Butter Cookies and a Sugar Icing Class

No. 3 couldn't resist dipping into the icing for a lickity lick! :)

No. 2 and 3's school has asked me to give a cookery class for the kids of their level.  After discussions with the form teachers, I've decided that since No. 2's class was on the topic of Transportation and No. 3 on the topic of Shapes, to create a cookery class based on those themes.

No. 3's lesson was this morning.  I've decided that instead of having them use cookie cutters to cut out shapes of triangles, squares and circles, to make it 'easy' and time efficient to get them to ice cookies with shapes instead.

Icing requires the Nursery kids (4-year-olds) to activate their fine motor skills - not that easy a task.  But no matter... it was the sensory experience of taste this cookery class was about, and in which playing with food a key factor! ;)

To this end, I decided that the smaller the child, the bigger the cookie needs to be.  So I made square cookies the size of a slice of bread for each child to use as an edible icing board.

It was not easy at first to look for a rolled cookie recipe that enabled me to cut and bake that size of a rolled dough.  The first recipe I used from Allrecipe was too sticky and melted very fast in our hot weather.  Furthermore, it was almost impossible to cut and move out a large square cookie shape.  In the end, I found a butter cookie recipe that worked well.  However, I had issues with transferring the cut-cookie to the baking tray, until I hit upon an idea which I've made a photo-tutorial after the Butter Cookie Recipe:

Butter Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:
(For about 11 bread-slice-size squares... I'd suggest halving this recipe if you're making it for home.)
450g Plain Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
200g Butter
210g Sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Methods:

1. Sift flour and baking powder. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar until butter lightens.
3. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla extract.
4. Add flour and beat on very very low speed for 10 seconds. You only want the flour to gather and form a dough - not create gluten. The lighter the forming, the better the texture of the cookie. At this point, I put the dough in a plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to harden a bit before rolling out.
5. Bake 180deg C for 10 minutes, then turn tray to even out the baking for another 4 minutes. Cool on rack.

Cutting the Bread-Slice-Sized Cookie:

Cut the silicon-coated baking sheet to a size slightly larger than the cut-cookie size.  Sprinkle icing sugar on it to help prevent it from sticking.

Put some cookie dough on top of that, and sprinkle more icing sugar on top.

Place another sheet of the baking paper over that to roll out.

Using a rolling pin with a height guide (this one is about 0.5cm) helps tremendously!

I used an air-tight container that's square-shaped to cut the cookies.  Dip the edge into the icing sugar to help prevent the dough from sticking to it.

Make sure that the rolled dough is larger than the square box.

Remove the excess dough.

Ta-da!  What the dough looks like after removing the box.

Then put the entire cut-cookie dough on the baking tray.  This way, you don't have to handle the cookie by tranferring onto the tray.

When the tray is filled, use cookie cutters to press in shapes so that the kids can ice, following the lines.  Or just leave it blank for the kids to use their imagination in icing.  I didn't have square or triangle cutters, so I used a butter knife to form the shapes. :)  You can also use a toothpick to draw lines or pictures etc.  This helps later in icing.

These are done baking.

A close up.

The lesson today was really simple and fun.  I taught the kids how to make icing.  Of course, the icing were pre-made and coloured and put into tiny ziploc bags that I bought from Daiso (70 pieces for S$2!).  When the kids need to ice, I just cut a tiny hole at the corner of the bag, and the kids are good to go.

Icing Sugar Recipe
Ingredients:

(This is sufficient to make 4 packets of colour.  I used double this recipe to make 8 packets of the same colour because there are 8 groups to prepare for - 4 each for AM and PM class.)
120g confectioners' sugar/icing sugar
20g milk
24g light corn syrup
Food colouring gel

Directions

1. Put all the ingredients except the food colouring gel in a small bowl, and stir together until it comes together.  If needed, thin the mix with the addition of milk, half a teaspoon at a time.  If you're going to use liquid colouring, add this to the ingredients before you start thining the icing with milk.  You may also add flavouring extract if you want - almond or rose, or lemon would be good.  If you're going to add extract, again, hold off thining with milk until you used the extract first.
2. Separate the mix into different bowls to add the gel colouring of choice.
3. Spoon the icing into tiny ziploc bags and cut the edge to enable piping.  Otherwise you may add a little more milk to the icing to make it a thick paint - use a paintbrush to help paint on a design to your cookie.

The icing in the rectangle packs - Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple.  The lesson was making Orange... mixing a dot of red gel and yellow gel. :)

The kids tracing the shapes with the icing... of course with adult help! Then after they got the shape, it was really up to them how they wanted to decorate their cookie.

I love how their tiny hands measured up to the cookie. :)  I helped this girl play with the idea of the square as a window. :)

Tune in next week for No. 2's class - cake decoration! :)

When Life Gives You Lemons

A warm-hearted lady sent me a recipe yesterday, for a "Luscious Belgian Lemon Teacake".  The recipe was so simple and didn't involve the use of a mixer that immediately I was intrigued at how it would turn out.

The method to this cake involves cooking a custard filling for the centre of the cake, which I suppose is what gives it its 'lusciousness'. ;)


Ingredients for Cake
1 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup castor sugar
60g butter
1 egg, lightly beaten

Method

1. Line a 17-cm round cake tin. (I used my 8-in round cake tin, which is about 20-cm).
2. Sift the flour and add the sugar.  Rub in the butter until breadcrumb-like, then add the egg.  You'll get a sticky dough.
3. Divide the dough into 3 parts, and put 2 parts into the bottom of the tin, and spread it out with your fingers.

Ingredients for Lemon Custard
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon (about 1/4 cup)
1/3 cup of sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
60g butter

Method

1. Put all your ingredients except the lemon zest into a saucepan and melt on low heat, stirring constantly.
2. Once the sugar has melted, slowly bring the mix to boil and it will thicken.  Once that happens, turn off the heat.

Back to Cake Method

1. Sprinkle half of the lemon zest over the cake batter in the tin.
2. Pour the lemon custard over the cake batter.
3. Cut up the remaining cake batter into teaspoon sizes and drop them onto the custard to cover evenly.
4. 
   
   
   
5. Sprinkle the rest of the lemon zest over the cake and pop it into the oven set at 180 deg C for 30 mins. (I lowered the heat after 15 minutes to 175 dec C because the top of the cake looked very brown. :))
6. Cool in the tin.
7. 
8. Remove from tin, sprinkle icing sugar on top, and then serve with tea.  Yums!

The fragrance of this cake while baking is wow!  The whole house is filled with its scent. :)
The cake is crumbly, sticky and parts of it crunchy... what a mouthful of texture and goodness!

So friends,
When life gives you lemons, don't despair!
Make this luscious lemon cake to share -
Your woes are halved, your blessings doubled,
When friends share your lemons and your trouble.

DIY Pizza Party!

Individual DIY Pizzas made by my guests

DIY Pizza Party is easy to do... and when you've got a perfect recipe for homemade pizza dough, things are so much simpler! =)

Brenda's Pizza Dough:

Ingredients:

500g Plain Flour, sifted

1 sachet Instant Yeast

300ml Lukewarm Water

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp dried Oregano

1 tsp Garlic Powder

Olive Oil

Method:

1. Mix the yeast in the water with 3 tablespoons of the sifted flour. Set it aside for 15 minutes for the yeast to activate.
2. In a bowl add the oregano, garlic powder and salt to the flour. Make a well in the flour and pour the activated yeast mixture in.  The activated yeast mixture should smell yeasty and look foamy.  Use a spoon to mix the flour with the liquid so that it comes together as a dough.
3. Turn it out onto a floured table, and knead the dough for 10 minutes. This part is an excellent arm workout! ;)
4. Shape it into a ball and coat it *thinly* with olive oil. I pour out about a teaspoon of the olive oil in my hand, and then lightly cover the dough with it.
5. Leave the dough in a bowl to double its size. Cover the bowl with a towel and put it aside for about 1 hour.
6. Punch down the dough, and weigh out about 110g of dough for each serving. Roll out circles (or something like circles ;)) on cut-out baking paper, so that each person can have their own pizza to put their favourite toppings on. =)  Each dough recipe should make about 7 or 8 smaller pieces.

Brenda's Homemade Pizza Sauce:

Ingredients:

2 large tomatoes

1 large onion

a handful of fresh basil leaves

3 cloves of garlic

a little pepper

1 small can of tomato paste

1 tablespoon of olive oil for frying

Method:

1. Blend all the ingredients together, except for the tomato paste.
2. In a saucepan, heat up the olive oil.  Add in the blended ingredients to the oil and fry until some of the fragrance is released.  Add in the tomato paste and heat it up until it bubbles and come together.
3. Allow the sauce to cool before use.

Pizza Sauce, and other favourite toppings: Ham, pastrami, onions, capsicums, egg, basil...

...baby spinach, olives, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, pineapple slices, mozzarella and cheddar cheese... 

Adding a raw egg on the pizza is Pizza alla Bismark. 

Into a preheated oven set at 220 deg C for 15 minutes

DIY pizza parties tend to get my guests excited because for some of them, it's a fun way for some creative cooking expression.  For others, it's a good way to avoid foods they don't enjoy, but don't have to worry about whether their avoidance of certain items might lessen another person's enjoyment of it.  For kids, they pile on their favourites with no worries about that yucky stray pineapple slice that seems to hide under a mozzarella because they can simply not put that in! :)


Of course, among my guests, many were only too happy to share a slice of their pizza version with another, and it certainly adds to the overall conversation and atmosphere.


Along with the pizzas, I also serve a cream soup; in this case, my cream of mushroom soup.


Have fun at your own pizza party! =)

8 Steps for a Super Easy No Effort Needed Oven Cleaning Method

What a mouthful for today's title, right?

Maggie noted that my oven looks so clean and to tell you the truth - it really is! =)

I've been using this method to clean my oven since 2007, where I posted the following post on m4m in August that year:

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http://www.websiterepairguy.com/articles/household_tips/clean_oven.html

I stumbled on this website because of an earlier thread about sodium bicarbonate and its uses. I didn't really believe it until I tried it today. I mean, the science of it sounds true - and that was what convinced me to try it.

And guess what? It works! Sumpah! O.O

The best part of cleaning the oven with the baking soda is that I don't even need to use elbow grease. The 3 teaspoons of baking soda did all the work and I just wipe down the oven with a damp cloth to remove the dirt - and what dirt it was! The pail of water I used to rinse the cloth turned into coffee, but I didn't have to use a whole lot of energy to scrub the oven, nor did I have to scour the oven with detergent etc.

In fact, I managed to even clean the fan behind the grill in the oven - or at least get some of the grime off with the baking soda solution.

Try it and spread the news, people! :D

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Since then, I've only ever used this method of cleaning my oven, and my oven has since progressively cleaner and cleaner, and now, even the oven fan is grime free. =)

I love it that the only cleaning agent is bicarbonate of soda, which is something that is often added to food and is therefore non-toxic. It's also cheap and it's on hand because we bake a lot, so we don't have to buy something in addition just to clean the oven. ;)

I hope today's post will bring a lot of joy to oven users, especially when you see the dirt literally dries up and wipes clean away. =)

The Cheater's Calzone or In-A-Pinch Pastie

A calzone is a pizza that has been folded over with all the toppings inside. A pastie is an English version of a calzone, with the same principle of a meat filling inside a semi-circle - a portable pie. In Singapore, this is sort of like our curry puff, but not with curry filling, of course.

A good friend posted the method of using frozen pratas in her Facebook to make these delicious versions of the calzone or pasties. The fillings is really up to your imagination and whatever you have in the kitchen.

The Cheater's Calzone or In-A-Pinch Pastie

INGREDIENTS

8 Frozen Prata

1 can Luncheon meat

1 Onion chopped

2 tsp Minced Garlic

Dried Basil (I used fresh Basil as I had leftovers, but dried is fine)

Dried Oregano

Black Pepper

Sliced Cheese

METHOD

1. Combine the luncheon meat, onion, garlic, basil, oregano and pepper.
2. Put the mashed mix on one side of the frozen prata.
3. Put half a slice of cheese over the mix.
4. Fold over the prata.
5. Crimp the open sides of the prata with a fork to seal the prata up.
6. Arrange the filled prata on a lined baking sheet.
7. Pop it into the oven at 180 deg C for 20 minutes or until you see the prata nicely browned.
8. Serve as is, or with veggies and baked beans.

I made another filling a few days later, this time with corned beef instead of luncheon meat. As you can see from the picture below, I also added avocado slices to the cheese, onion and garlic.

You can also try using tuna, sardines, curry or chicken pie fillings - the sky's the limit for these delicious and simple to make pasties! =)

Rose Meringue Cookies

These cookies are so simple to make and they taste so sweet and light.

Ingredients:
90g Egg White
175g Caster Sugar
1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
1 tsp Rose Essence
2-3 drops red food colouring

Method:
1. Beat egg white in mixer until frothy, then add in the cream of tartar.
2. Beat the egg white until soft peak appear, then add in the sugar tablespoon by tablespoon so that it mixes in and dissolves. You'll want your egg white to look stiff and glossy.
3. Add in the essence and colouring.
4. Pipe the egg white onto a lined baking sheet in swirls to look like rosettes.
5. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 120 deg celsius for about 60 minutes, turn off the oven and leave it in there for another 60 minutes.

Store in an air-tight container.

You could make variations of these meringue cookies, limited by your store of essences and imagination. Instead of rose essences, you could use lemon or lemon essence for a lemony meringue cookie. Just remember that it's a sweet treat, so your essences need to have a citrusy base or a fruity base to work. ;)

Baked Chicken Stuffed with Avocado

This is so easy and healthy to make. The resulting stock from this dish, we used to make chicken noodle soup with the leftover fettucini. =)

A tip: NTUC sometimes has Avocadoes from Mexico in a bundle of 4 for about S$4, which is the cheapest I've found Avos in Singapore. Most places sells them for about S$1.50-S$1.90 each. Cold Storage retails the Australian Avos for S$2+!

Baked Chicken Stuffed with Avocado

http://video.about.com/homecooking/Avocado-Stuffed-Chicken.htm

Ingredients:

8 chicken breasts/legs, pounded flat

4 avocados

6 tablespoons lime juice

1 teaspoon pepper

2 teaspoon garlic powder (You can also use fresh minced garlic)

16g fresh, minced basil leaves

400g diced cherry tomato (You can also use normal tomatoes, but dice them smaller to make it easier to stuff)

150g chopped sweet onion

pepper mill

Method:

1. Slice the Avocados
2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Cut the avocados lengthwise all the way around. Twist the halves and using your knife, strike and remove the pit.
3. With a large spoon, scoop the avocado out of its peel. Then, with a small paring knife, slice the avocado lengthwise.
4. Put the lime juice on the avocados to prevent them from turning brown.
5. Place the avocado slices in a mixing bowl. Add the pepper, the garlic powder, the minced basil, the diced tomato, and the chopped onion. Mix this all together.
6. Divide this mixture into two parts, so that you will stuff the chicken with one part and retain the other half as an accompanying salad for your meal.
7. Lightly oil a deep baking dish with cooking spray. Make sure that the baking dish is deep to hold all the chicken stock that will be produced by the chicken.
8. To stuff the chicken, lay a piece of chicken out on a flat surface. Scoop out a spoonful of the mixture and lay it onto the chicken. Roll the meat over the mixture and tuck in the ends.
9. Place the stuffed chicken in the dish. Do this with all of the chicken. Then sprinkle the top of the chicken with the cracked peppercorns.
10. Bake the chicken in the oven for 45 minutes.

Serve the chicken with the carbohydrates of your choice. We like it with Aglio Olio fettucini, as we can drizzle the resulting chicken stock over the fettucini.