Almond Crisps

Lemon Curd Cookies

Apart from chocolate, lemon curd is something i can't put down once I started eating. Am Absolutely in love with the sweet savoury citrus favour comined with butter yum yum.

These cookies are best eaten fresh from oven as the cookies are still crunchy on the outside and the lemon curd is soft and moist. I let the cookies cooled on a rack then stored into airtight container but because of the lemon curd which is moist, the cookies texture will turn into softer/chewy the next day. It is still delicous, just don't expect it to be crunchy. I baked 2 batches 2 days apart as the lemon curd recipe yielded too much lemon curd and I have lots of left over!

Simple Short Bread

One of my favourite biscuits is shortbread. You know, just the simple heavenly buttery flavour that melt in your mouth ... hmm. And the recipe is so simple - just 3 ingredients:

One pound of Butter (at room temperature
1 cup of Icing Sugar
3.5 cup of plain flour
(optional: you can add 1 tsp of vanilla extract is so desired)

Combine all ingredients in a big bowl and then have fun getting your hands dirty by rubbing the butter into the flour until it is well combined and come to a consistent texture.
Then either scoop spoonful of dough on to baking sheets or roll dough out on a slightly floured surface and cut out the shape of your liking using your favourite cookie cutter and bake in moderate pre-heater oven (abour 320 degrees F, depending on your oven) for about 10-15 min or until just turn slightly brown on the edges. It's really that simple. Use good quality butter, it does make a difference!

You can also get creative and decorate with chocolate on top =>
This is a different shortbread than one I made last month. The previous one is piped and literally crumble and melt in your mouth. This one is firmer and hence can be cut out in different shapes. Anyway both are my favourites!

Hazelnut Squares

Have not been able to do much cooking last week due to recovering from a gastro virus. both hubby and I fell sick at the same time, still could not figure out whether it was something we ate, or one caught some virus and passed to another. Whatever the cause was, it has prevented me from any cooking, as not only did I feel weak and tired, I did not have much appetite and also didn't want to pass my virus to anyone else from my cooking.

Thank God we have recovered, and with no end to this cold rainy weather in sight (can't believe this is summer, it feels like winter!), I decided to try out the Hazelnut Squares recipe. Esther gave me this huge tin of hazelnut meal which I thought I can put to good use. Hazelnit is one of my favourite nuts, so are everything else made from hazelnut like Nutella, yum!

This is a very simple, easy to make biscuit, the challenging bit was to spread it evenly. Mine was thicker on the centre, plus I used a bigger tray that what the recipe called for as this is the only thing I have close to the requirement. The important thing is - it taste very good, rich with Hazelnut flavour.

Rich Shortbread

After baking the Choc Chips Cookies, hubby requested another type of cookies. You know, the type that melt in your mouth. Hence I baked another batch of cookies - Rich Shortbread. I do get a lot of satisfaction cooking/baking for my my hubby, but he is such a non-fussy eater, he usually just eats everything I cook. So I jumped at every occasion when he specifically requested I make something for him.

If you are wondering if there is a lot of butter in the cookies, you are right! Very little sugar. Other ingredients are flour and vanilla essence and eggs, that's all!! Very easy and it literally melt in your mouth and crumble easily. Yummy!

Chocolate Chip Cookies & ANZAC biscuits

The weather in Melbourne had been very cold lately. Definitely not the typical November Spring weather with rain and wind and temperature below 20 degress C. This is actually a perfect time to heat up the oven and bake some cookies! Flipping through the recipe books I became greedy and tempted tp try many recipes. At the end, I just couldn't resiste the good old chocolate chip cookies and ANZAC cookies!!

Instead of the small sized choc chip cookies I have opted to make the bigger size cookies this time. This cookies turned out crispy on the outside but a bit chewy inside, i wonder if it is because of its size?

The cookies didn't stay long in the container for long .... who can resisit chocolate chip cookies?!





As for the ANZAC cookies, this time it turned out a bit dry and because I reduced the sugar by 1/4 cup, it actually made a quite a difference to the overall taste of the cookies. This is a recipe I have tried before so I decided to make some variation to the measurement but though it is still ok, it is not as tasty as last time. The lesson - stick to the recipe!