Hazelnut shortbread and food gift packaging ideas

Gordon Ramsay’s Hazelnut Shortbread is a recipe I revisit often. Its wonderfully crunchy with no hint of moistness or chewiness and it has a wonderful hazelnutty taste from ground hazelnuts. I usually sandwich these cookies with nutella and they go really quickly at home or when brought to H’s office. I followed the recipe as it is only I baked them for 14mins at 180C as I was too impatient to wait 20 mins at 160C which yields a less coloured cookie too.

I decided to shape them like fingers as I was too lazy to roll them on parchment then slice and bake like the recipe suggests. Instead, I used a trick I first read about in Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking from My Home to Yours. I double the recipe then put the soft dough in a gallon sized Ziploc bag. I then sealed the bag and used my rolling pin to roll the dough flat. Occasionally you’ll have to unseal the bag to get rid of air pockets. After rolling the sealed dough into a nice flat sheet, slide it on an inverted baking sheet and leave to chill in the freezer for at least 2 hours. Slide it out of the freezer and you have a neat frozen sheet of cookie dough. Use a scissors to cut open the bag and feel free to stamp out shapes with a cookie cutter or simply cut into squares or fingers or whatever shape takes your fancy. Doubling my recipe resulted in a really thick sheet of cookie dough, it was about 1 cm thick. I cut the square dough into 6 long rectangular blocks then sliced the blocks really thin, about 4 mm then lay then cut side down to create these little rectangles. I hope you get what I mean, I didn’t take any pictures so this is the best explaination I can come up with, hope it doesn’t sound too confusing! These cookies do expand while baking so they turned out a good size, about 2-bite cookies.

Since this was for someone who doesn’t have a sweet tooth, I skipped the sandwiching with nutella and gave them away plain.

I bought the box from Phoon Huat, it was going for S$1.90 each. They have a wide range: square, round, tall and shallow all for less than S$3, the price depending on the size of the container. With some scotch tape around the cover, they make great air tight containers to protect your crispy cookies from the wilting humid Singapore weather. They’re much more attractive that your usual red topped festive cookie containers too!

The square containers had this bejewelled patterned cover. I was looking for plain tops but they don’t have it in this size.

I bought the little white tags from a shop in the basement of Tampines 1 called Urban Write. They carry a wide range of Japanese stationary as well as gift wrap items and scrapbooking materials. 30 tags sold are sold in a small pack for less than S$2. It comes with twist wires to attach to your gift, really handy to have around for an instant personalized gift!

 

I usually buy ribbon in large rolls as they’re expensive in small quatities. This pretty grosgrain ribbon came in a roll 20 yards long. Its lasted me for years! I bought it at a small ribbon shop along Arab street for S$4. Phoon Huat is a great place to buy cheap gift boxes for food or any gift item, not just for baking supplies. I spruced up a few boxes recently at almost no cost. More gift wrapping ideas soon..

I’ve done it!

The article at least, now I’m just down to writing the conclusion and compressing it so it fits the 1200 word cut off. As a treat, here’s that cookie recipe:

World Peace cookies

Excerpted from Baking: From My House to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Copyright 2006 by Dorie Greenspan.
Makes about 36 cookies

I once said I thought these cookies, the brainchild of the Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé, were as important a culinary breakthrough as Toll House cookies, and I’ve never thought better of the statement. These butter-rich, sandy-textured slice-and-bake cookies are members of the sablé family. But, unlike classic sablés, they are midnight dark — there’s cocoa in the dough — and packed with chunks of hand-chopped bittersweet chocolate. Perhaps most memorably, they’re salty. Not just a little salty, but remarkably and sensationally salty. It’s the salt — Pierre uses fleur de sel, a moist, off-white sea salt — that surprises, delights and makes the chocolate flavors in the cookies seem preternaturally profound.

When I included these in Paris Sweets, they were called Korova Cookies and they instantly won fans, among them my neighbor Richard Gold, who gave them their new name. Richard is convinced that a daily dose of Pierre’s cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness.

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

3. Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

Getting Ready to Bake:

5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

6. Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

7. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

I started eating these in my balcony. Then it just got waaaay too HOT, so I had to seek refuge inside.

So it continued, with my glass of Farmhouse milk. I’ve been drinking lots and trying to remember to take my calcium supplements. While the baby will never be deprived, she’ll just take the calcium from your bones, nails and teeth, my nails started to chip lately so I’ve been trying to up the calcium intake. Of course, this is a great excuse to have some cookies! What would go better with a glass of cold milk than these.

The texture of these cookies were not as described though, they were not crunchy at all. I think that has something to do with the heat Singapore has been experiencing lately. I made these twice and both times my chocolate just melted into the dough and the end result was a cookie that tasted like small brownie bites. Which isn’t a bad thing. But it was just  a  little unexpected. I’m a crunchy cookie kind of person so my quest for the ultimate double chocolate chip crunchy little cookie continues. 

 

little note:  the linen napkin was from Barang Barang. I love the red thread border.

This weekend was spent:

At the Robinson’s sale, I had a birthday shopping spree treat (you know I love you H.. with or without the spree. But it did make the birthday sweeter!). Anyway the sale is really worth waiting for, we got some really great deals including the cutlery set we were eyeing for quite some time, it was down from a thousand dollars to a mere S$160 for a set of 60. We spent some time after coming home just looking at the set. We wanted a set for so long because our cheap set from Aussino actually started to rust (??!!). I hope I haven’t poisoned anyone yet. So far we are both very much alive.

Other things were a really really soft lilac bed set, kitchen towels, mugs, really cute mini quiche ramikins, soup bowls and a set of coffee mugs. Yup, things got pretty wild as you can guess.

I bought 2 gravy boats too, yes this whole roasting thing has been on my mind.

We had roast fillet of beef with a morel mushroom sauce for a dinner we were invited to.

I was to make the croutons, the Caeser’s salad dressing and the dessert. The dessert which almost made me tear my hair out! I’m so glad my mom came to the rescue. I really really wanted to weigh out the ingredients for the recipe for these homemade croutons but I was too harrassed. I really wanted to share it with you but well, perhaps another time. I make my croutons from stashed leftover french bread in the freezer. Because H loves bread as much as I love rice, we usually have a supply and sometimes can’t finish the bread, it doesn’t taste great after a day so I store odd nibs and ends in the freezer which then comes out during the weekend to be made into crunchy croutons. We store it in an airtight container and they’re good for soups and salads. They’re simply tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and dried herbs and then baked at 180C for 10 mins and left to cool then stored airtight so they keep their crunch. Homemade is always better, it just tastes of good olive oil.

There it is: chocolate pudding cake from Sherry Yard’s Desserts by The Yard. I’ll type the recipe soon, its really LONG..

Another salad, tomatoes waiting to be dressed.

 

Other things I did:

Played with a farm of cats, photos to come

Tried to write that roast chicken recipe, still to come (the method is too long!)

Took that Sunday nap, more tired after than before, so we skipped our Sunday swim

Watched my tummy move, much to H’s delight. He felt the first kick too!

Cleaned my kitchen, cooked some congee for breakfast for the weekdays in my thermal pot, messy kitchen photos to come

Outgrew more clothes

Welcomed June! I’ll be in a small dedicated stroke unit. Keeping my fingers crossed for more weekends..

When life hands you Sunday rounds..

You make Sunday roast..

..recipe from your favourite cookbook..

..read between cool sheets with the air conditioning on (can anyone stand the mid year heat and humidity in Singapore now??)

..Tea was homemade Valrhona cookies after a long nap with a glass of very cold milk.

 

More to come with recipes..  And photos of the mess in my kitchen after cooking a meal. I’m exhausted from all the cleaning rather than cooking!

World Peace Cookies

My first Valrhona bake of course had to involve a Pierre Hermes recipe.

I made these some time back as a gift for one of H’s friends.

For those who needs a dose of world peace on a Monday morning.

I’ve had a terrible week and a really rough Monday. My grandma broke her hip and had her operation cancelled as her oxygen levels had dropped and then she developed an acute gastric bleed and is in high dependency. Things don’t seem good and her dementia has made her delirious and confused. I’m still doing work while attending to her in between my own patients, inserting her lines as she keeps pulling them out. I’m feeling a little worn around the edges so I’ll probably take a break from this blog till things sort out.

 

More from last weekend

This is what it means by bake till a crust forms

Deceptively neat squares that don’t really separate that well becuase though the edges were set, the middle was incredibly fudgey! Which are fine if you like fudgey brownies. I think the cause of the uneven making is that my oven can’t be set at 175C which is the set temperature. I baked these at 180C. Watch them well cos overbaking will give you a super dry brownie.

 Notice the different textures, the brownie in the second row and to the right was from the edge so it baked up almost cake like while the middle brownies were noticeably fudgier. Since the recipe is right over her in Laureen’s blog, I shall not retype it. The only changes I made to the recipe was halving the sugar and using all bittersweet chocolate. I used Phoon Huat’s dark couveture because I’ll can’t afford to bake with Valrhona yet. Its a little wasteful I think, I’m saving it for truffles! Hopefully this weekend.. My dad’s coming back from the Middle East soon so I can’t wait for the pistachios and walnuts and dates.

The last of daylight on my now dead orchids. They lasted a good 3 weeks, outliving their cut flower counterparts by a good 2 weeks!

I’ll give you this look too,

If you glugged my Thai chilli sauce out of the bottle causing an avalanche over my vegetable spring rolls (thanks Mama!) H made the exact same mistake. Now why does Thai chilli sauce come in such a wide necked bottle and refuse to come out with a gentle shake then decide to totally empty on a harder shake?

Seth was in a sleepy mood.

That scotcheroo recipe

 

Scotheroos

Ingredients

1	cup light corn syrup
1	cup sugar
1	cup peanut butter
6	cups Rice Krispies®
	or 6 cups Cocoa Rice Krispies®
1	package (6 oz., 1 cup) semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1	cup butterscotch chips

Directions
1. Place corn syrup and sugar into 3-quart saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until sugar dissolves and mixture begins to boil. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter. Mix well. Add KELLOGG’S RICE KRISPIES cereal. Stir until well coated. Press mixture into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Set aside.

2. Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips together in 1-quart saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. Spread evenly over cereal mixture. Let stand until firm. Cut into 2 x 1-inch bars when cool.

Here’s the recipe since some people were asking. I used Lyle’s golden syrup which looked like this:

Or you could get Karo that looks like this:

I bought the Lyle’s syrup from Phoon Huat. I’ve seen it at Cold Storage, and no they don’t sell it at Giant (I just checked, sorry for giving you wrong information Sheerin!).

Since its close to midnight, I won’t go on about the erm unhealthy benefits of corn syrup and where else to buy it. How did these candies taste? Well its a layer of crispy peanut butter rice crispies layered with bittersweet chocolate. I skipped the buterscotch bits because I felt the rice krispie layer was sweet enough. I didn’t dare mess with the sugar:corn syrup ratio in case they didn’t set.

Some problems people had on the net were that the bars were too hard to cut. One way was to just bring the syrup and sugar mixture to a boil then take it off the heat immediately and stir in the peanut butter. If you leave it to boil for too long they may get a little hard. Even then, serving these at room temperature is best, straight from the fridge they tend to be a little rocky. I kept mine in airtight containers in the fridge and they kept well for a week, well that’s as long as it lasted. I managed to give a few tubs away because this recipe makes lots and well, its candy, how much candy can you eat? Hmm. Don’t answer that.

Good things come in small packages

Looked to Martha for packaging inspiration. I envy Quizas and her little crafty projects. Somehow, I’ve not done much crafting lately. I blame it on our home situation where my stuff is divided in two, most of my “non essentials” are at my mom’s. I have only my books and my baking tools in Changi where I stay with H’s family.  I’m really looking forward to my new home, which is taking way longer than anticipated.

I bought  really really cute boxes from Phoon Huat recently, can’t wait to share them with you. They’re really pretty.

Individually wrapped cookies, I think this would work for a chewy cookie as it isn’t airtight.

Does anyone know a good place to buy cookie jars? I find the Ikea ones non airtight and with the humidity of Singapore, things go soft very quickly.

Its quite cool to have boxes shaped like little townhouses don’t you think?

Pretty green and yellows surrounding the lemon meltaway cookies.

I love anything with a stand. I’m still searching for that ideal cake stand.

Black on Black Pierre Herme Truffles

 

I made a vow to myself to start baking from the books I currently have till I have mastered the recipes and techniques before buying another. There’s still that voice in me that’s screaming “I need another cookbook!!” But lucky for H, I surpress that monster. Though it still comes out once in a while especially when I feel the need of some cheering up. Cookbooks have it all, beautiful words that read like a novel, pretty photos, glossy pages, excellent design, hard covers, slippery jackets, big and heavy, and everything else I love in a book.

So anyway I am going to cook my way thru my cookbooks and what better way to begin than with the pastry master himself. I had some cream that was going to expire soon so these truffles were perfect. You need just 4 ingredients: chocolate, cream, butter and cocoa powder. I used Valrhona Equitoriale 55% which was S$9.50 for 300g at Sia Lik. I used only one container for the whole recipe so its quick and easy and not much cleaning is involved in making the ganache. The cocoa powder part is a little tricky though.

Black-on Black Truffles

Adapted from Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Herme

260g bittersweet chocolate

1 cup heavy cream (I used Bulla’s Pure Cream)

31/2 tablespoons butter

cocoa powder for dusting

How I did it:

Melt the chocolate in microwave on high for 40-60 seconds in a plastic container with a cover like an old plastic ice cream tub or tupperware, timing may vary according to your microwave. My chocolate was at room temperature and my microwave is quick so I had to watch it to make sure the chocolate didn’t burn. It took slightly under a minute. Add in the cream and stir to blend, then the butter a tablespoon at a time. Stir to melt. You may need another zap in the microwave if your cream was very cold to start with and the chocolate and cream mixture has become too cold to melt the butter. Leave the ganache to cool at room temperature for a couple of minutes. Cover the container with the lid and leave in the fridge to set(now u can make sense of the tupperware bit right, less washing up and the ganache is in an airtight container), about 3 hours or overnight if its convenient for you. Put your cocoa powder into a bowl and dust your hands with the powder. Scoop a tablespoon of the cold ganache onto your palm and roll to form a ball, this can get a little messy. Toss it back into the cocoa powder and gingerly toss it around to coat. Put straight onto serving plate or in a covered parchment lined airtight container and kept in the fridge for consumption later.The ganache itself is very yummy. But please let it set to let it live to its full potential as a fat round truffle.

Addition: I think the cream wasn’t such a good idea because of the high fat content (read:45% milk fat) the ganache ended up solidifying to quite a hard block,  akin butter. And I had one hell of a time rolling it into balls. In the end my truffles looked like chocolate rocks. Ugly chocolate rocks. I have to be brutally honest. I found it easier to roll when it rested a mere 2 hours in the fridge than when it rested overnight.

For help always turn to Martha. All photos courtesy of MarthaStewart, I gave away all the truffles before having the time to photograph them. And yes, they were VERY ugly.

 On a separate note, I have so many photos from the bolywood veggies outing, here’s a sneak:

Somehow snails move seem to move very fast when you’re trying to squat, adjust your manual focus, hold your umbrella and try not to get the camera wet.

Erm Shafia (my cousin), somehow your umbrella followed me to Kranji. I think you left it at my mom’s house and I somehow picked it up and brought it home with me then its sort of found its way to my car. I only looked at it at bollywood veggies and somehow figured out it belonged to you. Let me make it clear here: when I went to medical school, it WAS NOT called Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, it was called Faculty of Medicine.

Because wordpress doesn’t allow me to shrink my vertical photos without blurring it, here’s a gigantic photo of the kuih bingka. Oh the kuih bingka. If I can create an idiom today, it would be: “never trust a bingka with a flat top” Bingka is a Malay cake made of grated tapioca, coconut milk and sugar and it should definitely have a craggy crispy top! I also had a delicious, small overpriced loaf of banana cake that was oh so delicious, I’ll share my favourite recipe soon and more photos, including the “warriors” that run Bollywood veggies.

I spent today moping bout my too short a weekend like a love lost.

Guess what I’ll be doing this weekend..

I’m still recovering from the transition from study to work but it was a good day. I really have great colleagues and its funny, but I never understood the term “office politics”. I’ve worked for close to 3 years and I’ve never had to deal with any form of back biting or stabing or distrust I think is associated with “office politics”. In fact I’ve exasperated some people when they tried to moan about office politics because I can’t identify with the problem and probably give useless advice. But then I learnt that listening helps, so perhaps I learnt to be less unhelpful by listening. I received a small little mini version of the “month’s rosters” from a fellow medical officer who took the time to compress the dizzying amount of information called the “month’s rosters” into a sheet of paper. I think I’m using a lot of “inverted commas” for no good reason. Anyway the month’s roster is the most powerful weapon you can ever have when working, its more powerful than having a brain, though a brain helps sometimes when you’re a doctor. The month’s roster has all the information on who’s covering clinics on which days so you’ll never be conned to cover a clinic you are not rostered to, it helps to divert people to the right doctor, “no I’m not covering the A&E its Dr so and so, please call her/him to see this patient” and it helps you get help, to call the right senior at the right time if you ever need any help. Anyway this colleague also recently gave all of us a copy of a huge stack of guidelines and departmental protocols abbreviated in small sheet of paper. He’s my new favourite person and part of the group receiving a batch of homemade cookies. I think its not just a random act of kindness that happened out of chance, I studied thru much of my specialist exams without buying a single book, all have been loaned by kind souls who knew I was sitting for an exam. There’s lots of handholding and we’re always taught to “see one, do one, teach one” meaning watch a procedure, do it and then teach it to someone else. It doesn’t literally have to be ONE, in case I’m scaring some people, but thats the general idea. I was taught a line insertion today by one of the registrars and he literally brings you step by step with lots of “cardinal rules”, little tricks he’s learnt along the way that were really priceless. Then there’s the mandatory free morning coffee that the senior buys you everyday and there’s the offer to car pool when we’re working Sundays. Its always good to pass on this little acts and I’ve created some rituals myself, like “fluid resuscitation” (the lingo for pumping in intravenous fluids for a patient with low blood pressure) at midnight which is my trip down to the 24 hr convenience store for ice cold apple juice (Coke makes you jiterry at night, avoid at all costs). Usually this is handed to my tired house officer who are always wway too hard working to look after themselves and are very thirsty in tropical Singapore.

Anyway I am baking a whole kilo of chocolate chips which is a whole lot, this is adapted from the King Arthur’s Baking companion and is a little different from my previous crispy chocolate chip cookie recipe. Its caremelly from the brown sugar and the mixture of buter and shortening gives it the crisp from the shortening yet the flavour of the butter. Salt is really essential and I use it though my butter is salted. I’m spreading cookie love, perhaps you should to. Especially for that nasty “office politics” victims or even the offenders..

This is extracted from the email I’ve been sending out cos so many people had asked for the recipe after receiving the cookies last Eid:-

…the key to these cookies are using the right chocolate chip which melts in the mouth rather than the rock hard Hershey’s other homemade cookies have.

 

Using Red Man Couverture dark chocolate chips is essential (dark and NOT super dark). it is available in Phoon Huat. The country of origin at the back of the package says its made in Germany. This is in contrast to non courverture chocolate chips which are made in Malaysia. The price difference is about 30% more too, a 500g pack would cost $9.95 I think any good quality dark chocolate chopped up would work.

  

Crispy chocolate chip cookie

 

1/2 cup (100g) butter – softened
½ cup trans fat free crisco shortening
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
2 cups chocolate chips

 

When ready to bake the cookies – preheat the oven to 190C. Line baking sheets with parchment.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, shortening and sugars until light and fluffly. Beat in the vanilla, Beat in the egg, then the baking soda and flour. Gently fold in the chocolate chips.

 

Drop the dough using a teaspoon onto the prepared sheets. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes (10 minutes was right on for my oven), or until they are golden brown. Remove them from the oven and tranfer to a rack to cool after a couple minutes. The cookie will continue to crisp up after they are cool. Though they are good freshly baked, their flavours really develop about a day later.

Makes a lot..

 

 

 

Psst… Rose has a message to tell you.

I know, I owe you lots of stuff, pictures of Biennale, the baklava that I made, the place that I eat breakfast before work. I can’t help it, I keep on getting distracted by seemingly benign things, like “here, try this, its homemade and supposed to be really good” offered by mother in law. I have passed by the container for weeks without much interest. It just seemed so ordinary and store bought and not really worth much compared to the pineapple tarts and meringue cookies that I have been downing. I didn’t realize it was truly a spectacular biscuit. It wasn’t hard and floury like many, it was really delicate, crisp and eggy. Its the simpler things in life that are sometimes really really good like Apple Happy and Apple Sunrise.

Inresponse to some comments: ovenhaven– No I didn’t make these! I had a kuih pai tee (a  savoury snack of crispy open egg shell cups stuffed with turnip and other goodies) disaster and I think this ranks as a relative of that darn pai tee shell! So no.. I didn’t. But when I get over the trauma I may. Not any time soon though!

To coffeesnob: the studying has slowed during the weekend. The number of questions I have done in last few days 50 -> 80 -> 40 -> 40, notice the last 2 40s were the weekend. Still below the target of 120 (I figured this would equate to 3-4 hours of study per day). Will let you know the progress (Like u are soo interested, haha, let me just imagine so!!)

Links to be added later, I’m too sleepy..