Christmas Tree Cookie

Christmas brings about the spirit of giving. It is not only a celebration of the birth of Jesus, but the demonstration of God’s giving spirit. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

In the midst of this festive season, we have decided to give something home-baked to our friends. The idea of a Christmas Tree Cookie came about from a recent high tea visit with my friend. It is simple and yet pretty. The recipe below came from Exclusively Food, which I have tried several times and loved.

Ingredients:
220 grams of softened butter
80 grams of icing sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
300 grams of plain flour
About 2 teaspoons of plain flour (to flour the cutters)
1 packet of Queen Royal Icing

1. Beat butter, icing sugar and vanilla together until mixture is creamy.
2. Using a spoon or electric mixer/beaters on very low speed, incorporate the flour into the butter. mixture (don’t over-mix the dough). It is normal for the dough to be soft.
3. Cover dough with cling wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

4. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (150 degrees Celsius fan-forced).
5. Take half of the dough out from the fridge and form a round ball.
6. Place the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll it out to a thickness of 6mm.
7. Flour the cutters and cut it out into desired shape.

8. Bake cookies until they are a light golden colour on the edges. The baking time required will be influenced by the size of the cutter used. The Christmas Tree Cookies were baked for 15 minutes.
9. Cool cooked cookies on tray for five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
10. Decorate the cookies as desired with royal icing. I used a packet of Queen Royal Icing (330 grams of icing and 50 grams of water).

I doubled the recipe and made about 60 cookies. It was a fun gift and well suited for the season. Hope you have sorted out all your Christmas presents and baking. Enjoy this wonderful season!

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Blackforest Cake

For as long as I can remember, D has always wanted a cheese cake for his birthday. This year, he decided to break tradition and asked for a Blackforest cake instead. I have never made a Blackforest cake before, but decided to take up the challenge and started looking for good (and easy) recipe.

The only one that came to mind was the Masterchef Blackforest cake that we have been drooling over on TV. However, after reading through the ingredients list and steps, I have decided to search again for something ... erm .. more time efficient.

A girlfriend pointed me to a recipe at Taste.com which looked really easy and practical, so I decided to do that instead (with a bit of modification).

Ingredients:
1 Chocolate cake
670g jar of morello cherries
2 tablespoons castor sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour
600ml thickened cream
1 tablespoon of castor sugar
6-10 cherries with stem
Chocolate Rice or Chocolate Chips for decoration

Note: I use a packed of Greens chocolate cake mix for this recipe. Due to limited time, I divided the steps into multiple days. Of course, you can make this cake in one day, allowing time for the cake and cherries mix to cool.

Steps:
Day 1 - Cake
1. Bake the cake and cut it into 3 layers.

Day 2 – Cherries
2.  Place cherries and 160g of the juice in a saucepan with sugar and cornflour.
3. Stir over low heat until mixture boils. Transfer into a large bowl and leave it to cool. Cover with plastic wrap and store it in the fridge.

Day 3 – Cream and Assembly
4. Beat cream and castor sugar until firm peaks form.
5. Place the first layer of cake on the cake board.
6. Spread the cherries mixture and a thin layer of cream.

7. Repeat the cherries and cream mixture with the second layer.

8. Place the final layer on top.
9. Add some cream on top and spread evenly. I have decorated this with piped rosette, cherries and chocolate chips.

And the result was amazing! D was surprised to see that I could pull that off so beautifully. Oh no, does that mean that he’ll give me a harder challenge next year?


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