Perfecting Almond Crescents.

Once again I have tried to make my grandmothers famed Almond Crescent Shortbread.
Using the same base recipe as last time although doubling it, but.... I didn't have all the ingredients that I needed, this time I lacked almond meal necessary, the recipe calls for 70 grams of Almond Meal, but then I have to double it, and I only had a 100g packet, so I thought I might put a teaspoon of Hazelnut meal in to make up for it.

Also, the mixture wouldn't stick together so I added another egg white and some butter... This did make the mixture more sticky but unfortunately it didn't fix the crumbliness of the cookie dough, so they were nearly impossible to shape into crescents, this was a major problem because I had doubled the mixture, meaning that I had made a ball of dough nearly as big as my head!

So after about 2 hours of carefully shaping cookie after cookie, I had finally cooked them to perfection (Golden) and they were ready to taste.
The cookies had a fairly bland taste, (this is because of the lack of Almond Meal) and they were far too crumbly, so crumbly in-fact that I could have had a competition to see if anyone could eat one without dropping a crumb.

I made a wonderful discovery while making these cookies:

We have a old oven it has a light, a dial for temperature and a very very unreliable timer.

So I would never have guessed that it would have anything as modern as "Fan Forced"

but as it turns out it not only has this but you can't tun it off! So I now have something to blame

every burned cookie I have ever made on.... The little sign on the side of the oven that says "Fan Forced" in decorative font (a Fan Forced oven is an oven that has a fan which moves the hot air around to stop the the oven form being hotter at the back than at the front, it also means that whenever you use fan forced you should turn your oven down approx. 20 degrees eg. 180 degrees (160 fan forced)).

My Grandmothers Recipe! (Almond Shortbread Crescents)

 These Cookies are an old favourite of mine, my grandmother used to make them for my Brother, my Sister and Me.
They are a pretty simple shortbread recipe. But they have "Vanillin Sugar" and almond meal.
 Which is very nice, and they are also rolled in icing sugar when they come out of the oven.
When I told my grandma about this, she      
 sent me some of these in the mail!
They were Delicious!
But when I tried to make them, My friend had recently used the oven, and had set a "Cook Timer" instead of the normal "Timer"
The cook timer is set to turn off the oven when the timer runs out, while the timer merely goes *Beep Beep Beep* and so the when the Cook Timer went off the oven went off and he took out his Muffins,
then I put my cookies in and the oven was off but still warm, so they slow-cooked for about 30mins before we realised that the oven was off.
This meant than they went rather flat!
Here is the recipe:

Almond Crescents
140 grams unsalted butter
 70 grams sugar
 170 grams self raising flour
 70 grams almond meal
 1 egg white
 1/2 (half) teaspoon Vanillin sugar
Mix all ingredients together,shape into crescents & bake in fan forced oven
at 160 degrees until golden brown.
Carefully remove from tray & put each in icing sugar mixed w/- 1/2 teaspoon vanillin sugar.

"Minecraft" Birthday Present!

Today I made a similar recipe to the Speculaas but with Cocoa to make the biscuits Brown (This didn't really work) The Aim of this was for it to look like the game "Minecraft" because my friend who plays Minecraft with me had a birthday and I though that this would be a suitable present.
I also didn't add as much Baking soda. But the taste was still quite nice.

                                         At first I thought it would be really easy, then I realised a few problems:. The Cookie weren't brown enough, The cookie wasn't very thick and so for the cubes to be correctly shaped that I would be stuck with heaps of little cubes and also that (it was 11pm at night) I was tired and so when I was
cutting the shapes they turned out a bit sad, because as you can see I didn't cut them very evenly (Photo Right).

This is what it looked like at the end (Photo Below)

Finished Product.

Dutch Spiced Cookie (Speculaas)

 These Cookies were AMAZING! but that might

 just be because they are my favourite type of Cookies, But I guess I shouldn't have posted them
Because there Biscuits not Cookies. 
This didn't stop them from being Crunchy, Soft, Good Texture and of course lovely Mixed Spice taste!
I would definitely recommend using this recipe.
And there is nothing That the recipe could improve on! But I did have a personal fault, I didn't put the oven on at the beginning! I forgot and did it while I was cutting out the shapes, And so I thought that to make the oven heat faster I would put it on 250 degrees Celsius And I forgot to fix it later. so
The first batch was Brilliant because the oven hadn't fully heated but the second batch was

 Burned on the outside and still soft on the inside. 

So remember to turn the oven on before you start to give it time to heat up!

Ingredients: 

250 g Flour

175 g Butter

140 g Brown Sugar

1 level Tablespoon ground mixed spice [or 2 if you love spices]

1 level Tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 Teaspoon ground cloves

50 ml Milk

2 pinches Baking Soda

Instructions: 

Cream butter and sugar until soft and creamy, mix in other ingredients until a smooth soft dough is formed. Shape dough into two rolls of 3-5 cm diameter

Leave dough to rest 30 minutes in fridge for the spice flavor to develop.

Cut dough in 1 cm rounds and place on 2 lightly greased cookie sheets, with space for spreading. Alternatively you can also roll the dough out flat and cut out shapes. Bake at 180c for about 15 minutes or until cooked. Transfer to cooling rack or a cold cookie sheet until cold. Makes 40 biscuits

Optional: You can press crushed nuts, slivered almonds or a walnut on top of biscuits before baking.

Chocolate Cookies (Cookies #10)

 

Ingredients.

Today I made Chocolate Cookies (Made up the recipe) These turned out okay. but..... They were a lot like Cake Mixture and not like Cookie Dough. They would have made good Muffins!

   For Ingredients look at Photo (above)

  The Method Is pretty simple
  1. Blend Oats and place in bowl with other dry ingredients.

  2. Melt Butter and pour into bowl with brown sugar. 

  3. Add eggs, Vanilla and any other wet ingredients.

  4. Sift dry ingredients into Mixture and stir.

  5. Roll into balls and place on baking tray, Then Cook at 170 degrees Celsius,    Until Liking.(Golden Brown)!  

Lemon Grass, Mint and Flower Petal Tea

 I cheated this time. My Dad bought some Already dried stuff (Peppermint, Spearmint, Flower leaves (Red) and Lemon grass. And I merely Mixed
Them together. But it tasted good. Not so sure that It would go to well with Cookies, But that doesn't really matter.

Cornflake Cookies...

 Now while cooking these cookies, I was a bit Distracted... And so I read the first half of this recipe and unfortunately, I guessed the last 2 steps.
Which meant that While it said "Roll dough into balls and roll in Cornflakes'
I thought (Guessed) that it said "Crush Cornflakes and add to mixture"
So I had a horrible grainy mixture.
And then, About the 3rd Batch, I Left them and went to watch TV, I came back 30mins later to find a Smoke-Filled Oven and some Burned pieces of black Char.

Unfortunately I seem to have lost the recipe.
(But thats not Necessarily a bad thing)But If you search "Cornflake Cookies" In Google I'm sure you will find it.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Sugar Cookies

The amazing Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie! Which had a wonderful texture,
But lacked in taste, strangely this was because of too much sugar.
Which being a youth I find hard to believe, but its true. I recommend that
if you try this recipe that you half the sugar, or at least Not quite as much.

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

                                                        

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely. Hope They work for you!

Citrus Tea (Lemon Myrtle, Kaffir Lime and Mint Tea)

Dried Mint + Cirus Leaves.

 I have been dying Mint, Lemon Myrtle 
and Kaffir Lime Leaves:
This took much longer than expected,
and had an extremely strong aroma which was a little
sickening.
I then made tea in my Ecology Tea Cup,
these are very handy when making tea by oneself,
but lack in the size of a Teapot when making tea for many.
Now the tea itself had a strange taste, as though the mint had
fermented, not in a bad way, but it wasn't Perfect,
the tea wasnt strong enough but the flavour althouh weak still
seamed to overwhelm you.

Next time I will hopefully use Lemongrass in my tea, this is a lovely tasting
herb/grass that can often be found in juices and many Asian Dishes.

Nieman Marcus Cookie (Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie)

Once at a restaurant a Woman ordered a cookie, 

and after tasting this cookie, was amazed and quickly asked for the recipe,

later on she went to pay the bill but they had charged her $300 for the recipe, and they wouldn't refund her. so she vowed to tell everyone about these cookies and give the recipe to everyone! 

The Legendary Nieman Marcus Cookie-
2 cups butter 
24 oz.chocolate chips
4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp.salt
2 cups sugar
1 8 oz. Hershey bar(chocolate bar)
5 cups blended oatmeal
4 eggs2 tsp. baking powder
2tsp. vanilla
Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder, cream the butter and both sugars.
Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour,oatmeal,salt, baking powder and soda.
Add chocolate chips and Hershey bar,
roll into balls, and place two inches apart onto a cookie sheet

bake for ten minutes at 375 degrees makes 112 cookies ( I usually half the recipe)
 I think less oats and less chocolate would be good.

Cheaters Tea (Easy Tea)

Hopefully what my tea should look like.

This is my first post about tea.
I have attempted to make tea. (that isn't my tea!)
But I cheated, next time I will make it from scratch but this time I bought dried fruit from a local shop and then cut it up and poured boiled water onto it.
it tasted pretty bad, because the apricot took over the rest of the flavours, and it was very oily.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients to cookies #3

This time the main difference was that I creamed the egg and butter together.

This made them delicious, Unfortunately it also made them sugary and the dough was a bit thick, which meant that when I went to put them on the tray they stood up, but fortunately they turned cookie shaped later on in the cooking process.
I don't have many photos for you because I was in a rush, you see dad invited friends over for dinner and while it was cooking I decided to make cookies.
The first batch were bland so I decided to add chocolate chips and cocoa.
Then they were good. 

Taste:           7/10
Texture:     7.5/10

Cookies the 2nd

Ingredients

Not quite as appetising

Well Here is the recipe.

Done!

approx. 100g butter
2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of salt
pinch of vanilla powder
a little vanilla essence
2 eggs


Melt the butter, put all the dry stuff together
add wet stuff and butter then mix.
place on tray at cookie heat (160-180c)
then eat them and tell me what they where like!

Hopeful Sugar Cookie

                            Okay so I am about to try making cookies for the 2nd time.

                                         This time I will use brown sugar, eggs and lots of butter.
                                         I don't know what type to make so I will just make plain ones .
                                         So if you want to make them then add something like chocolate
                                         or cinnamon.

                                         P.S I got that photo off google images just to give you an Idea what they
                                         will look like.

Verdict

Now I have a mentor. her name is Belinda Jeffreys, she is a famous chef from around federal (NSW, Australia) she will give me advice on my cookies and will help me with the recipes.

My Teacher likes my PIP idea, and likes this blog as well. so that is all good.
Next time I make cookies, I will add brown sugar and eggs...
Yes I know its stupid of me not to add eggs but they were still okay.

My Rating.
Texture: 4/10
Taste:     8/10

Comment:
They tasted very nice (probably because of the sugar content)
but the texture was nowhere Nowhere near Perfect!
That I blame on the lack of eggs.

My First Try at making cookies. They worked fairly well.

The texture wasn't quite right as I didn't add eggs.

but they tasted delicious.

It had:
3 cups flour.
2 cups sugar (I know its alot)
200g butter
half a tsp of baking powder
a pinch of cinnamon
a big pinch of cocoa
a big pinch of vanilla dusting sugar
some vanilla essence
a big pinch of salt
and some choc chips.

Now I personally hate recipes and dont use exact measurements
but I wrote them down approximately so you can try my cookies.
The method is the same as other cookies in all ways but one.
instead of just chucking the sugar in randomly I melted butter
with a little bit of water, the sugar and the vanilla essence.
melted them and let the sugar dissolve as if I were making toffee
then before it goes brown and toffee-like, as soon as the sugar is
dissolved then pour it into the dry stuff, add the choc chips and stir.
they spread a bit so don't go putting them close together.
serves as many as you want. depending on your hunger.

P.S the salt makes them addictive.