M&M Shortbread Cookie

Continuing from my previous M&M cookie post , I mentioned I saved the red and green ones for something else . I made a cookie jar out of it and then tried out another cookie recipe ! Personally I think this recipe tastes way better than the previous recipe . This dough is easier to handle and gives a fixed shape unlike the previous recipe .

The trick to this recipe is to let the dough rest in the fridge for around 30 minutes to let the dough harden up so that it is easier to handle when you round it into a ball before baking . It's a great recipe , i'm sure I will twit this recipe and make other flavours in the future . This time I used a mixer instead of mixing it with a spatula .

After the dough harden , divide them into 15 g each , round it into a ball , press the middle of the round dough so that it has an indent . Place the M&M on it before baking .

I love this recipe more because the cookies have more volume and it doesn't spread so much during baking .

Because it has more volume , it gives a better bite too . What's more incredible about this recipe is that it only has 4 ingredients for the shortcrust dough !

Here's the recipe :

Yield : 17 x 15 g cookies

Ingredients :

• Unsalted Butter - 115 g
• Sugar - 65 g
• Vanilla Extract - 1/2tsp
• Plain Flour - 130 g
• M&M Cookie - 17 to 34 pieces

Direction :

Cream the butter with a paddle attachment at medium speed for around 1 minute until butter turns soft . Add in vanilla extract and gradually add in sugar while mixing for another 1 minute . Change to low speed , gradually add in plain flour while mixing for 3 minutes .  Scrap the side of the mixing bowl when necessary . 

Transfer dough onto tray , flatten it and keep it in the fridge for around 30 minutes until it turns harder . Separate the dough into 15 g each , round it into a ball and place onto the baking tray . Indent the dough by pressing the middle of the dough with your thumb . Place the 1 to 2 pieces of M&M chocolate on it . 

Preheat oven to 180°C and bake for 12 - 15 minutes , depending on your oven . 

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Cranberry Cinnamon Buttercake (Mini!)

 In exactly 12 days time , Christmas will be here . Some cranberry and cinnamon would work for this joyous season . Just thought i'll share one recipe before I start packing for my Vietname trip tomorrow . :)

I've been using this recipe (without cinnamon and cranberry) to bake plain buttercake but I thought since Christmas is coming ,  I could make it more Christmassy . I made these mini buttercake with the new casing I bought from Daiso . It makes the cake really adorable !

One of these cupcake only has 35 g of batter . It's bite-size , which suits Christmas party if you have any isn't it ? :) The sweetness and slightly citrus taste from the cranberry and flavor of cinnamon does match the butter cake really well .

Here's the recipe , try it out this Christmas !

Yield : 5 x 35 g of mini buttercakes

Ingredients :

• Sugar - 40g
• Plain Flour - 50g
• Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp (1.5g)
• Cinnamon Powder - 1/4 tsp (1g)
• Egg - 35g
• Butter , unsalted - 40g
• Vanilla Essence - 1/4 tsp (0.25g)
• Dried Cranberry - 2Tbsp (20g)

Direction : 

Soak dried cranberry in 1/2 cup of warm water for 5 minutes . Drain and set cranberry aside . 

Combine sugar , plain flour , baking powder and cinnamon powder in a medium mixing bowl . Mix well and add in egg , butter and vanilla essence . Lastly , fold in soaked cranberries . Divide batter to fill 3/4 of cake tins . 

Preheat oven to 180°C and bake for 9 - 11 minutes , depending on your oven . 

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Gift in a Jar

I mentioned in my previous M&M Soft-Baked Cookie post that I've kept the green and red M&M for something else . Yes , I kept them to make gift in a Jar for the coming Christmas!

I think this makes a great gift for my loved ones , especially for those who bake . Place all the dry ingredients for the cookie recipe in the jar , top with lovely M&M , write a little sweet note and tie a ribbon . Your christmas gift is ready ! You could write a little note like this for example :

"Empty the jar in a medium mixing bowl , add in 50 mL of oil and 1 egg . Mix well , divide cookie dough and bake at 180°C"
                             

I'll be trying out another M&M Cookie Recipe with these green and red M&M soon . :)

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M&M Soft-Baked Cookie

Here's the first cookie recipe on Palette Avenue ! Decided on M&M since Christmas is coming and I wanted to do something colorful for the festive season .

I made mostly the large ones (50g each) because they are easier to manage . Do note that this recipe spreads A LOT so do space the batter way apart before baking . Otherwise the cookies will end up sticking all together . Alternatively , you could replace the butter in this recipe with shortening so it won't spread as much . Cookies are one of the easiest to bake in my opinion so try this out !

If you pay close attention to the pictures , there aren't any red and green M&M on the cookies because I have other plans for them ! It will be up on my next post .  ;-)

For the recipe that i'll be sharing , I placed the M&M on the cookie instead of mixing them in because I wanted them to be obvious instead of hiding inside the cookies . You could mix some in the batter and keep the rest for the topping too . For scooping of batter , I used an ice cream scoop for the big cookies so that it will turn out round , otherwise it will be oddly shaped like the smaller cookies in the above pictures which I don't mind at all .

Here's the recipe:

Yield: 12 big cookies / 60 small cookies

Ingredients:

• Brown Sugar - 2/3 cup (130g)    
• White  Sugar - 1/3 cup (60g)
• Butter - 2/3 cup (150g)
• Egg - 1.5nos (65g)
• Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
• Plain Flour - 1 2/3 cup (210g)
• Baking Soda - 3/4 tsp
• Salt- 3/4 tsp
• M&M Chocolate - 1 cup (240g)

Direction:

Combine brown sugar , white sugar , butter , egg and vanilla essence . Mix till homogeneous before adding plain flour , baking soda and salt . Scoop 50 g of batter on baking tray and sprinkle with M&M .

Preheat oven to 180°C and bake for 12 - 15 minutes depending on your oven . Allow cookies to cool down before transferring them for serving or storing .


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Hazelnut Chocolate Brownie (Chewy)

To continue from my previous Blondies recipe post , here's the brownie recipe! This recipe gives a rich chocolaty and chewy brownie . It would go well with walnuts too!

The taste would greatly depend on the type of chocolate used . If you look at the recipe below , the chocolate is the main ingredient of the entire recipe! So don't save on the chocolate for a better flavor . Lower grade chocolate tends to give a . . . diluted chocolate taste I would say . If you could use Valrhona, that would be awesome in my opinion . Haha . 

Some brownies do come with frosting , i'll definitely try them another time with another brownie combination . :) This recipe would require you to melt chocolate under heat , so do be careful because they do get burnt easily . Alternatively , you could choose to either melt the chocolate in the microwave or the baine marie method to have a better heat control . Don't microwave it for too long though , it will get burnt too ! I'll usually do it 20 seconds each time under high heat mode , remove bowl to stir a little before continuing another 20 seconds and so on , till chocolate melts completely . 

However , for this recipe , I melted the chocolate under medium heat over stove . It's important to remove the pot from the stove every once in a while to prevent the chocolate from being over heated because once it is burnt , it is irreversible .  

Here's the basic brownie recipe for now: 

Yield: A tray of 13 inch x 9 inch

Ingredients:

• White Sugar - 1/2 cup (100g)
• Butter - 2 Tbsp (30g)
• Water, hot - 2 Tbsp (30g)
• Chocolate - 1 1/2 cup (225g)
• Eggs - 1 nos (55g)
• Vanilla Essence - 1/2 tsp
• Plain Flour - 2/3 cup (80g)
• Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp
• Salt - 1/2 tsp
• Hazelnut, chopped - 50g

Direction:

Combine white sugar, butter and water in a pot. Mix well and heat it up under medium heat over stove . Add in chocolate and stir gradually , removing pot from stove every once in a while . Stir until chocolate melts completely and remove from heat . Add in eggs and vanilla essence . In a separate bowl , combine the remaining dry ingredients except for hazelnut and add into the mixture. 

Lastly , fold in chopped hazelnut . Transfer mixture into a 13 inch by 9 inch tray . Preheat oven to 160°C and bake brownie for 18 - 20 minutes , depending on your oven .  After baking , allow it to cool for 20 minutes . 

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Weight Conversion (cups to grams) for Baking

I always prefer to use weight than cups when comes to baking because I find it more accurate. 1 cup of sugar could be 225g when taken by person A and probably 250g by Person B due to parallax error. So for the sake of consistency, it's always good to invest in a weighing balance.

I'll try to include both measurements in my recipes, however if I do not, do refer to the "Helpful Tips" - "For help in weight conversion" for help in conversion! I find that two websites extremely helpful for me, I hope it will be the same for you. A weight conversion table reference will come in handy when your you are all ready to bake but your weighing scale is down!

Cranberry Milk Chocolate Blondies

Just the other day I suddenly wonder what the difference between Blondie and Brownie is . So I decided to try out both recipes to taste it for myself ! Before this, I always thought "Blondie is like Brownie" like many people around me think but no idea to what extend though ! I found out that Blondie uses brown sugar as its' main ingredient for flavour while brownie uses chocolate . That's one difference !

For this Blondie recipe , I used a milk chocolate cranberry combination :

But of course , if you don't like cranberry or milk chocolate, you can always replace them with your own favourite ! I'm looking forward to try out other flavour combinations .

So after trying brownie and blondie , the difference is pretty obvious . Blondie is more cake like while brownie is more chocolaty. But of course , there are so many recipes available and some have tweak the recipes to suit their own liking and there's also " brownie-blondie " now. 

Here's the recipe:

Yield: A tray of 13 inch x 9 inch (1 cm height)

Ingredients:

• Dried Cranberry - 1/2 cup (60g)
• Unsalted Butter - 90g
• Brown Sugar - 100g
• Vanilla Essence - 2 tsp
• Egg - 1/2 no (30g)
• Plain Flour - 3/4 cup (90g)
• Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp
• Salt - 1/4 tsp
• Milk Chocolate - 1/2 cup (50g)

Direction:

Soak dried cranberry in 2 cups of hot water for 10 minutes . Drain and set aside . Combine unsalted butter and brown sugar, mix well . Add in vanilla essence and egg. Mix well before adding plain flour, baking powder and salt.

Mix well and fold in milk chocolate.

Transfer batter into a 13 inch x 9 inch tray . Preheat oven to 180°C and bake blondie for 18-20 minutes, depending on your oven . 

I'll be sharing the brownie recipe next, stay tune! 

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Bluberry Crumble Cupcake

This is just one of those "quick and easy baking recipes", only a few ingredients needed to satisfy your craving for something sweet ! If you find plain cupcakes boring like I do, try out this recipe ! It's just one more step than normal plain cupcakes but it gives a way more satisfying texture combination . This reminds me of Hong Kong 'Bo Luo Bao' when I eat it . :) 

If you are not a fan of blueberries , you can always replace it with whatever fruits you love ! That's the fun of baking your own treats , you could choose the flavour combination that you love . This cupcake would go well with cinnamon flavour too , so you could actually add in 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon powder for a hint of cinamon flavour . 

Crunchy on the top, soft and moist on the inside . I baked a batch and had it for breakfast every morning the following week . Pretty awesome ! 

Here's the recipe:

Yield: 5 Cupcakes 

Ingredients:

Cupcake 

• Plain Flour - 1 1/2 cup (90g)
• Sugar - 3/4 cup (65g)
• Salt - 1/2 tsp
• Baking Powder - 2tsp
• Vegetable Oil - 1/3 cup (50g)
• Egg - 30g
• Milk - 1/3 cup (75g)
• Blueberry - 1cup (65g)

Crumble Topping

• Plain Flour - 1/3 cup (40g)
• Sugar - 1/2 cup (55g)
• Butter, softened - 1/4 cup (35g)

Direction:

Cupcake

Mix plain flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together . In a seperate bowl, whisk vegetable oil, egg and milk until mixture is homogeneous . Pour liquid mixture into flour mixture gradually and mix well using a whisk . Fold in blueberries and scoop mixture to fill 3/4 of cupcake cups .

Crumble Topping

Combine all ingredients and mix until mixture is well combined and crumbly . 

Top filled cupcake cups with crumble .

Preheat oven to 200°C and bake cupcakes for 22-26 minutes, depending on your oven . Serve at room temperature. 

Enjoy!

Note: If you prefer to have a not so sweet version, I'd suggest you cut down the sugar amount for cupcake batter to 55g and crumble topping to 45g. 



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