ORANGE COOKIE

Last week, I bought a packet of fresh oranges from a nearby hypermarket. It was a best value sale for the day. However, my family couldn't finish all 10 of them because some were sour. Already squeeze 3 orange juice and had to add honey to disperse the sourness. My kid's face cringe at the first taste. There were 4 oranges left in the fridge. I am not good in baking cakes so decided to go ahead with cookies instead. I saw a simple orange recipe at umami.typepad.com which looks rather different from mine. I find that this is the best crunchy cookie I have ever baked! Really taste similar to orange cake. When I had the first bite, they taste extremely crispy, crunchy and the texture was perfectly well-done. My daughter and I finished all 40 pieces of them the next day. The next time, I will add in some chocolate chips and change the flavor to lemon instead.

By the way, I did not have the orange oil, still, they taste delicious !! If you have almond nibs, sprinkle on them before baking.

Note:

Once you have grated the orange rind, use on the same day. Do not refridge overnight because the color changes to brownish and taste sour. Same goes with the squeezed orange juice.

Orange rind and grate them with a grater

Grated orange rind and remember to use FRESH ORANGES !!

Here's the recipe:-

Ingredients

115g butter

150g castor sugar / icing sugar

2 egg yolk

1 tbsp orange juice

2 orange rind-grated

200g flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp orange oil ( optional )

For Glazing:

1 egg- beaten

Method:

1. In a big bowl, sift sugar. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add in egg yolks, orange juice and rind. Stir until all well combined.

3. In another bowl, sift flour and baking powder together.

Add the flour into butter mixture.

4. Add in chopped raisins and mix well until it form a soft dough.

Chill in fridge for 2 hours.

5. Roll spoonful of it into lime balls and place on greased baking sheet.

Flatten with back of a fork.

6. Glaze with beaten egg.

Bake at 180C for 20 min or until golden brown.

Bottom of the cookies should be brownish which indicates crispy.

PANDAN COOKIES

Pandan leaves or Screwpine leaves

Seriously speaking, my family love pandan jellies very much. However, I have never heard of Pandan Cookies before until I stumbled upon a recipe book which provide various of New Year cookies by Alan Ooi. Thought that I might as well give it a try since my garden has bountiful of pandan leaves which kept growing non-stop. In English, Pandan is called "Screwpine Leaves". Some supermarket and wet market sells them in bunches. Otheriwse, look around your neighbours outside garden and you might be lucky enough to stumble upon these pandan leaves. By the way, you can use pandan essence or squeeze the juice from original pandan leaves if you have them. Just cut 8 pieces of pandan leaves into 3-4 inch length, put them into a juice blender with 3 tablespoon of plain water and blend them. Use a strainer to collect the pandan juice. If you don't like dessicated coconut, leave them out or replace them with oats, crush cornflakes or chocolate chips instead. The original recipe uses dessicated coconut and they taste delicious since I love coconut too. Enjoy !!

I used squeeze out pandan juice so the cookies doesn't look so greenish

( Recipe adapted from New Year Cookies by Alan Ooi )

Ingredients

140g butter

70g icing sugar

1/2 of an egg

1/2 tsp pandan essence or original pandan juice squeezed out

170g plain flour

1 tbsp cornflour

1/4 tsp baking powder

Decoration:

50g dessicated coconut

Some red cherries-diced

Step-by-step method:-

Step 1.

Prepare all the ingredients and preheat the oven at 160C.

Step 2.

Beat butter and sugar in a mixer until fluffy and creamy.

Step 3.

Pour in egg and pandan essence. Beat lightly . Add in flour, cornflour and baking powder. Mix well until it form a soft dough.

Step 4.

Roll the dough into marble size balls. Lightly press the balls and coat them with dessicated coconut. Press a red cherry in the middle of the each cookie.

Step 5.

Put them into lined baking tray. Bake at 160C for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool the cookies before storing them in airtight containers.

Makes approximately 50 pieces