Gift Box Cookies

Ingredients:

100 gram Unsalted Butter, cold

100 gram Sugar

1 cup All Purpose Flour

1 tablespoon Cherry Jam

1 tablespoon Cocoa Powder

Instruction:

1. Whisk butter and sugar together.

2. Add jam.

3. Sift in flour.  Mix the mixture into dough.

4. Dived the dough in halves.  Add cocoa poeder in one of the doughs.  Knead it until the colour well blended.

5. Place them into two separate zip bags.  Roll the purple dough into a 5mm sheet, and roll the cocoa dough into a 3mm sheet.  Refrigerate them until firm.

6. Cut the purple dough into 4 long strips.

7. Place one of the strips on top of the brown dough, messure, and cut out 2 brown strips with the same width and length.

8. Place a brown strip between two red strips.  Make 3 sets of these striped blocks.

9. Cut each block into halves .  You should have 6 striped blocks.

10.  Cut 3 brown strips in equal sizes.  Place each into two pieces of striped blocks.  Make 3 set of them.  Refridge them until firm.

11. Cut the strip blocks into equal size of cubes.  Place them on a baking sheet.

12. Cut the remining brown dough into a few thin strips, and then cut them into small traingles for the bows.  Place a tiny dough ball on each bow.

13. Bake for about 15 minutes at 335F/160C.

Ethan's smile is my gift.

Panda Butter Cookies

Ingredients: about 50 cookies

100 gram Unsalted Butter, room temperature

80 gram Sugar

1 Egg, whisked

120 gram Cake flour

1 teaspoon Cocoa Powder

Instruction:

1. Whisk the butter and the sugar together, until the mixture is soft and in pale yellow colour.  

2. Add in the egg, a little at a time.

3. Sift in the flour.  Mix it and form it into a dough with a spatula.

4. Take out 1/3 porton of the it and mix it with cocoa powder.  Wrap the doughs separately and then freeze them for at lease an hour before futher process.

Pre heat the oven to 355F/ 180C.

5. Take a teaspoon of the yellow dough.  Roll it into a ball shape.  Then, take a small porton of the cocoa dough, roll it into two small balls for the eyes and two oval shapes for the eyes.

6.  If the batch of panda cookie doughs are too soft by the time you finish the decoration, chill it for about five minutes.  Then, place it in the oven right away and bake for about 10 to 15 minutes.  Let the cookies cool compeletly before transfer them into an air-tight container. 

Lalalala Lalalala Elmo Time - Turkey Burger Rice Ball

Ingredients: about 6 rice balls

Rice

2 Carrot, diced

1 cup of Japanese Rice

1 1/2 cups Water

Turkey Burger Filling:

200g Minced Turkey

2 Garlic gloves, minced

1 tablespoons Soy sauce

1 Balsamic

1 tablespoon Rice Wine

2 tablespoons Cornstarch

2 tablespoons Sugar

1/4 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

1/2 Salt

Garnish:

3 Black Olive, cut both edges of each olive for the eyes and cut 6 thin strings for the mouths

12 pieces of egg white slices for the eyes
6 pieces of Cooke Corrot for the noses

Instruction:

1. To make the carrot rice, cook the carrot in 3/4 cup of water until it is soften.  Puree the carrot and the water.  You should have 1 cup of the carrot puree.

2. Rinse the rice.  Pour in the puree and another 30 ml of water.  Cook it with the rice cooker, or in a pot over low heat.

3. To make the turkey burger, mix all the ingredients throughly in a mixing bowl.  Take a spoonful of meat, and then roll it into meat patties in olive shape.

4.  In a frying pan, add a teaspoon of oil.  Place the meat patties on it gently and fry them for 5 minutes.  Flip them on to the other sides, and fry for another 5 minutes.  Remove the oatties from the heat.

5.  To assemble the elmo, place 2 to 3 tablespoons of steamed carrot rice in the middle of the plastic wrap, and then press it into a thin piece of rice in olive shape.

6. Add a piece of patty on it.  Place another piece of rice on top.  Seal the edge and make sure the pattery is not showed.

7. Carefully seal the seam.

8. Add two slices of egg white on the top as the eyes.  Place the semi-round olives on top of the egg white as eye balls.  Put the carrot beneat them as the nose.  Serve the dumpling in warm.

Ethan concerned about Elmo...

Mom asks me to eat you...

Ok, let me gently bite the cheek...

Ethan: Is Elmo ok after I ate his eye?

Me: Sure, honey.

Ok, so one more bite on the cheek and the other eye.

Ethan: Mom, now Elmo can't see me.

Vanilla Button Cookies

Ingredients:

75 gram Unsalted Butter, soften

1 cup Sugar

2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

2 3/4 cup Plain Flour

90 gram cream cheese

food colourant (red, green, blue)

Instruction:

Chickpea mice

Ingredients:

Dough:

350 gram Plain Wheat Flour 

40 gram Sugar

80 ml Water

1 Egg

2 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

Filling:

1 cup Canned Chickpea, drained

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

1/8 teaspoon Sea Salt

Decoration:

2 gram Cocoa Powder

Almond Flakes

2 tablespoons Cold Milk

instruction:

1. Mix together the chickpea with the brown sugar.  Let it sit for an hour.

2. Reheat the chickpea in an microwave.  When the chickpea is steaming hot, mash it with a potato mash with all the syrup, until it become paste.

3. To dry up the excessive syrup in the mashed chickpea and form a right consitency, heat the mashed chickpea in the microwave for 2 minute at a time, for about 6 to 7 minutes.  Stir it well between each heat.  The chickpea should be like wet sand.

  

4. Form a spoonful of chickpea into an olive shape.  it should be firm and not crumbly.  Finish forming all the chickpea as the filling.  Cover them with a damp towel and let them set aside.

5. In a medium bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the dough and form a slightly sticky dough.  Take a small piece of dough to mix with the cocoa.

6. Wet your hands again.  Take a piece of the white dough and stretch it until it is big enough to wrap a piece of the filling.  Seal it carefully.  Place the dough on a baking tray with the seal downward.

7. Reshape the head part of the mouse into a slight trangle.  Inset two pieces of almond flakes as the ears and stick three bean-size of cocoa doughs on the face as the eyes and the nose.  Randomly rib a thin layer of cocoa-water mixture on the body part to create the contrast of the hair.

8.  Bake the buns in the pre-heated oven at 180C/ 360F for 5 minutes.  After the outer layer of the buns dried up, brush a thin layer of cold milk on each and then bring them back to the oven to bake for another 10 minutes.  Serve in warm.

Lemon Tomato Jello

Ingredients:

Sweet tomato:

2 Small size tomatoes, hulled

3 tablespoons Lemon Juice

2 cups Water

3 tablespoons Honey

2 tablespoons Sugar

Jello:

4 gram Agar Agar

2 cups Water

3 tablespoons Honey

2 tablespoons Sugar

3 tablespoons Lemon Juice

Instruction:

1. Using a knife to cut a "x" shape on each of the bottom of the tomato skins.  

2. Place the tomatoes into a pot of boiling water for 25 to 30 seconds.  

3. Scoop them up and transfer them to a bowl of cold water immediately.  Gently peel of the lose skins.  Set the tomatoes aside.

4. In a sauce pan, add the rest of the ingredients of the sweet tomato. Cook it over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved.  Remove the syrup from the heat.

5.  Set the tomatoes in a deep bowl.  Pour in the hot syrup and make sure the tomatoes are totally covered.  Put them in the fridge for at least three hours.

6. To make the jello, add all the ingredients into a sauce pan.  Cook the mixture over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved.  Remove it from the heat.

7. To set the tomato jello, place two tablespoons of the agar agar mixture from step 4 on the bottom of the mold.

8. When it nearly sets, gently place a tomato on top of it with the stem part facing upward.  Pour in more agar agar mixture until the tomato is completely covered.

9. Place the jello in the fridge for at least one hour before serve.

Ethan loved this healthy summer treat.