White Chocolate, Almond and Vanilla Cookies...

Last year I received a gift from my very close friend seeing how passionately involved I was getting into my Job...as a Pastry Chef... It is a 3 Book Series...Cakes, Cookies and Cupcakes and each book has 500 Recipes..:-)...Love ya Wendy for the lovely gift...

I was initially excited to get the books because that means I had means to upteem number of recipes and I could try one each day..[or I planned too...what a Joke..:-D]...First few weeks every weekend I gave a try to one or two recipes at work...(I work on weekends :-( )...but as time passed...I just left the books aside in my Book Shelf because I got more busy at work for the regular stuff and had no time to work on new recipes...let alone my experiments...:-D

But this year I was asked by my Boss to work on some new Cookie or Biscuit recipes to update our Menu...I immediately opened up the Book of 500 Cookie recipes and browsed until I ended up with this recipe...When I tried them in a small batch at home...they worked very well and i took a Taste Sample to my Boss and she was equally happy and immediately included this on our menu....Believe me it is one of the easiest recipes I have ever worked on and we produce about 250 at a time at work...and the whole making the dough and weighing and baking takes a total of just 1 hr....for 250 biscuits thats a lot less time....when comapred to the 4 hours i spend on some other Biscuit varieties.

So now lets get into some serious Biscuit Baking Business...and I will leak this guarded recipe for all of you to enjoy...

Here Goes...

Ingredients:

• 125gms Unsalted Butter (softened to room temperature)
• 1 Cup Caster Sugar (Fine Grain White Sugar)
• 1 Egg (55-60 gms)
• 1tsp Vanilla Extract (or use Vanilla bean from the Vanilla Pods)
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 125gms White Chocolate Buttons
• 60gms Slivered Almonds(or Whole Almonds sliced up into thin slithers)
• 1+ 3/4 Cups of Self Raising Flour

Process:

1) Firstly Preheat oven to 180*C. Line a Baking tray with Baking Paper.

2) Then take the softened Butter and Sugar in a bowl and using a electric beater, beat(cream in professional terms) the mixture on a medium speed till pale and fluffy.

3) Then add the egg and vanilla and beat again till well mixed through. Donot over beat at this stage.

4) Sieve the SR Flour and Salt together into the above mixture and fold through using a spatula or spoon.

5) Then finally add the White Chocolate and Almonds and mix thru till well incorporated.

6) Make equal sized balls ( makes 20 to 25 depending on size) and place on the lined Baking Sheet atleast 5 cms Apart from each other because these spread a lot.

7) Bake initially for 10 minutes and then using the tip of your fingers flatten them slightly( very less pressure)

8) Continue baking for another 10 minutes till they get a light golden colour (to check if they are done the simple tip is you should be able to lift them easily without breaking them.)

9) Cool them and Serve.
10) When completely cold, these can be stored in an airtight container for atleast a week.

A simple but delicious Cookie recipe...and these can be made in advance for parties and can be taken as small token gifts to families you are visiting especially if they kids...and I promise they will love them...

Please Note: The Oven Types and Temperatures vary for each and everyone of us... So please bake them accordingly... If using a Fan-forced oven the temperature should reduced by 20*C (i.e 160*C). But the tip to check if your biscuits or cookies are done is given above so varying oven temperatures should not be a Problem...:-)

Image Source: My Phone Camera.

Recipe Source: 500 Cookies by Phillippa Vanstone

Hope you like this Recipe....Give it a Try and do let me Know..

Until Then...Happy Cooking :-)

Savoury Cheese Biscuits...

Recipe Origin and Background:
Baking is one of my passions...it was not from childhood but one that developed when i started experimenting some of the traditional recipes that i learnt mainly from my Mom..This passion almost became an obsession when we moved into our flat after I was married...I just started thinking of options to cook stuff using the oven that are sometimes time-saving but most importantly a very healthy option...

Once I started the patisserie course...I have learnt several tricks of a really good baked product be it general food stuff, snacks or cakes...both of us are not much of sweet persons (one hell of a contradiction to what i do...professionally cook sweet stuff all the time)...most my husbands day offs or free time are normally spent before the computer downloading something from the internet or cleaning up the system with his numerous anti-virus stuff...anyways this is the time he generally likes munching something...like nuts, crackers or jantikalu... one day I was brooding on wat munchable stuff I could make for his upcoming day off...and then I remembered an old time favourite my mom made for us as snacks when we were kids...CHEESE BISCUITS...(or they were called Cheese Bits by us..)...

My mom used to make them using Maida, Amul Cheese and bring it together with melted ghee...and then deep fry the bits in oil..A different version of the same recipe is used at work by adding 2 types of cheese and adding milk to make the dough smoother and easy to roll...so I combined the best of both recipe and came out with my own version of the bixies...and these are baked...my addition to this recipe is some flavourings...so here goes my recipe...

Ingredients:
1 Cup Grated Tasty Cheese (basically hard cheeses like Cheddar, Guyere etc)
1 Cup of Powdered Parmesan Cheese
2.5 Cups of Plain Flour(all purpose flour)
1/2 Cup of Full Cream Milk
240 gms of Unsalted Butter Salt and Pepper
Flavourings:
1/2 Cup of Pitted Kalamata Olives(chopped finely)
1/2 Cup of Sun-dried Tomatoes (chopped finely) Preparation

Process:
1. First add the Butter and the Cheese into a bowl and mix to combine them(if using an electric mixer then whisk on low speed for 1 or 2 mins to combine ingredients) to a creamy texture.

2. Then add the flour and salt&pepper and mix again till roughly combined. Then slowly while mixing add the milk.

3. If dough is sticky just add four to reduce the dampness. This is the basic dough for the cheese biscuits. Divide the mixture int 2 parts. and keep aside.

4. To one half of the mix add the finely chopped olives and mix thru till well combined. Mix thru the finely chopped semi dried tomates as well to the other half of the dough.

5. Then lightly flour the work surface you working on(just like how we do for chapatis before we roll them) and then roll the two kinds of dough into logs about 1cm(abut the size of a 1 Rupee coin) in diameter. The below picture illustrates that.

6. Line all the logs onto a lightly floured tray(to prevent from sticking). Refrigerate them for about 30 minutes to one hour to help firm up the dough.

7. Preheat your oven to 150*C. Line baking tray or cookie tray with baking paper.

8. Then bring out the rolled logs from the fridge and cut them into 1/2cm pieces.

8. Line them on the tray and bake them for 20-25 minutes or until you are able to lift one from tray without it sticky or until light golden brown. (picture above)

9. Allow to cool on a different tray. Once they are cooled store them in airtight containers and these biscuits last for 1 week to 10 days.

10. They are a good accompaniment to tea or coffee or as an indulgent snack.

Variations:If you dont like any of the above mentioned flavours you can use chives or roasted bell peppers or just herbs like rosemary, thyme etc.

Image Source: My Trusty Phone Camera

Recipe Source: My Brain (he he he...:-D)

Hope you like the recipe...do let me know how they work out ( if you try them out)...

Happy Cooking...:-)