Easter Cookie Cups

These Easter cookie cups are made with a cup of peanut butter,  caster  sugar, brown sugar, shortening, a teaspoon of salt and vanilla, two eggs, a quarter cup of milk, three and a half cups of flour and couple teaspoons of baking soda. You start by creaming the first four ingredients with salt and vanilla. Once the  mixture is well blended, the eggs are added. The flour mixture is added last. The  dough is rolled  into a log and cut into pieces of equal weight (30 g each). Each piece is placed into a well-greased muffin tin. To help mold the dough into the muffin tin, the dough is pressed with a fondant rolling pin to make indent into each scoop. The cookies are baked at 350F for 10-15 minutes. They are cooled completely before decorating.

Post-holiday Eggnog Snickerdoodles Treat

Before the holiday fuss died down, I used up all the leftover eggnog to make post-holiday treats for the resort's nightly turn down service. I did a repeat on some treats I served last year but here's the new addition to my list of delicious eggnog recipes.

Gingerbread Stars

I don't mind going the extra mile . It's Christmas season and I thought of treating the resort's guests to some Christmas spirit with these gingerbread stars.  I was thinking of  a Christmas tree or a gingerbread man but all I could find was a star cutter. I could have ordered the cutters but waiting for them to arrive would set me back. 

These were the trimmings of the gingerbread house. I doubled the recipe in case I made  mistakes but luckily enough I managed to make the gingerbread house with no hassle. I used the remaining dough to make enough treats for our in-house guests. I had spare butter cream after decorating the Christmas cake so I opted to use it instead of royal icing. It was good all the same.

Sprinkles Cookies

Being a baker gives me a chance to unleash my creativity.  I have discovered ways to hone  my baking skills and develop my artistry. It is not easy given my prior career but the repetitive work helps me tackle whatever issues I come across with.

As for turn down treats, I find it challenging to think of  what to serve our in-house guests.  Cookies are well- loved so I am not crossing it off yet from the list of my daily turn down treats.  Making a cookie with the same stuffing could be boring so I came up with the idea of changing the stuffing every now and then. I did some trial and after getting the result I was looking for, I decided to use similar  recipes but add different stuffing in the batter to achieve a new look, taste and texture.

Oatmeal In A Cookie

I like variety. I make sure I serve assortment of yummy treats each night to the resort's in-house guests. I don't want to bore them with the same thing. Just recently,  I did a repeat on cupcakes and served them alternately with cookies, cakes and chocolate. Here's the newest addition to my long list of turn down treats.

M & Ms Cookies - The Trials

I wanted to serve colorful goodies for the resort's turn down service. M & Ms cookie came to mind. I hadn't had a chance to make something vibrant before. I browsed through online gallery and searched for recipes to get a picture of how it was done. There were hundreds of them. I could not decide which way to go. The only way to get a good result was to do a trial run before giving it a final go. So I did. Just thinking how they would turn out got me excited.

Raisin Cookies

I peeked into Stephanie Jaworski's Joy Of Baking webpage to look for another cookie recipe for the resort's nightly turn down treat and found this. These raisin-packed cookies are soft and chewy. They make a great snack so anyone can enjoy them with a cup of tea or coffee or even with milk before bedtime.

Grandma Sophie's Butter Cookies

I was browsing through Google images to get some ideas for my daily turndown service treats. I found a cookie recipe that was fairly easy and quick  to make.  It was featured in Chicago Tribune and called Grandmother Sophie's Butter Cookies.

Placing a chocolate chip or pecan in the middle of the dough before baking is optional. I like the idea of putting  chocolate chip in the middle. It adds a style to the plain cookie. Note that the cookie is so fragile that it breaks easily. I had to work slowly and be very careful putting each cookie into a muffin liner. (It's for individual serving)

Eggnog Square Cookie

It's  now February but here I am making another eggnog baked goodies again. The good news is I am down with the  last bottle of the holiday flavor.  Finally!  I am glad all of the seven bottles were put to good use. Instead of the usual panna cotta, I settled on making a cookie. Well it's actually  a cross between a cookie and a cake. I was surprised at how fantastic they turned out.  I decided to add more eggnog and the extra added flavor made the cookies more flavorful, super soft with cake-like texture. I opted to bake it square for a change and to save time as well. (Not that I am lazy but I had to do double amounts of work before I take my day off)

So if you still have the holiday nog sitting in your fridge, why not make them into these delicious treats.

Chocolate Chip and Walnut Cookie

Cookie is something I don't make often. It's been ages since I baked my last so I felt a little intimidated making these. When I baked the first batch, they turned hard and crispy. They were still good but dry. Not the result I was aiming. I must have cooked them past the baking time or the batter I put  was too little. I don't have ice cream scoop to use so the amount I put on the greased pan was just an estimation. I took a more careful approach with the second batch by sticking to the baking time and dropping a bigger spoonful of batter on the cookie sheet . They came out nicely browned, crispy edges but chewy in the inside. So good! Stay tuned for more cookie adventure in the future.

Muesli Cookie

It's nice to have a break from eating not-so-healthy stuff. Here is something healthy-ish for a change - a delicious muesli cookie overloaded with oats, nuts and dried fruit. It is sweetened with honey so you get a sweet yet delicate taste. It is  a good source of fiber too.  Have it for breakfast  or as a quick snack or enjoy it with milk before you retire for the night.

Gingerbread Treats

A week before Christmas break, my sister and her colleagues at NIVA International Kindergarten made an agreement to include their students in their gift-giving. Each teacher picked a day when she would want to give her gifts. My sister picked the last day before the break. When she got home, she asked me to help her decide what to give. I convinced her to give something with a touch of Christmas. After some minutes of discussion, we settled on Gingerbread Christmas Tree cookie.

I combined 2 pounds of flour, 4 teaspoons of ground ginger, 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg and 4 teaspoons of baking soda. I sifted them together into a large bowl. I placed the butter, syrup/honey and sugar over low heat and stirred the mixture until the butter melted. I poured the mixture into the dry ingredients, added the eggs and mixed them with a wooden spoon until a dough was formed. On a lightly floured surface, I kneaded the dough for a bit and rolled it out until 3 mm thick. I stamped out Christmas tree shape with my cookie cutter and baked them at 160 degrees Celcius for 15-20 minutes or just until lightly browned.

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 Ready to bake...


After cooling them for a few minutes, I dipped the top side of the cookie in a melted dark chocolate and used royal icing to pipe the border. I arranged them in a cookie sheet , covered them with cling film and chilled for a day before packing.

50 plastic boxes of Gingerbread and marshmallow treats were packed! They turned out well. The kids loved them!