is not too thin or too thick.

The fragrance of the cookies is more like buttery. The almond taste is mild. I love the crispiness of the cookies and I thought it can be very addictive and be consume fast , as the cookies are quite thin.

I hope you will try this out if I have time I might bake another tray of this.

I have linking this post to

This post is linked at Cook and Celebrate: Chinese New Year 2016

hosted by Yen from GoodyFoodies, Diana from The Domestic Goddess Wannabe

 and Zoe from Bakeforhappykids

Pineapple Tarts - (Open Face version)

Is the month where Chinese family is busy busy with preparing the Lunar New Year that fall on next month ( Feb ) . I have so many plan in my heads for this year , as my girl grow older , I wanted to introduce to her ALL Chinese Festival . However , days and weeks seem flying faster than it used to be for me nowadays. Before I knew it , I only left 2 weekends to prepare and one weekend was down as I need to visit the folks in Sunshine Coast. My panic mode seem to switch on and the result of this , will be either no baking at all or bake in full force.


To collect myself and get it started , I need to be more efficient and plan out well . ( Ya talking about planning again !!! )  My beloved told me to be easy , he always support what I want to do but to do it out of stress or enjoyment is a thin line. After hearing his advise, yup I should back to where I am , bake with happy spirit and not stress. After all , I do not have a whole village to give or feed. So just relax and enjoy .


To start of my baking , always do something that will motivate me - Pineapple Tarts. It just seem missing if we do not have Pineapple Tart during CNY. I have done the close version before ->pineapple-tarts 2014. I did an open version last year but it was fail . I did in a rush and my baby was not corporative then . The dough stick in the mould and having  a crying baby. I gave up !!

So here I am to make it success this year :)


The recipe I follow ->Table for 2 or more 


Ingredients :


200g Salted Butter ( Soften)
125g Icing Sugar ( I used Caster Sugar - my pineapple jam is not so sweet so I guess is ok )
2 Egg Yolks
2 Tbsp Milk
400g Plain Flour


Pineapple Jam ( using my old recipe . I find that is the best pineapple jam recipe ever. No hard work in stirring and the result is always satisfied !)



Method :


1. Mixed butter and sugar with hand held electric mixer till combine and creamy. Add in egg yolks mix well and add in 2 Tbsp milk incorporate well into the mixture.
2. Pour in the flour and mix with spatula and do not knead. The texture of the dough is soft but is not hard to combine the flour well into the butter.
3. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and chill in the fridge at least 30min.
4. Roll out the dough to 5mm thick. Press with prefer mould cookie cutter and arrange the cookies on the baking tray line with baking sheet.
5. The cookies will not spread so is ok to place it next to one another.
6. Brush with egg wash and place the round pineapple jam in the middle of the tarts.
7. Preheat Oven to 165C ( this is for my oven. So do adjust according to your oven standard) . Bake for 15min.


This time was a success for me. I reckon chilling the dough in the fridge help to get the tarts out from the mould easily . I have to on the air conditioner while cutting the dough. Australia summer is no joke and can be more heat up compare to Malaysia. What an expensive cost to bake this tarts.

The Tarts come out well from the mould and brushing some egg wash make the tarts has some color and I think it help the jam sit well on the tarts.


Am happy with the result and this is faster compare to the close version. Would prefer to make the closed version but time is really something a new mom does not quite have.


Happy baking and I am submitting this post to


This post is linked at Cook and Celebrate: Chinese New Year 2016 hosted by Yen from GoodyFoodies, Diana from The Domestic Goddess Wannabe and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids at Here.

Happy Monkey Year :)