Recipe: Grandma Paul's Sand Tarts (Paula Deen)

After seeing Paula Deen's sand tarts on Zoe's blog, I immediately felt the urge to make them for my kids. I quickly went downstairs to take the butter out of the fridge for it to soften. Unbelievably easy to make with only 4 ingredients - butter (I use salted), icing sugar, plain flour and ground almonds (my choice of nuts since I had no pecans at home).

Grandma Paul's Sand Tarts

I did a little research online, and found out that sand tarts are a popular Christmas cookie. The ingredients also seem pretty similar to polvorones (aka Mexican wedding cookies in US).

To make these sand tarts, the softened butter is simply beaten with the icing sugar, then the flour and ground almonds are folded in, and they're ready for shaping into crescents. These sand tarts are slowly baked in the oven at a low temperature, and the resulting cookie is buttery, tender and melt-in-the-mouth. They're also not too sweet, unlike most American cookies.

I am definitely glad that I made them, as they're simply delicious. My kids were delighted when they got to have these as their evening treat. As soon as the photos were taken, their little hands shot to the plate and grabbed a cookie :P

Is it good? My boy's expression says it all! Next time, I'm making a bigger batch!

Grandma Paul's Sand Tarts (Paula Deen)
Recipe by Baby Sumo, adapted from Bake for Happy Kids & Food Network
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Makes 15 cookies

Ingredients
120g salted butter, softened at room temperature
40g icing sugar, plus 20g more for coating & dusting cookies
130g plain flour, plus extra for dusting hands
60g ground almonds
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)



1. Preheat oven to 270°F / 130°C (no fan). Line baking tray with baking paper.

2. Using an electric mixer at low speed or a wooden spoon, beat the butter, vanilla extract(if using) and sugar until smooth. Then, add in the flour and ground almonds and mix well, until you get a rough dough.

3. With floured hands, take out a tablespoonful of dough and shape it into crescent. Coat the cookies with extra icing sugar and place the cookies about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking tray. Continue to dust your hands with flour as you make more cookies.

4. Bake for 40 mins, it is normal for them to look pale yellow. Dust with 1/2 tablespoon of icing sugar while still warm. Cool completely on wire racks and store in airtight containers.

Note: You can use other finely chopped nuts such as walnuts or pecans as per original recipe.

Cute boy enjoying his sand tarts

I am linking this to Cook like a Star (Paula Deen and Deen brothers theme) organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe and to Little Thumbs Up (June 2014: Butter) hosted by Jozelyn of Spice Up My Kitchen.

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Recipe: Soft, Vintage Chocolate Chip Cookies

We can never resist a good chocolate chip cookie. During the Labour Day holiday, we made these soft, vintage chocolate chip cookies - they were crisp around the edges and soft and chewy on the inside. So so good, especially with a glass of cold milk!

This recipe is definitely a keeper - easy to make, and kids can join in the fun. For rustic-looking cookies, simply place teaspoonfuls of batter onto the baking tin, but for a refined cookie, then roll gently with your hands to form a ball. For best tasting cookies, I find that they take a mere 10 minutes in my oven to bake. If you prefer them slightly crunchier, then bake for a further 2-3 minutes.

Kids requested a mix of dark, milk and white chocolate chips in the cookies - the amount of chocolate chips used in this recipe is definitely generous so you get a mouthful of them everytime you bite into a cookie! :D

 Baby D says "yum yum"

Soft, Vintage Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe by Baby Sumo, adapted from here
Preparation time: 20-25 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Makes 50

Ingredients
150g salted butter, softened
80g soft brown sugar
80g caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
225g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
200g chocolate chips or chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (no fan). Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and two sugars until fluffy . Beat in the vanilla extract and egg until incorporated.

3. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt over the mixture and mix in with a wooden spoon. Add the chocolate chips and stir well.

4. Using a teaspoon, place small mounds of the mixture well apart on the baking trays. If you want more evenly-shaped cookies, just form into a rough ball using your hands.

Our cookies are ready for the oven :)

5. Bake in the oven for 8–10 mins until light brown on the edges and still slightly soft in the centre.
Leave on the tray for a couple of minutes to firm up and then transfer to a cooling rack.

6. Store in airtight container once cooled completely. These cookies will keep for up to a week.

Note: I used a mix of dark, milk and white chocolate chips as per kids request. I find that the best texture is achieved when the cookies are baked for 10 minutes.

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*This recipe was featured on Asian Food Channel's FB page on 8 June 2014. 

Recipe: Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies (Marcus Wareing)

Everytime we make a recipe from Marcus Wareing's cookbook, we can make it with confidence as everything we have tried has turned out really fantastic. This time, we are trying his recipe for "the perfect chocolate chip cookies".

The cookie dough is made with strong bread flour, butter, soft brown and caster sugar as well as good quality dark chocolate chips (or chopped dark chocolate) with at least 70% cocoa solids. The dough must then be chilled before baking, or else it will spread out of shape when baking. Chilling also keeps the chocolate chips firm, so that they remain chunky. The cookie dough can be stored in the fridge for up to a week, but in our house, it didn't last longer than two days :)

These chocolate chip cookies were indeed quite perfect with a glass of cold milk. Crunchy and rich in dark chocolatey flavour. Simply irresistible! (Credit to my husband who made these for us)

Happy boy :)

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe adapted from Marcus Wareing "How to cook the perfect.."
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 12-15 minutes
Makes 35-40

Ingredients
180g strong white bread flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of fine salt
115g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
75g caster sugar
75g soft brown sugar
1 medium egg, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
170g good quality dark chocolate chips, or chopped dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)


1. Sift the flour into a bowl with the baking powder and salt.

2. Using the paddle attachment on an electric mixer, cream the butter and both sugars together on high speed until light and fluffy. Turn the speed down to low and slowly mix in the egg. Tip in the vanilla extract. Turn the machine off. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour in two batches until evenly incorporated.

3. Fold the chocolate chips into the dough. Form into a log (about 5cm in diameter) on a lightly floured surface and wrap in cling film. Refridgerate for at least 2 hours until firm.

4. Preheat oven to 170C / 190C (no fan). Line two baking trays with non-stick baking parchment.

5. Cut the chilled dough into about 1cm thick and place them slightly apart on the baking trays. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool the cookies on the tray, then keep in an airtight container.

I am submitting this to Cook-Your-Books #11 hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours .

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Recipe: Doraemon Lemon Shortbread

There are a few cartoon characters that my kids like, and one of them is Doraemon. So when I was at the baking shop and saw this cute Doraemon cookie cutter, I bought it without hesitation. 

Lemon Doraemon Shortbread

The lemon shortbread recipe that I tried was taken from the Australian Women's Weekly "Sweet" cookbook collection. In hindsight, using the Doraemon cookie cutter with this recipe may not have been the best of choices since the cookie dough is of the soft type, and is better suited for plain-shaped cookie cutters (circle/heart/stars) without intricate details. But still, we managed to make it work - after some practice, we knew to cut off the shape first with the cutter, place it on the baking tray, then only pressing on the other stamp with more details. Baby D helped me with this bake, and he was absolutely delighted to see the cute Doraemon's on the tray.

Baby D taking photos of mummy making shortbread for a change! ;P

Time to get to work.... rolling out the dough

This recipe uses a combination of salted and unsalted butter, which is said to give the yummiest results. We have to agree - this was indeed a lovely shortbread, very crumbly with a nice subtle tanginess and lovely fragrance from the lemon zest. And of course, making it in Doraemon shapes is well worth it when we get to see the happy smiles on our children's faces :)

Baby D & Doraemon :)

Doraemon Lemon Shortbread
Recipe by Baby Sumo, adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly "Sweet"
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Makes 30


Ingredients
60g salted butter, softened at room temperature
60g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
2 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
1 cup + 2 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp rice flour

1. Preheat oven to 160°C/140°C fan-assisted. Grease two baking trays or line with greaseproof paper.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, lemon zest, and caster sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Sift 1 cup plain flour and 2 tablespoon rice flour. Stir in to mix (from Step 2) in two batches. It should form a dough, if still sticky, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. (I found that I needed 2 extra tablespoons of plain flour to form a dough).

4. Turn dough onto floured surface, and knead dough for 5 minutes.

Knead dough for about 5 mins

5. Using a rolling pin, roll dough between two sheets of baking parchment until 5mm thick. Using your cookie cutter, cut out desired shapes. Place about 3cm apart on trays.

Rolling out the dough

Cut into desired shapes

Place the cut cookie dough on a greased baking tray

6. Bake in preheated oven for about 10 minutes, it will still be a pale yellow when you remove it from the oven but this is perfectly normal for shortbreads. Transfer to wire racks immediately to cool completely.

7. Store in an airtight container once cooled.

Note: The cookie dough is quite soft, so if using cookie cutter which has intricate features, first cut the cookie shape, then place on the baking tray before pressing on other details. Original recipe used 5cm star-shaped cookie cutter, which makes about 15 cookies.

I am linking this to the Little Thumbs up "Lemon" event organised by Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen from My Little Favourite DIY, hosted by Grace from Life can be Simple. You can link your posts here.

I am submitting this to Cook-Your-Books #9 hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours .

If you enjoyed reading my posts, LIKE me on Facebook! You can also follow me on Instagram (@babysumo) for more photo updates. Thanks :)

Recipe: Dahlia butter cookies (Kuih Semperit) (CNY)

With my two good kitchen assistants, we've been baking CNY cookies almost every weekend. Last weekend, we made both pineapple nastar rolls as well as these Dahlia cookies, sometimes also known as cherry cookies or simply butter cookies. I chose this cookie because I like the pretty dahlia flower shape. In Malay, this cookie is called kuih semperit.

Dahlia cookies, aka kuih semperit

In order to make this cookie, you have to buy a plastic piping nozzle (it will be usually be labelled kuih semperit on the packaging). To make this, simply mix all the ingredients into a smooth dough and put into the piping nozzle and pipe out these flowers. As they say, practice makes perfect and after a few tries, we piped out nicely-shaped dainty little flowers. It is then decorated with cherries to resemble a flower.  I did not use food coloring, hence my flowers are a pale yellow post-baking. 

Pipe them straight on the baking tray

These cookies taste better once it is cooled completely, and left for at least 12 hours. They are buttery, with a distinctive taste from the rose essence. Baby C also likes it cos it's pretty, and she helped me style the cookies for this post. :) Right after our photoshoot, she popped about 8 of these cookies into her mouth and said "YUMMY"!

A short video on how to pipe these dahlia cookies

Dahlia butter cookies (Kuih semperit)
Recipe by Baby Sumo, adapted from Joyce
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Cooking time: 22-24 mins
Makes 90


Ingredients
125g butter, softened at room temperature
70g icing sugar
170g plain flour
20g custard flour
60g cornflour
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp rose essence (or vanilla extract)
1 tsp broken cherries


1. Preheat oven to 150°C (no fan). Sift the plain flour, custard flour and cornflour in a large bowl. Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.

2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and icing sugar for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add in egg yolk, and rose essence (or vanilla), and mix until combined.

3. Add in the flour (from Step 1) and mix until you get a soft dough. Turn off the machine.

4. Using the piping nozzle, pipe out the dough on to the tray. See video for instructions - pipe the dough out then twist to "cut".

5. Decorate with a piece of cherry in the centre. Press lightly.

Ready for the oven

6. Bake in preheated oven for 22-24 minutes, the cookies should not be browned when it's done. Cool in pan for 2-3 minutes, remove cookies and cool completely on wire rack. Store in airtight container.

I am submitting this post to the Bake-Along event #57: CNY cookies hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours,lena of Frozen Wings and Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids. You can link your post at one of the hosts page.


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