Scones

Big FAN loves scones.  So tried baking some for him  This recipe that I use baked almost like 10 small scones.  As the kids don't really like it and Big FAN can only gobble up 2.  I have to just chuck the remainder in the fridge.  And guess what I ate scones for tea break for like 3 consecutive days....still love it though....hi hi...  Here's the recipe, can't really remember where I got it from.  But enjoy!


Easy Scones

Ingredients

• 375 g all-purpose flour
• 100 g white sugar
• 25 g baking powder
• 3 g salt
• 170 g butter
• 1 egg, beaten
• 235 ml milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter. Mix the egg and milk in a small bowl, and stir into flour mixture until moistened.
3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly. Roll dough out into a 1/2 inch thick round. Cut into 8 wedges, and place on the prepared baking sheet.
4. Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Fluffy Pancakes for Kids Lunchbox

Ok, this post is way late.  But here's what I have been cooking.  My SMALL FAN loves pancakes, so have been making this for his snack box to bring to school.   Enjoy!


Here's the recipe:

Fluffy Pancakes
Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup melted butter or canola oil

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Combine the egg, milk and shortening; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
2. Pour batter by 1/4 cupful onto a greased hot griddle. Cook under low heat. Turn when bubbles form on top of pancakes; cook until the second side is golden brown.

Donut in a Box

Bought this box from the supermarket as the box cover looks just too good to miss.  So, tried making this donut from the box mix.  I just need to add egg and mix with the box mixture.  The only time consuming part is frying it.  The donuts turn out quite nice and yummy. It comes with a packet of cinnamon sugar for coating the donut. Very tasty.   Give it a try, it's a great thing to bring for a pot luck party :)



The donut looks super cute in the fryer


Cinnamon coated donuts with my own chocolate sauce decorated donuts (I basically just melt a few pieces of chocolate, put it in a piping bag and piped it.


Here's the inside of the donut, it looks really soft and nice, right!

Rustic Plum Tart

Ok, I must admit I'm getting kinda lazy with updating my blog. This recipe has been sitting on my to-do list for quite a while.

Bought a packed of plum from NTUC fairprice supermarket and the whole batch was super duper sour. My Baby FAN, who loves plum just won't eat it. So instead of dumping it all into the rubbish cute, I thought I tried making some tarts out of it. So, I look through the recipe from my favourite website www.allrecipes.com and found this. Bought it to my sis-in-law's place for an after dinner snack and my sis-in-law said it's nice and so did my hubby. But the kids are not too kin to try out, I think it looks a little too "RUSTIC". Maybe, next time I will try out Apple tart and make it into a bag shape so the kids might give it a try.

Here's the recipe, enjoy!

Rustic Plum Tart

Ingredients for the crust:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 tablespoons cold water

Ingredients for the filing:

• 2 cups sliced plums
• 9 1/4 teaspoons sugar, divided
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

 Directions

1.  In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt; cut in the shortening until crumbly. Gradually add water, tossing with a fork until a ball forms. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1-1/2 hours. On a lightly floured surface, roll pastry into a 9-in. circle. Transfer to a foil-lined 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan.
2. In a bowl, combine the plums, 3 tablespoons sugar and flour. Place on the center of pastry. Bring edges of pastry over filling, leaving 3-1/2 in. of filling uncovered. Brush crust with egg white, then sprinkle with remaining sugar. Bake at 375 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until bubbly and crust is golden brown.

Gingerbread Man or Christmas Molasses Cookies

Ok, this is a delayed post cause was caught up with all the Christmas Celebration. 

Made another batch of Gingerbread cookies cause the previous one doesn't take as nice.  This time round, I manage to find another recipe and modified it a little myself and opmitted all the spices except ginger as I don't like spices. The cookies turns our beautifully and based on the feedback from my friends and kids, it tasted really good.  But the best of all, the dough is super easy to work with and it doesn't require me to put it in the fridge so I can work at it immediately.  I frosted the cookies with white chocolate (I just melted a bar of white chocolate over the microwave for 1 minute).

 

Here's the recipe:

Christmas Molasses Cookies

 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup dark molasses
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt 

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, cream sugar and butter.
2. Blend in orange juice and molasses.
3. Combine dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture and mix well.
4. Roll dough, a portion at a time, on a lightly floured surface to 1/4-in. thickness. Cut into desired shapes.
5. Place 2 in. apart on greased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-14 minutes. Cookies will be soft and chewy if baked 12 minutes; crunchy if baked longer.

Gingerbread Cookie with a hint of Orange

Personally not a fan of Gingerbread, but as the Christmas Season is coming, I thought I just have to try making some for the kids.  So, search the net and found this Gingerbread Cookies that include orange zest and decided to give it a try.  I replaced the corn syrup with Molasses to give it a more gingerbread taste. The final product turns out quite nice but I think I did not add enough ginger and orange, so the taste doesn't come out.  Next time, I'm going to put the amount according to the recipe instead of cutting it down.  I then iced the cookies using a mixture of egg white and icing sugar, the frosting was really easy to work with and it drys beautifully.  Add got my boy to help me put the m&ms for the buttons, he have a great time eating the m&ms.....Enjoy!

 

Gingerbread Cookies with a Hint of Orange

 

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 tablespoons orange zest
• 2 tablespoons dark corn syrup (I replace this with molasses)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I obmitted this as I hate the cinnamon smell)
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (I obmitted this)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

 Directions

1. Cream the butter and the sugar together. Add the egg and mix well. Mix in the orange peel and dark corn syrup. Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, ground cloves and salt, mixing until well combined. Chill dough for at least 2 hours, I like to chill overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough out to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 inch apart on the prepared cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are firm and lightly toasted on the edges.

 Royal Icing

 

Ingredients

• 2 egg whites
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

 

1. Beat egg whites in clean, large bowl with mixer at high speed until foamy (use only grade A clean, uncracked eggs). Gradually add sugar and extract. Beat at high speed until thickened.

NOTE: When dry, Royal Icing is very hard and resistant to damage that can occur during shipping/handling.

Breakfast Cheerio Cookies

I always find it really difficult to get my kids to eat their breakfast and ended up having loads and loads of different type of breakfast cereals in my fridge waiting to be thrown away. So I decided that I should do something to get rid of these cereals, search the web and found this Cheerio cookies from Food.com which is perfect to use up my Cheerio.  Beside being able to get rid of my Cheerio, the cookies was really healthy and can be served as breakfast since it contains oats and peanut butter and of course, my wholegrain Cheerios.  My boy loves it, I have to stop him from eating too much.  Here's the recipe:


Breakfast Cheerio Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup oatmeal
• 1 1/2 cups Cheerios toasted oat cereal
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup raisins 

 Directions

1. Mix the butter, both sugars, peanut butter, vanilla and eggs thoroughly.
2. Sift flour, salt, soda and baking powder. Fold into the first mixture.
3. Add oatmeal, Cheerios, cranberries and raisins.
4. Drop by tblsp onto ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Bake at 375° for 10-12 minutes.
6. I got 40 cookies , using a small cookie scoop that holds approximately 1 Tblsp dough.

Soft Bread in a cup

Brought Baby FAN to a shopping trip one day and a lady offered her a piece of home-made milk bread as a sample for the Bread Machine that she was selling and Baby FAN loves it.  So I thought, maybe I can try making a milk bread myself. Of course, I don't have a Bread Machine, the one that the lady was selling cost $300 plus, so I ended up kneading the bread with my bare hands for 15 minutes.  It was a really good work out for me...hi hi...

Well, here's how the bread turns out, I added some dry cranberries on top to make it looks more appealing.  The bread was really soft and just the right sweetness.  Going to served this for my breakfast tomorrow and see if the kids like it.

Soft Bread in a Cup Recipe
(modified from Do What I like)

Ingredients & Directions

• 310g Bread Flour
• 60g Self-raising Flour
• 40g Milk Powder
• 115ml Warmed Milk
• 20g Condensed Milk (about 1 tbs)
• 55g Castor Sugar
• 3g salt (I put about 1/4 tsp)
• 7g instant yeast (I put about 1 tsp)
• 1 egg + 2 egg yolk
• 40g butter (room temperature)
• Egg Glace - 1 egg lightly beaten with 1 tsp water

1. Sieve bread flour, self-raising flour, milk powder and salt into a large mixing bowl.
2. Mix warmed milk, condensed milk and sugar into a bowl, then sprinkle on it to form the yeast mixture.
3. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour the yeast mixture and eggs into the flour.
4. Mix till dough is formed and knead in the butter until you get a smooth  dough.
5. Proof dough for 50 minutes or until double in size.
6. Divide dough into 12 equal portion and put it into the greased muffin cups. Make 3 cut on the surface of the cup bread with a pair of floured sissors. Proof for another 50 minutes until double in size.
7. Put cranberries on the cup bread and glace it with the egg glace.
8. Bake cup bread in 190 deg cel preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until cooked.
9. Enjoy!

Wholemeal Pizza

Suddenly got the urge to make pizza and thought that it would be fun to get the kids involved in assembling it.  So, I plough through my stack of recipes and found this one that I used to make when SMALL FAN was a baby.  I top the pizza with ham and cheese for the kids, as well as pork floss and mayo.  I think the kids really enjoy putting the pork floss onto the pizza while eating it at the same time.  However, was really disappointed with how the pizza turn out.  The crust was ok, but the Regu pizza sauce doesn't have much taste and the mozzarella cheese I used was totally wrong.  I used the slice version and thought it would be easier, but the cheese doesn't melt like the normal mozzarella cheese ;(  My boy keep telling me he don't like the cheese....sigh....  I will probably make it again but this time round, going to just go for the traditional mozzarella cheese instead.

Here's how the pizza look inside

Kids enjoying themselves putting the toppings for the pizza.

Final product before baking.

Here's the recipe:

Wholemeal Pizza

Pizza Crust

• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups wholemeal flour
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Pizza Toppings

• Japanese Mayonnaise
• Pork Floss
• Pizza Sauce
• Ham Mozzarella Cheese

1.  In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the top, and let stand for about 10 minutes, until foamy.
2. Stir the olive oil and salt into the yeast mixture, then mix in the wholemeal flour and 1 cup of the all-purpose flour until dough starts to come together. Tip dough out onto a surface floured with the remaining all-purpose flour, and knead until all of the flour has been absorbed, and the ball of dough becomes smooth, about 10 minutes. Place dough in an oiled bowl, and turn to coat the surface. Cover loosely with a towel, and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
3. When the dough is doubled, tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and divide into 8 pieces for 8 thin one-person size crust. Form into a tight ball. Let rise for about 45 minutes, until doubled.
4. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Roll a ball of dough with a rolling pin until it will not stretch any further. Then, drape it over both of your fists, and gently pull the edges outward, while rotating the crust. When the circle has reached the desired size, place on a well oiled pizza pan. Spread pizza with mayonnaise, then sprinkle with pork floss or ham, and cheese.
5. Bake for 15 minutes (depending on thickness) in the preheated oven, until the crust is crisp and golden at the edges, and cheese is melted on the top.

Celebrate Teacher's Day with some Cranberries & Raisins Oatmeal Cookies

Teacher's Day is just round the corner, so I decided to get the kids involved in making some cookies for their teachers.  Search the net and found this very nice blog Mennonite Girls Can cook and the outrageous oatmeal cookies and I thought I just have to give it a try.  However, she uses a lot of oats and so little flour in her cookies, I was worried that the cookies will taste too oaty, so I went back to my favourite allrecipes.com and found this Cowboy cookies recipe and decided that I will combine these 2 recipes and make my own.  Here's the final recipes:

Cranberries & Raisins Oatmeal Cookies

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup packed brown sugar (I cut down the sugar as I prefer cookies that are less sweet. The original recipe called for 1 cup of brown sugar and 1 cup of white sugar) 
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups quick cooking oats
• 1/2 cup of dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup of raisin

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cream margarine, oil, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. Gradually stir in the sifted ingredients until well blended. Mix in oats, cranberries and raisins (note: I reserved  some of the raisins & cranberries for decoration later). Drop from a teaspoon onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Put the remaining raisins and cranberries on top of the batter. 
4. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in preheated oven, or until edges are golden. Let set up on the cookie sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.  

Waffle Donuts

I'm still in my quest for the perfect donut recipes as that's the only type of bread that my Baby FAN eat (beside ice-cream bread). So I just have to buy this waffle maker when I saw it on sale at NTUC, it allows me to make sandwiches, waffles and donuts. 

My Waffle Maker



So, I searh around the net for a recipe that calls for Donut Batter and uses donut maker but don't have much luck, stumble upon this one http://www.hungrybrowser.com/phaedrus/m031102.htm and decided that I should just give it a try. 

The Donut turns out really nice but it tasted more like a waffle then a donut.  But it actually tasted quite nice and was reall fun to eat since it's very small and cute.  My boy can eat 3 at a go.  I'm definitely going to use this recipe again but maybe next time I try using the waffle plate instead of the donut plate.

Here's how much donuts I have made with the recipe

This is the actual size of the small donut waffle

This is how the inside of the donut looks inside

 

Here's the recipe:

Donut Waffles

 

Ingredients n Directions:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 egg 
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 4 tbsp cooking oil
• 1/4 tsp salt

1. Stir dry ingredients together.
2. Add egg, vanilla, and milk and beat one minute with electric mixer or vigorously by hand. Add oil and beat one minute more. Add oil and beat one minute more.
3. Blend in the dry ingredients.
4. Preheat donut maker for 10 minutes. Pour batter into cavities in bottom of donut maker. close lid and bake for 5 minutes. Remove carefully with fork and place on grate or rack.
5. Makes 12 donuts.

Variations:

Any other extract may be substituted for the vanilla. You can also add 1/2 cup of nuts, raisins, or coconut to the batter. 1/2 cup chocolate chips may also be added. This is especially good if you add 1/4 teaspoon orange extract to the vanilla glaze.

Afternote:
I used this recipe to make waffles and it turns out quite nice and crispy.  Here's the final product.

Baked vs Fried Donuts

Baby FAN loves donuts, so instead of feeding her the really fattening storebought fried donuts, decided to try my hand at making it myself.  At least I can control the type of oil used to fry the donuts.  Was browsing the net for a good and easy recipe to use and stumble upon this site Secret Donut Recipe.  Followed the recipe step by step and was able to come out with quite a decent donut.  I fried half the batch and bake the other half a batch at 200 deg celsius for 8 minutes.  The donut turn out quite well actually although personally still feel that fried one taste nicer.  I will definitely make this donut again but going to bake all the next time, at least it's heathier (since less fat) and it's also less messy and I don't have left over oil that I dunno what to do with it.

Baked Donuts



Fried Donuts


Fried Donut vs Baked Donuts
 


Here's the recipe:

Yeast-rised Donuts
(1 dozen donuts)

 

Ingredients & Directions

• 2 cups of all purpose flour 
• 1/2 cup of warm mashed potatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of warm milk
• 5 teaspoons of yeast (2 packets) 
• 2 Tablespoons of oil

1. Microwave 1 cup of milk so that it is warm (not hot) add the 5 teaspoons of yeast (2 packets) and a pinch of sugar and stir. Let stand for about 5 minutes. 
2. In a bowl combine flour, mashed potatoes, salt and sugar.
3. In a separate bowl, add the milk mixture (from step 1) and oil.
4. Mix the dough well by hand or in a mixer with a dough hook for 3 minutes.
5. Prepare your kneading surface by spreading a few tablespoons of flour on a smooth surface.
6. Put the dough in the middle of the flour and sprinkle a little flour on top and on your hands. Knead the dough a few times.
7. Once the dough has been kneaded, spread it out to be a half inch thick with your hands or with a rolling pin. Cut out the donuts.
8. Place the donuts on a floured pan to let rise as you get the oil ready. Let them rise for a total of ten minutes (it takes about five minutes for the oil to heat up).
9. Pour about a half inch of oil (vegetable oil) into a cast iron pan. An electric fry pan works great also.
10. The oil needs to be about 360 degrees which on my stove is about Medium to Medium High. If the oil starts to smoke it is way too hot.Test the oil with some of the scraps of dough and when it is ready cook the donuts until golden brown on each side.
11. Allow the donuts to cool on a rack or on some paper so that the oil soaks off.
12. For the baked version, I actually let the donut raise for about 1 hour before baking it in a pre-heated oven at 200 deg celsius for 8 to 9 minutes.  I coated the donut with an egg wash before baking to give it a brownish tinct.  For baked donut, take the donut off the oven once the bottom of the donut turns brown, do not over baked or it will be hard.
13. Served donut with icing sugar or chocolate glaze coating.  Enjoy!

Pig Pancake with Ice Cream

Wanted to make waffles for the kids but my waffle maker suddenly went up in smoke, so I was left with some waffle battle.  Decided to try making pancake with the waffle battle using my newly bought pancake pan that I bought from Giant for $3.95.

The pancake looks great and it tasted quite good but the texture was a little too dense and hard.  I served it with ice-cream and the kids just gobble up.

Gingerbread Man Bread

SMALL FAN has been asking me bake cake with him and he was hoping to make some Gingerbread Man Cookies. However as the weather here was quite hot and cookies was too heaty to eat during this period, I decided to make him some Gingerbread Man Bread instead. It was a little messy as the dough turns out to be quite sticky, I think I never knead it long enough although I was perspiring all over after kneading the bread. SMALL FAN helped me to put the raisins. Here's the finish product.

GingerBread Man Bread/ Tortise Bread

Ingredients & Directions

• 1 (.25 ounce) package instant yeast
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F)
• 1/2 cup hot milk
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 egg
• 3 cups all-purpose flour (to increase the nutritional value of the bread - I added 1 tbs of soy flour, 1 tbs of wheat germ, 1 tbs of formula milk powder, 1/2 a cup of whole wheat flour and top up the rest with unbleached flour)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 tablespoon raisins for decorating

1. In a small mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. Heat the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Add the butter and stir until melted; let cool until lukewarm.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the yeast mixture with the cooled milk, butter, egg, 2 cups flour and salt; beat well to combine. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and supple, about 8 minutes. Cover dough and let rest for 10 minutes.
4. Divide dough into seven pieces. One round 2 inches in diameter, five rounds 1 inch in diameter and the remainder in one large round.
5. Place the large round on a lightly greased cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Shape four of the 1 inch rounds into 'feet' and one into a 'tail' for the turtle. Shape the two inch round into a 'head' for the turtle Attach each piece by flattening the end which attaches to the body, wetting it slightly with water and pinching it under the turtle's 'body'. Press raisins into the turtle's head for 'eyes'. For the Gingerbread Man, shape five 1 inch rounds for the feet and hands, and head and one 2 inch rounds for the body. Attach each piece by flattening the end and wetting it slightly with water. Press raisins into the eyes and buttons.
   
6. Cover the turtle/gingerbread man with as damp cloth and let rise for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
7. With a sharp knife, make crisscross cuts in the turtle's body to make the 'shell'. Finally, use a scissors to make a cut for the turtle's mouth. Bake at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Quick Bread Stick

Another finger food recipe that I manage to find in my Super Baby Food book. Baby FAN seems to like it alot, she can eat 2 at a go, rest for a while then eat another one. I served this for her as afternoon snack yummy...even my mum says it tasted quite good.

Quick Bread Stick

Ingredients & Directions
(makes 16 sticks)

• 1 cup of Super Flour (which includes 2 tbs of baby formula milk powder, 1 tbs of wheatgerm and top up with unbleached flour)
• 1/2 cup oat
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt to taste
• some Italian herbs seasoning mix
  
• 1 beaten egg
• 4 tbs melted better or oil
• 1/4 cup water

1. Mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately.
   
2. Make a well in the dry ingredients and mix in the wet ingredients until you form a dough. Add water if the dough is too dry and add flour if the dough is too wet.
3. Keep dividing dough until you have 16 balls. Roll into sticks about 1/2 inch in diameter.
4. After shaping, wel them in a mixture of one beated egg mixed with 2 tbs water and roll them in sesame seeds or wheat germ.
5. Place on greased baking sheet and bake in pre-heated oven (about 180 deg celsius) for 20 minutes until crisp and golden browned.
6. Store in air-tight container.
   

Lollipop Cookies

Was trying to find some interesting cake to bake to celebrate my mother's day, but ended finding this interesting play dough cookies. Was trying to get my boy to help making but ended up having to stop him from destroying my creation. It's actually quite easy to make and quite tasty. Really happy with the result.


Fun Cookie Suckers (or Playdough Cookies or Lollipop Cookies)
(original recipe here)

Ingredients and Directions

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 ounces cream cheese
• 1 cup white sugar (I used about just slightly more then 1/2 a cup and it's sweet enough)
  
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used unbleached flour and replaced 3/4 of the flour with wholemeal flour and 2 tbs of wheat germ just to add in some healthy stuff into the cookies)
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• assorted colors of paste food coloring
• 24 lollipop sticks (as I don't have lollipop stick, I used those disposable chopsticks instead, but think it's a tad too long)
  

1. In a bowl cream butter, cream cheese and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat until smooth
2. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir till soft dough forms. Divide dough into fourths. Tint each with a different food color. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Working with each color, shape dough into 3/4 inch balls. For each cookie place 1 pink, 1 green, 1 blue and 1 orange ball together to make 1 large rainbow colored ball. Shape into a 12 inch long roll (like a snake); starting at one end, coil roll to make a 2 3/4 inch round cookie. Place cookies 3 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Carefully insert lollipop sticks into bottoms of cookie
4. Bake cookies for 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and store in an airtight container.

Snail Pretzel

Suddenly in the mood to bake some bread, so decided to make some milk pretzel from my earlier post. Half way through making the pretzel shape, decided to make it into a snail shape instead, so here's the final product.

Making Sandwiches

Getting really tired of thinking of what to cook for SMALL FAN for his lunch, so decided to make some Egg Sandwiches for him instead. Well, since I'm making sandwiches, maybe I can get him to helped. Here's what we did:

SMALL FAN peeling the egg.

SMALL FAN mashing the egg.

SMALL FAN spreading the egg mixture onto the bread.

SMALL FAN putting the cheese onto the bread.

The final product.

SMALL FAN treating himself to his own creation.

What a fun and tasty meal.