Rose Butter Cookies

Haven't posted for a really long time! Hopefully this will start me up again~

While researching on a recipe for tea flavoured cookies, I came upon this recipe that replaces egg with milk and ground tea leaves. Its so clever! I went to my cupboard searching for suitable tea and found the pack of dried rose buds my mom got me from Hong Kong staring at me. So rose flavour it is!

These cookies are gorgeous and even my husband who doesnt like to see pieces of tea leaves or flowers in his food loved it. My 2 years old daughter helped me cut the cookies out and she loved them so much she woke up this morning (made them yesterday) shouting: Abby loves cookies!!!

Reference - Nigella Lawson's Butter Cut-Out Cookies and Vanlily's Earl Grey Tea Cookies

Ingredients (Make approx. 20-25)

87.5g Unsalted Butter, softened under room temperature
100g Icing Sugar
35g Milk
1/2 tbsp Ground Rose Buds (stalks removed and grind the buds into powder)
200g Plain Flour (I use weak flour)
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt

1) Soak the ground rose buds in the milk (no need to boil) for approx 20 mins
2) Cream butter and icing sugar until pale and fluffy
3) Bit by bit add the milk mixture into the butter, making sure its mixed well each time you add the milk.
4) Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into the mixture and fold until its just combined.
5) Form a dough and then flatten to a disc. Wrap with clingfilm and rest in the fridge for ~30 mins.

Preheat oven to 180C

6) Roll the dough on a very lightly floured worktop and use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Place them on a lined baking sheet and bake for approx. 12 mins until golden brown.
7) Remove from oven, rest for a couple of mins then remove the cookies and cool them completely on a cooling rack.

Note:
- Store them in an airtight container once its completely cooled to retain its crispness.
- Amount of rose bud powder is adjustable according to preference
- Amount of milk is adjustable as well, think of '1 large egg' amount of liquid being replaced by milk.
- Original recipe called for 100g caster sugar, I replaced it with icing sugar, you can adjust the amount as well if you think it could be too sweet.

Assorted Macarons

~ Summer 2009 ~


Rose Buttercream Macarons

First ever try, according to all the comments (on other blogs) on how hard they are to make, this isn't a bad attempt at all hehe!



Purple - Lavender Buttercream, Green - Pandan Buttercream, Pink - Rose Buttercream

Second batch, couldn't be bothered with sieving the ground almond, and the result for being lazy? Macarons with bad skin condition! Lesson learnt! At least this time I got a better timing so the colour remains vibrant hehe.



Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache Macarons

These are fantastic! Macarons tend to be way too sweet to eat without a nice cup of coffee or tea. But these, made with 100% pure cocoa powder, are just right.



Lemon & White Chocolate Ganache Macarons

Tried to be a bit creative with the deco for these mini Macarons and dusted them with edible gold powder.


Although too sweet, they are still nice to make and a great way to use up left over egg whites! (And quicker to make than Meringues ;) )

Stained Glass Cookies

~ Summer 2009 ~

These cookies look great and are fun to eat! (Interesting enough, its the adults who love them more than the kids!)


Method

Any cut-out cookie dough recipe
(I use the one from Nigela Lawson)
1 big and 1 small Cookie cutters
Hard boiled sweets
Lined baking sheet

1. Preheat oven to the adviced temperature from your cut-out cookie recipe.

2. After chilling and rolling out the cookie dough, use the large cookie cutter to cut out the shape, and lay it on a lined baking sheet. Then use the small cookie cutter to cut out a hole from them.

3. Bake the hollow cookies for approx. 5 mins till half cooked, then put a piece of hard boiled sweet in the middle of each cookie.

The longer the sweets are in the oven, the more bubbles there is which will create an uneven surface. Hence only add the sweets after they are half cooked.

If the sweets are too big, you can crush them with a nut cracker.

4. Turn the oven to 160C and bake for the rest of the amount of time stated in your recipe until golden, and the sweets are all melted.

Keep an eye on the cookies while they're baking. You might need to add more crushed sweets to cover some holes!

5. Remove from the oven and leave them on the baking sheet until the sweets has harden before moving them on a cooling rack.

References:
Nigela Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess
Hong Kong blogger Vanlily