It’s been quite a time I haven’t cooked or baked anything to update this blog. I was too busy preparing my wedding and I just cooked simple dishes for meals.
In Vietnam, it is a tradition that the wife follows the husband when she gets married to him and the new couples stay in the same roof with the husband’s parents. This is usually a must if the husband is the oldest child as he does the responsibility of looking after the parents when they get older. Nowadays, unlike in the past, each family has only one or two children, and after years of working, parents are able to build or buy a house which is large enough to be lived by two or three generations. It is also a fact that young couples prefer living on their own so that they have more freedom. Some are well-off and they can buy a new house to live there right after their marriage, some are willing to rent a place. Either way has pros and cons. My parents-in-law wish to have us stay with them for the beginning so that we have a chance to know one another more, and to strengthen the family bonds.
In the first place I wanted to rent a house and we would live and work on our own. Then my husband persuaded me into living together with his family, who is also my family now, so that everyone gets to understand the others more. His biggest wish is that I can get along with his family and that I can feel like home when I stay here. So now, his family is my family. Everyday I cook in my mother-in-law’s kitchen and things are going on very fine.
Those are some words about my new life. My new family are very open about my baking. My parents and brother-in-law love my baking products in many ways, and they are often eager to my new baked goods. Now there are more people to try my baked stuffs, to give me more comments and feedback, to give me more reasons to be in the kitchen making something good.
I love lemon the very first time I made lemon tart. These lemon bars resemble lemon tart for the most part. This time I followed a new recipe in the Taste of Home magazine, with some changes to the ingredients.
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In Vietnam, we don’t have fennel but we have dill – a very similar tree with rather identical leaves as fennel except for the bulb. Dill is used very popularly in Vietnamese cooking. But fennel is still quite new. I have never tasted the fennel, so I really don’t know whether it tastes like the dill or not.
That why I was amazed to know that fennel seeds could be used in cooking and baking as well. This was my first experience with fennel seeds and my second trial with my cookie press. The cookies were perfect to our liking. They contained the chocolate taste and fragrance. Especially the fennel seeds created a very typical fragrance, but you can only feel that when chewing the cookie in your mouth. Very interesting with these cookies.
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I bought a cookie press not long ago and this was my first time to practise making cookies with it. It was a very interesting experience. Making the press-typed cookies with this tool was quite fast and clean as well. Just need to wash a few things after placing the cookies in the oven, and when you finish, the cookies may be ready.
Once again, I had to say "wow" with these cookies for their softness and crispiness. There was a funny cracking sound when I bit a cookie between my teeth. Yeah, of course with a small cookie like this one I could throw the whole thing into my mouth, yet I wanted to see the texture of it. The smell and taste of almonds were very strong and special. However, they were so fragile that needed to be handled with care, or they would be easily broken into pieces.
After keeping them in the air-tight container for a few days, they were still crunchy and soft. A good treat to our frequent visitors !
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I didn’t expect I would like to eat these cookies so much. When I was browsing my book of cookie recipes and stopped at this recipe, I just thought that I still had a bottle of molasses left in my pantry. So I decided to try this new cookie.
Since I used dark molasses, the dark color of the cookies reminded me of the gingerbread men cookies i made last year during for Christmas. That time I baked quite a lot of cookies for Christmas and I shared them with my friends as Christmas gifts, so it was unbelievable that I ate only one gingerbread cookie after they were taken out of the oven and I tried one to see whether the taste was good or not.
This time making these cookies, I can eat more of these very crispy cookies. The taste and flavor of molasses are the strongest of all. If you like molasses, I bet you will love these cookies too. After storing the cookies for several days, they were still very crispy and still tasted freshly. I am totally satisfied with this recipe. It was even better that I could share some of these wonderful treats with our frequent visitors 
I made these cookies with heart shape and round shapes. You can choose whatever shape you want. And you can use light molasses instead of dark molasses.
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This is a kind of rolled and cut out cookies. I only can make cookies of this kind on cool days after heavy rains and the temperature drops. Otherwise, I will encounter a lot of difficulties rolling and cutting out the cookies in this hot weather.
It is quite simple to make these cookies. I like it since the cookies themselves are not too sweet and they are crispy. Moreover, the less sweet taste of the cookies is compensated by the glaze. However, to reduce the sweetness even more, I used only two-third of the sugar required and I made the glaze thinner. The cookies like this would taste better for my family.
However, most of these cookies were shared by my friends, who came over my home for a weekend lunch. I was glad to see they welcome my cookies and fill them in plastic bags to take home for office’s tea time in the following week. I like baking, but I always need friends to help me clear out my baking stuffs while they are still good and that I can try other new recipes more often. This is always a little happiness of mine.
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The cookies are crispy with fragrant orange flavor. The raisins add little chewy texture to the cookies as well.
These are really perfect to enjoy as a breakfast with a glass of fresh milk or as a cookie for tea break. I love to eat these while watching movies at a pleasant night.
Ingredients (makes about 25)
- 200g (1 1/3 cup) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 125g (1/2 cup) butter, softened
- 90g sugar
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 1/2 tsp vanila
- 120g (2/3 cup) raisin
- 1 tbs grated orange zest
Methods:
- Preheat the oven to 190C. Line the cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
- With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar at high speed until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla, beat until just combined.
- Fold in the flour mixture, then the raisin and orange zest.
- Drop tablespoons of the batter, or shape with your hands into flat round cookies. Place on the baking sheets, leaving about 1” apart.
- Bake 12-15 minutes until the cookies are golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking tray for few minutes before transfering to cool completely on wire rack.
After baking some lady fingers, I processed them to make crumbs, which were used to make the base for this cheesecake. I just had a party at home and one of my friend brought along a bottle of Baileys liqueur but we couldn’t finish it. That’s how I got the idea of making this cheesecake to make use of the chocolate flavor of the liqueur.
I like both cheesecake and tiramisu, so this cheesecake with the combination of the two flavors can satisfy me well.
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I made these cookies for my tiramisu cheesecake. Last time when I made my first tiramisu, I forgot to take the photos. So this time I remembered to capture the moment after they were freshly out of the oven, before I broke them into pieces to make the cheesecake.
I am bad at handling the piping bag, and without the pan or mould to make lady fingers, this is how my products look like. They were not as thick as I wanted, though they were still crispy and soft. I only sprinkled a very thin layer of icing sugar over the cookies before baking them, so the cookies were not too sweet, as usual.
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