Snow and Snowflake Cookies!

It's been snowing and how!! Munich looks so beautiful covered by a blanket of snow. It's picture perfect.

Also, perfect weather to go out to the beautiful, colourful Christmas markets. Almost every neighborhood has its own Christmas market, some are small, some are big, but what is really common is the festive atmosphere. 

One can smell Christmas in the air. The local sweets, Christstollen (German fruit n nut cake), Lebkuchen (German ginger bread), Baumkuchen etc and not to forget the Ghühwein ( Mulled Wine) combined with berries, apples... A cup of Glühwein in the Christmas market to beat this very chilly weather is a treat.

This recipe is taken from a German Christmas baking book. It's called Schneeflöckchen literal translation in English is Snowflakes. I think this is the best time to bake these cookies. I can see the beautiful and soft snow flakes from my kitchen window and also in my kitchen Oven :-)

Ingredients

250 grams - unsalted butter at room temperature
100 grams - castor sugar
2 - vanilla beans, split and seeds scraped
120 grams - all purpose flour / weizenmehl 405
250 grams - cornstarch / speisestärke
100 grams - castor sugar to sprinkle over the cookies

Method

1. Beat the 100 grams of castor sugar, soft butter and vanilla seeds together into a fluffy paste.
2. Add the cornstarch and the flour to the butter mixture and knead into a smooth dough. Divide the dough into 3 parts and form rolls with a 3cms diameter. Keep the rolls in the fridge for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C and line a baking tray with a baking paper. 
4. Take out the rolls from the refrigerator, cut each roll into 20 pieces, roll each piece into a ball and flatten it slightly and give a fork impression on the center of each cookie and place them on the lined baking tray, spaced well apart.
5. Place the tray in the centre of the preheated oven and bake approx for 12-15 minutes. 
6. Transfer the cookies on a wire rack to cool completely and then sprinkle the castor sugar over the cookies.

Makes - 60 cookies

Enjoy!

Chocolate Coconut Cinnamon Cookies

Whenever I am upset or in a foul mood, I eat chocolate and it makes me happy and when I am happy, I make a chocolate dish :-) It's something like a virtuous circle.

After a long wait and struggle and putting in a lot of effort, a problem I had been facing for some time now saw a ray of sunshine and it definitely makes me ecstatic. I wanted to share my joy with you all and baked these flavourful, scrumptious cookies. They are awfully easy to bake and taste simply great.

The smell that emanates from the oven, still wafting through the apartment, as I am writing with a big smile on my face now :-) Go and indulge in some happiness!

Ingredients

1/2 cup - all purpose flour (maida)

1/8 tsp - baking powder

a generous pinch of bicarbonate of soda

a pinch of salt

1 tbsp - dessicated coconut

1/2 tbsp - dark cocoa powder

a generous pinch of cinnamon powder

handful of dark chocolate chips

3 tbsp - sugar

4 tbsp - sunflower oil

1/8 cup - low fat milk

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and line a baking tray with a baking paper.
2. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
3. In another bowl, mix together the oil and milk.
4. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the liquid mixture. Do not overmix.
5. Scoop up 1 tbsp of the mixture and shape into balls. Place them on the lined tray, spread well apart, and flatten them slightly.
6. Place the tray in the center of the oven and bake for approx 12-13 minutes.
7. Leave to cool in the baking tray for a couple of minutes minutes, then transfer the cookies to the wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Cinnamon Christmas Cookies

This time around, inspired by the christmas spirit and by the lovely smells of the season, I baked a whole lot of cookies. My hubby and I decided, rather than the two of us eat up all of them and get fat - he takes some to his office and I would give some to my friends.So after finishing the daily chores, I finally got the time in the evening, after dinner, when my hubby was lost reading a book and I was in the cookie dough :-)

By the time, I finished baking these, it was past midnight. Actually, I like baking in the night, after finishing the rest of the work, that's when I can concentrate best. I do not have to think about anything else, do not have to attend phone calls, which is generally when I tend to lose the track of time.

Before packing the cookies in their respective boxes, I tasted one and was really happy with the outcome, I could have easily had a few more, but resisted the temptation. Actually, I did not want my friends to have less, you see ;-)

This recipe is adapted from the Weihnachts Bäckerei, a German recipe book that I borrowed from a friend.

These cookies were so good that I have been already asked to make them again. Now that definitely is a good sign, isn't it? :-)

Ingredients

50 grams - chocolate 70%, finely grated
250 grams - all purpose flour (maida)
100 grams - blanched almond powder
100 grams - castor sugar
175 grams - cold butter
2 tbsp - milk
1 tsp - cinnamon powder

1 tbsp - cocoa powder

1 tsp - dried ginger powder (saunth)
a pinch of salt

For rolling -  1 tbsp cocoa powder + 4 tbsp vanilla sugar, mixed together in a bowl

Method

1. Mix together the flour, almond powder, castor sugar, cinnamon powder, dried ginger powder, salt, cocoa powder and finely grated chocolate in a bowl.
2. Add the small pieces of cold butter and the milk into the flour mix and rub together with the fingers until it forms itself into a dough.
3. Make 2 rolls out of the dough. Cover the rolls with plastic wraps and let them chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C and line a baking tray with a baking paper.
5. Take out the dough from the refrigerator, remove the plastic wrap, cut the rolls into small pieces, flatten each piece slightly, give a slight fork impression on the center of each cookie(optional) and place them on a lined baking tray.
6. Place the tray in the center of the preheated oven and bake for 15 - 18 minutes.
7. Take out the tray from the oven and immediately roll each cookie in the cocoa-vanilla sugar mixture and place them on a wire rack to cool completely before storing.

Enjoy!

Spelt Shortbread

For me, cooking and baking is a stress buster, it really helps me to keep my calm. A little while ago, I was really in a foul mood, so bad, that, my head was hurting me. I thought, if I don't do something, this bad day could turn into a very bad day. 

So, of course, I went into the kitchen. Took out the baking tray, whole wheat flour (aata), all purpose flour (maida), baking powder, sugar, oil and even butter (which I normally do not use much in my baking) but, then without doing anything, I left the kitchen, went to the study, turned on the computer, thought this would help. I started organising the desktop, deleting unwanted mails, when suddenly my eyes fell on an email from my friend with the subject "Shortbread". I opened it, read it, went to the kitchen and started making it. While making it, believe me, I did not for once think about what happened a while ago, and got busy making the shortbread.

Thanks to this good friend of mine, who gave me this recipe, I was back to normal that day. Oh, by the way, the smell that emanates from the oven, when this lovely shortbread is being baked, definitely made me very happy :-)

Ingredients

125 gram - spelt flour (you can also make it with maida instead of spelt flour)

50 gram - cornflour

15 gram - semolina (suji)

125 gram - butter unsalted at room temperature

70 gram - sugar

a pinch of salt

castor sugar (optional)

Method

1. Add the sugar and the butter to a bowl and mix well with your hands.
2. Add the semolina, cornflour, spelt flour (you can also use maida instead of spelt flour) and salt in another bowl and mix.
3. Add the flour mixture, a little at a time and mix in with the butter, by the end, you will get a soft dough. 
4. Put the dough in a small rectangular baking tray and press the dough, with the palm of your hand and level it using an inverted small flat botommed bowl or cup (I used a stainless stell bowl). Alternately, you can also roll out the dough using a rolling pin and transfer the rolled out dough on to a baking tray. (the former method is quicker and fuss-free)
5. Using a knife, cut to the size you wish to have. (My shortbread pieces were 2.5 cm wide and 5 cms long). Don't forget to prick the dough with a fork.
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 160 degrees C for 38-40 minutes. 
7. Let the tray rest in the oven for 2 minutes, take out the tray and immediately, cut again where you cut previously to seperate the biscuits and prevent breaking. 
8. Sprinkle a little castor sugar on the top of the shortbread and let it cool completely before storing it an air tight container. 

Enjoy!

Triple Chocolate Cookies

I hadn't made cookies for a long long time and was longing for something sweet - so what better than not once not twice but three times chocolate? Needless to say, I just fell in love with these cookies, and my husband did too, and so did a neighbor we shared them with.

The white chocolate was especially for my hubby, and the dark especially for me - even though in the end, both of us enjoyed both the white and dark chocolates immensely. Which of course was evident by the fact that the cookies were gone in record time and there was the usual argument as to who ate more :-)

So hope you like them as much as we did!

Ingredients

1 cup - whole wheat flour

4 tbsp - low fat milk

4 tbsp - buttermilk

4 1/2 tbsp - muscovado sugar (more or less)

5 tbsp - sunflower oil

2 tsp - cocoa powder

1/2 tsp - baking powder

50 grams - dark chocolate, rougly chopped

50 grams - white chocolate, roughly chopped

a pinch of salt

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree C and line a baking tray.
2. Place together the flour, white chocolate, dark chocolate, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
3. In another bowl, mix together the milk, buttermilk, sugar and oil.
4. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the liquid mixture. Do not overmix.
5. Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 15 minutes.
6. Scoop up 1 tbsp of the mixture and shape into balls. Place them on the lined tray, spread well apart, and flatten them slightly.
7. Place the tray in the center of the oven and bake for approx 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool in the baking tray for 2-3 minutes, then transfer the cookies to the wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Chocolate Hazelnut Cream Biscuits

...and back after a rather long period of time to my favourite - chocolate!

Apart form being a big fan of chocolate, I am a big biscuit lover. My normal breakfast is a couple of biscuits with a glass of milk, and I love trying out all varieties of biscuits. And what I love even more than normal biscuits are cream filled ones - but am sometimes put off by the amount of butter and cream used (as in the original idea for this recipe which I got from a magazine - dont remember which one). So, here is a recipe with no butter, and very little cream. 

These were made for a group of children - and were a big hit with them. 

Ingredients

115 grams - all purpose flour

2 tbsp - cocoa powder sweetened

5 tbsp - sunflower oil

3 tbsp - sugar

4 tbsp - low fat milk

For the filling 

120 gram - plain chocolate, roughly chopped

2 tsp - cream

4 tbsp - hazelnuts, finely crushed

a few tsp of cocoa powder (sweetened), to sprinkle on the cookies (optional)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degree C and line a baking tray.
2. Mix together the flour and cocoa powder in a bowl.
3. In another bowl, mix together the oil, milk and sugar.
4. Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and mix to form a dough.
5. Roll out the dough and cut into rounds with the help of a cookie cutter and place on the baking tray.
6. Place the tray in the centre of the preheated oven and bake until done (sorry, I didn't note down the exact baking time)
7. Let the cookies cool on the baking tray for a couple of minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Meanwhile, place the chocolate and cream on a double boiler and mix until the chocolate melts completely.
9. Add finely crushed hazelnuts and mix well.
10. Scoop up approx 1 tbsp of chcolate mixture and roll them into balls and flatten them gently and sandwich the biscuits with the chocolate cream. (this step has to be done a little quickly so that its easy to make the sandwich, without breaking the biscuits)
11. Sprinkle the cocoa powder and serve.

Enjoy!

Almond Pistachio Cookies with Saffron Icing

We had invited a couple of friends over for dinner yesterday, and, for a change, the men had the pleasure of cooking, while the women had to make do with the consolation prize of spreading out on the couch and watching a movie. The food was delicious, but the kitchen was left a complete and utter mess.

So, after spending half the night cleaning up, my kitchen looked again like "my" kitchen. And to celebrate the spring cleaning, I made these cookies today. As I have mentioned in a previous post, saffron is my absolute favourite spice. It combines very well with Almonds and Pistachios, the flavor as well as the colour. 

Ingredients 

140 gram - whole wheat flour (atta)

5 tbsp - sunflower oil

7 tbsp - low fat milk

6 tbsp - muscovado sugar / castor sugar

1/4 tsp - vanilla essence

1/4 cup - almonds, blanched and sliced thinly

1/4 cup - pistachio, coarsely powdered

1/4 tsp - bicarbonate of soda

a pinch of salt

Icing - 2 1/2 tbsp castor sugar, a few drops of warm milk and a few strands of saffron.  (mix everything together)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degree C and line a baking tray.
2. Mix together the oil, milk, sugar and vanilla essence in a bowl.
3. In another bowl, mix together the flour, almond slices pistachio, salt and bicaarbonate of soda.
4. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and add the liquid mixture and mix lightly with a wooden spoon. Do not overmix.
5. Scoop 1 tsp of the mixture and roll into balls. Place them on the lined baking tray, spaced well apart and flatten slightly.
6. Place the tray in the centre of the oven and bake for about 8-10 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of a cookie, comes out clean.
7. Let the cookies cool in the tray for 5 minutes and then transfer them on a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Drizzle the icing on the cookies. Leave to set.

Makes 15 cookies

These Cookies were ready in a jiffy, looked pretty, and were an absolute melt in the mouth...

These Cookies goes to Sara's Cakes and Cookies Event

and to Mahimaa's Kitchen Cakes and Cookies Event.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Vanilla Cookies with dried Strawberries and Raisins

I was out yesterday shopping around for a birthday gift for my husband. I found something nice, and, of course, wanted it gift wrapped. There was a long long queue at the gift wrapping counter - full of laughing, merrry, joyful people with their christmas shopping. Just seeing them and the spirit of merriment and joy made me so happy...So, in the spirit of the season, today's recipe is a Christmas Cookie a la me.

The typical smells of Christmas include cinnamon - among many other spices. And another favourite ingredient for christmas goodies are raisins. These Cookies combine cinnamon and raisins with the evergreen duo of vanilla and strawberry. 

Ingredients                

140 gram - all purpose flour

4 tbsp - sunflower oil

2 tbsp - honey

7 tbsp - low fat milk

1/2 tsp - vanilla extract/essence

1 tsp - cinnamom powder

3 tbsp - dried sweet strawberries

2 tbsp - raisins

1/2 tsp - bicarbonate of soda

a pinch of salt

approx 1 tbsp powdered sugar to sprinkle on the cookies

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degree C and line the baking tray with a baking paper.
2. Place the oil, honey milk and vanilla extract/essence in a bowl and mix well.
3. In another bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, dried strawberries, raisins, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
4. Pour the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and mix lightly so that everything just comes together. Do not overmix.
5. Scoop up 1 tbsp of the mixture and roll them into balls and place them on the lined baking tray keeping sufficient distance between each.
6. Place the tray in the centre of the preheated oven and bake for approx 7- 8 minutes.
7. Leave to cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely and then sprinkle some powdered sugar over the cookies

Serves 15 cookies

 Enjoy!

Bournvita Marshmallow Cookies

This post is dedicated to Bournvita. Yes, you read it right...the reason why I made these cookies today were my fond childhood memories of Bournvita.

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother what will I be? Will I be pretty, Will I be rich .....Sorry but thats another story, back to ours...

When I was just a little girl, I would gorge on chocolates, biscuits...and bournvita. Just the plain good old powder. My cousin and I would not only have milk with bournvita thrice a day (we were addicted to both milk and bournvita. I still am!), but also secretly eat bournvita powder direct from the jar. We must have emptied quite a number of bournvita jars before, one fine afternoon, my mom inevitably caught us both and we got a good scolding...but that didnt decrease our love for Bounvita, after a couple of days, wie yielded again to temptation and were back to square one.


I have been thinking about this cute little incident since the morning and with these fond memories, decided to bake these bournvita cookies. I am more than happy with the outcome – I am gonna bake them again soon.

Ingredients                                  

8 tbsp - whole wheat flour

4 tbsp - sunflower oil

3 tbsp - bournvita

1 tbsp - cocoa powder (unsweetened)

1/4 tsp - bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tbsp - hazelnuts, finely crushed 

1/2 tbsp - chocolate chips

1 tbsp - muscovado sugar (low sugar version...use 3-4 tbsp for normal sweetness) 

1 tbsp - honey

5 tbsp - low fat milk

1/4 tsp - vanilla essence

8 pieces - mini marshmallows 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degree C and line the baking tray with a baking paper.
2. Place the flour, cocoa powder, bournvita, bicarbonate of soda, hazelnuts, choco chips in a bowl and mix.
3. In another bowl, mix together the milk, oil, vanilla essence, honey and sugar.
4. Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and mix lightly with a wooden spoon. Do not overmix
5. Place a spoon full of the mixture on the lined baking tray keeping sufficient distance between each.
6. Place the tray in the centre of the preheated oven and bake for about 8 - 10 minutes.
7. Take out the tray and make a hollow in the centre of each cookie, with a handle of a spoon.
8. Fill the hollows with the mini marshmallows and return back the baking tray in the oven for about 30- 45 seconds or until the marshmallows has softened.
9. Leave to cool the cookies in the baking tray for 5 minutes, then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes  7 cookies

The cookies are soft and mildly sweet... and obviously  bournvita makes these cookies a hit:)

Hope you like them too.

Enjoy!