M&M Shortbread Cookies

Thanks to my friends who always chanced upon this space for a new recipe, a news or some form of update for the past few months. After the 10th year of active blogging, it was a sense of contentment that I decided to take a break and blog occasionally, though the hibernation got extended. 😊.
So, now with the Christmas time, I decided to bake something that I could share with my friends. Hence it had to be simple and good to eat which stores well too. The weekend was allotted for the purpose. I took out my cookie cutters and holding the stars and the trees wondered what I really should do with them. Shortbread? HmmYes!! Next, browsed a bit and chanced on a swanky recipe, that started working on me!
M&M's aren't easily available, in this town but I decided to go for a hunt. We had alternatives of these candies, but I was a little adamant to get them. The search rested when I found a few sachets which were super expensive, at least 4 times that the original price I used to get them in US!! Anyhow, it's the victory of the hunt that matters!😉

The basic dough for Shortbread is universal. The 3 main ingredients; sugar, butter and flour are in the ratio of 1 : 2 : 4 , meaning for one part of powdered or confectioners sugar, you need to knead along 2 parts of butter and 4 parts of flour. Simple! Scale down according to your needs and there you go!

M&M Shortbread Cookies
Yields 6 bars of 10cms × 4cms
Prep time - 15 minutes
Baking time - 20-25 minutes
For topping- 20 minutes
Total time- 1 hour

You need:

1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup flour
A pinch of table salt
optional: 1/2- 1 tsp water
40 M&M minis, preferably reds and greens for topping
A few squares of Baking chocolate,chopped, for drizzle (I used Van Houten)

Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Beat together the butter and powdered sugar (a stand mixer is great for this, as the powdered sugar will make quite a mess if you're using a hand mixer).
Slowly add the flour (about a half cup at a time), mixing a bit in between each addition.
The mixture will look crumbly at first, but the dough will come together after a few minutes. If needed, add water (starting for 1/2 tsp) to help dough form. I really didn't need water. However,beware of adding to much. This dough should not be sticky. It should be soft and made into a flat thick coin with no cracks between your thumb and forefinger.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured silicone baking mat or parchment paper and roll out to a 1/4" thick rectangle. Using the parchment or baking mat, life the dough onto a baking sheet (leave the parchment or silicone mat as the lining). Cut dough into 6 rectangles.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until edges begin to turn a light golden brown.
Let cool completely. on a wire rack.

Melt the chocolate  in a double boiler or in a MW as you prefer and drizzle on the cookies.
Top with M&M's.


Note:

• The ratio of sugar:butter:flour in the above recipe is 1/4:1/2:1
• The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of M&M's to be kneaded along the dough. I preferred to top them instead.
• The amount of flour varies a bit depending about the quality, I needed a few tsps extra flour to bring about the right dough consistency.
• Also, I wasn't too confident to do a neat drizzle and hence piped the melted chocolate.

                                      😊 Happy Baking, Happy Holidays, Stay Blessed 😊

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Chocolate Crinkles

Wish you all had a wonderful Christmas day and still enjoying the Christmas time!
I see a beautiful Christmas pudding with flambé which I describe as highly exotic in my dear friend's space. My eyes get hooked at those cookies in the corner of the picture. Ah! not to search in the picture she had posted up there, the one she sent me soon after the laborious baking. I ask her about it and she explains. I take her for granted and tell her that I wish to bake this and post  for Christmas. She laughs, because that wasn't a request, but a statement from me. The baking got slightly postponed, guess qualifies for the new year. So, let me thank and dedicate this to Swapna, my buddy, whole heartedly, for motivating and guiding me through to update in my space after months!

The source she mentioned was different, which demanded chocolate chips which I ran out stock and followed this site, verbatim, for the Crackle or Crinkle Cookies.

Chocolate Crinkles 
 Makes around 30

 Ingredients:

 150 g plain flour
 60 g cocoa (I used Valrhona for intense hue and flavor)
 1 teaspoon baking powder
 pinch of salt
 200 g caster sugar
 60 g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
 2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 100 g icing sugar


Method:


Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl. Rub the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips until it clumps together and resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Whisk together the egg and vanilla together, then add to the flour mixture. Mix with a large metal spoon until combined, then cover with plastic film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200°C (Gas Mark 6). Line two baking trays with baking paper.
Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Scoop the dough in a 1 tbsp measuring spoon and shape into balls ( almost walnut-sized). Drop into the icing sugar, tossing until well coated. Place on the baking trays, leaving about 5 cm between each to allow for spreading. Bake for 10–12 minutes or until just set when lightly touched. Cool on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely. The cookies will crack on cooling. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

These delicious fudgy biscuits are so named because they are dipped in icing sugar before going into the oven. During baking, the cookies expand slightly, resulting in a wonderful crackled look.

And yes, here's wishing you all a healthy, happy and fun-filled year ahead!

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Shortbread Hearts for the Valentines!

                                                                       Foodgawked, Tastespotted       

For me, cookie dough is a kid's play-doh. The more the creative, more the products. More the interest, more the ways to dress 'em up
Some name them, sexy. Some, romantic ; a few, delectable.
 I love semi-formals or smart casuals when it comes to clothing. Enterprising ladies and gentlemen dressed in semi-formals.  My mind relates these choco-dipped cookies to them.

Most of you would have heard about shortbread. Scottish in origin, this is a kind of biscuit which is baked traditionally using one part of white sugar, two parts of butter and three parts of flour; all by weight. No chemical leavening agents such as baking powder or soda get into this.

Anyway, now that it's much looked forward Valentines week, we should be talking about hearts, roses, love, beauty, fragrance and whatever related to it :)

Shortbread Cookies
From- Joy of baking
Bakes 25 hearts


You Need:

1 cup all-purpose flour

A fat pinch of salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup powdered (confectioners or icing) sugar

1/2 teaspoon  pure vanilla extract


For Chocolate Dipped Shortbreads:

3 ounces (90 grams) semi sweet or bitter-sweet chocolate, finely chopped




How to make:






In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter until smooth and creamy or for a minute. Add the sugar and beat until smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract. Gently stir in the flour mixture just until incorporated. Flatten the dough into a disk shape, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill the dough for at least an hour or until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) with the rack in the middle of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough into a 1/4 inch (.6 cm) thick circle. Cut into rounds or other shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter. Place on the prepared baking sheets and place in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. (This will firm up the dough so the cookies will maintain their shape when baked.) Bake for 8 - 10 minutes, or until cookies are very lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.

For Chocolate Dipped Shortbreads: Place 1.5 ounces (45 grams) of the finely chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place it over a saucepan of simmering water. Once the chocolate has melted, remove it from the heat. Add the remaining chocolate and stir with a wooden spoon until it has completely melted and is smooth and glossy. Taking one cookie at a time, dip one end of each cookie in the melted chocolate and place it on a parchment lined baking sheet. Once all the cookies have been dipped in the chocolate, place the baking sheets in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes, or until the chocolate has hardened.

Shortbread cookies with keep in an airtight container for about a week or they can be frozen.

Stephanie is again there with the video and the elaborations, if you might need a look upon.

                                                                To the Valentines of the world

                                                                                        Love twice in your lifetime. 

                                                                                              Now.  And for ever!

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Torcettini di Saint Vincent ~ Sugar Crusted Twisted Cookies from the Valle d’Aosta

April is over within a week!  " 'We Knead to Bake' something different, so we’re baking yeasted cookies", decides Aparna! Since this particular biscuit/cookies are yeasted and involve a bread-like dough, it qualified perfectly.
So according to her,
Torcettini are smaller versions of Torcetti (meaning small twists), and these pear/teardrop shaped twists are made of a dough of flour, yeast and butter which are shaped and then rolled in sugar before being baked. These biscuits are synonymous with the town of Saint Vincent in Valle d'Aosta, a small mountainous region in North-Western Italy. They’re well known throughout the Piedmont region as well.

The origin of these biscuits is believed to be from Grissini (breadsticks) which were made from the leftover scraps of bread dough. According to one story, a Grissini baker had some leftover butter which he needed to use up. Inspiration struck and he decided to add the butter to the last batch of his Grissini dough for the day. To be able to differentiate this lot of “breadsticks”, he rolled them in sugar and shaped them into loops, and the Torcetti was born. Torcetti/ Torchettini taste even better when they’re flavoured with lime/ lemon zest or anise.

It is said that Queen Margherita, the wife of King Umberto I of Savoy, liked the cookies in one pastry shop so much that she knighted the owner on the spot. A certificate attesting to this still hangs in the pastry shop in Saint Vincent. During her stay in Valle d'Aosta, that she gave her servants enough provisions to bake an abundant supply for her consumption.

Torcettini di Saint Vincent
Adapted from 'A Baker’s Tour' by Nick Malgieri

Makes 24 cookies
(I halved the recipe and baked 12 cookies)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup warm water, about 110F
1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or 1 tsp instant yeast)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp lime/ lemon zest
40gm unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces
About 1/3 cup sugar for rolling the cookies

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Thumbprint Cookies

My son loves anything jam-centred. He has them as a meal apart snacking them. Surprisingly he wanted cookies instead of cakes this Christmas and I found myself searching for a simple cookie recipe of his kind.

"Thumbprint Cookies are a very popular holiday cookie. They are made with a shortbread-like dough that is formed into balls and then rolled in either finely chopped nuts or dried coconut. The name 'thumbprint' comes from the fact you use your "thumb" to make an indentation into each ball of dough and then fill it with jam."

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'Melt in the Mouth' Hearts!

                                                            Foodgawked , Tastespotted
I could hardly sleep yesterday night! Know why? I had been seriously drafting a rice dish, all set in the weekend. Just a click of the publish button and done!
I forgot all about the Valentine's day! And now I've got less than  24 hours!

In the morning I made up my mind to bake something which I'm pretty used to.
Bingo! The Melting Moments! Yes, I have all the ingredients in the pantry and now what else?
Oh my! the heart shaped cookie cutter!

Zoom zoom- bazaar, back home, cookie dough, oven, bake, cool, shoot, blog!
puff..
pant..

:)


Melting Moments Recipe:
Source - Joy of Baking

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
1/2 cup (60 grams) cornstarch (corn flour)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (30 grams) confectioners sugar (powdered or icing)
1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Topping:

1/2 cup (60 grams) confectioners sugar (powdered or icing)

Method:

In a medium sized bowl whisk together the flour, cornstarch and salt.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until creamy and smooth (about 2 minutes). Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. Cover and refrigerate the batter for an hour or two, or until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

When batter is firm, form into 1 inch (2.5 cm) balls and place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets, spacing about 1 inch apart. Bake for about 10 - 14 minutes or until the edges of the cookies just start to brown. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 3-5 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack that is placed over a sheet of parchment or wax paper. Put the confectioners sugar in a fine strainer or sieve and sprinkle the tops of the cookies with the sugar.

These cookies store very well. Place in an airtight container between sheets of wax paper and they will keep a couple of weeks. If desired, just before serving, sprinkle the tops of the cookies with confectioners sugar.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Now, this reminds me of Fogg who rushed back to the Reform Club after Around the world in Eighty Days!
It's already 2:55 pm in India. But the day is yet to dawn in the other side of the world! :)

                                                       Happy Valentine's Day!

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Whole Wheat Almond Eggless Cookies

S imple, crunchy, flavorful and addictively delicious is an understatement for these cookies you see here. Tight hugs to Sweet Punch team for the wonderful choice!

Take my words, bake them and you will never regret munching on this very much 'Indianish' Cookies!

Recipe Source- Manjula's Kitchen

Ingredients (to make 24 cookies)

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder, ground coarsely 
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (8 tablespoons or 4oz)
• About 2 tablespoons of milk or as needed

Method 

1. Pre heat the oven to 360 degree F.
2. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients; flour, sugar, salt, sliced almonds and cardamom powder well.
3. Next add soft butter and milk to the flour mixture to make dough. Dough should be very soft.
4. Divide the dough into about 24 equal parts and make them into balls.
5. Press each ball between your palms lightly; every piece should be about 1/2” in thickness.
6. Place the dough balls on an ungreased cookie sheet about inch a part.
7. Bake the cookies for about 18 minutes or until cookies are lightly golden brown.
8. After they are done remove the cookie sheet from the oven. Let the cookies cool down for two to three minutes before taking them off the cookie sheet.

The pic up is the 2nd batch of cookies baked with a higher temp and deliberately over browned. They were crunchier and tastier :)

            The changes made from the original recipe:-

            1. No added milk.The homemade butter was soft enough and dint call for the milk. On the contrary the dough was sticky and I had to knead in 2 tbsps of wheat flour to make it right.

            2. Used half cup,scant, granulated sugar, which was powdered and kneaded in. Still the cookies were towards the sweeter side. 1/4 cup sugar will be ideal for a cup of heaped flour, coz I prefer my cookies less sweet! (The original recipe calls for fine granulated sugar)
          
             3. The oven temp was set to 210 C (a high temp for anyone but not to my old fashioned conv one :)) and the baking time needed was 15-18 minutes, the edges have browned but the cookies tasted great that way.The original recipe says 180 C for 18 min. So the baking time varies according to the temp and type of oven you use.

            4. I made 36 cookies inspite of the changes and will be baking this again and again and again unlike Manjula who does just once in the video ;)

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