The Perfect X'mas Cookies

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! :D Here's wishing you guys a very belated Merry Xmas. December has just come and gone in practically the blink of an eye! It's been a tiring, busy busy month but you know what? It's been punctuated with so many fun moments - lots and lots of GOOD FOOD with friends and family... as much baking as I could sneak into my schedule without feeling overly guilty about not spending that same time studying...meeting up with people who've come back from overseas for holidays...and just feeling Xmassy and happy all round whenever I look at the decorations at Orchard Road or listen to the Xmas songs that are on a loop at the supermarket whenever I hop in for grocery shopping. :D It's all the small things that add up to a nice Christmassy feel. Can't quite believe that it's over already :( BUT on the bright side, there are many more Christmasses to look forward to AND one can never stay too sad about the passing of Xmas and the New Year because there's always Chinese New Year to look forward to! In fact, I wouldn't mind celebrating as many holidays as possible because then there'd always be something to look forward to. One of the things I love most about SG would have to be the number of public holidays contributed by the different racial groups. Moaaaarrr please. 

This year I had a nice long list of things I wanted to bake during the Xmas season and I'm proud to say that I managed quite a number of them! :D If you must know, the list included things like:
- ginger snaps 
- gingerbread men 
- strawberry linzer cookies 
- matcha shortbread cookies 
- regular shortbread cookies 
- christmas stollen 
- christmas cake 
- cranberry and pistachio biscotti 

HMM now that I look through it, I only managed about half the list. I'll have to try the other half next year. I must say though that the verdict I've reached for this year is that the perfect Xmas cookies to bake are... SHORTBREAD COOKIES! For so many reasons -- 1. Who doesn't love and CRISPY, BUTTERY piece of shortbread cookie? It's one of my favourites! 2. The dough can be chilled and then rolled out to be cut in so many different shapes and sizes. 3. You can alter the flavour slightly by adding melted chocolate ;p yumyum 4. They are incredibly easy to decorate; in fact, they are kinda like basic sugar cookies except richer. In that way, you can add sprinkles, granulated sugar, layer frosting on top... the works. Here's what I did this year:



Ta-dah! :) It's a mini shortbread cookie Xmas tree! I ended up giving this to my Secret Santee (if there's such a word) as part of her present but it's pretty good to bake for any Xmas party as an edible piece of decoration.




With the actual Xmas tree in the background... (Yeah, no real big tree for my family. ;p This mini one was from Muji and I quite adore it. Except for the fact that it was messily decorated with random ornaments I scrounged up from past Xmasses.)

AND, another way that you can jazz up these shortbread cookies which I seriously like:



Drizzling them with melted chocolate! :D This was the first time I tried it out and though it was rather messy, I like how it turned out semi-artistic...in a rather haphazard manner.



HERE'S the recipe for the shortbread cookies! It's almost the same one that I used for THESE MATCHA COOKIES awhile back but I had to edit the portion regarding the flour because it was really getting out of hand with the original proportions (way too little in my opinion).

CLASSIC SHORTBREAD COOKIES :D (adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini)

Ingredients: 
- 100 grams of good-quality butter, softened (add 1/4 teaspoon of salt if you use unsalted butter) 
- 50 grams of confectioner's sugar 
- 1 egg yolk 
- 1 and 1/2 cups to 1 and 3/4 cups of flour (as long as you get dough that is not sticky and easy to shape into a round disk to chill in the fridge) 
- 40 grams finely ground almonds 
- 2 tablespoons sugar, preferably an unrefined cane sugar in coarse crystals, such as turbinado or demerara for sprinkling on top (optional)

1. In a medium mixing-bowl, cream together the butter and confectioner's sugar with a spatula. Add the egg yolk and mix it in thoroughly.

2. In another bowl, combine the flour, salt and ground almonds and stir with a whisk to remove any lumps. Add to the first bowl and stir it in until the mixture comes together to form a ball; don't overwork the dough. Lightly shape the dough into a ball. Wrap in cling film and place in the freezer to firm up for 40 minutes (or in the fridge for 2 hours).

3. Preheat the oven to 180° C (360° F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll out the dough on a well-floured surface till about 1/4 inch thick (it's easier to remove from the cookie cutter if it's thicker), adding flour to firm up the dough when necessary. Cut out your cookies with desired cookie cutter and place on parchment paper, about 1.2 inch apart.

4. Slip into the oven and bake for 12 minutes, or until the cookies just begin to turn golden at the edges. Let rest for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

For the drizzled chocolate effect: It's really simple! Roughly estimate how much chocolate you'd like on your cookies. Since for the pattern I wanted I just needed a teeny bit of melted chocolate on each cookie, I didn't need to melt very much chocolate. I'd say start with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips/bars and either microwave them (around 1 min for 1 ounce) or heat them over a water bath (bain-marie) until they're melted nicely. Let cool down for awhile till lukewarm (or whatever you're able to handle holding in a ziplock/piping bag) and then pour melted chocolate into a ziplock bag with a tiny portion cut off at the tip. Squeeze the melted chocolate out onto the cookies and just drizzle back and forth. Be sure to line the base of the cookies with baking paper so that it's not too messy! :) Then leave to cool.

Psst, just incase you missed it the first time...



:)

xoxo

weekend bliss

I know, it's been awhile. I have a feeling it's going to be like this for the next few months as schoolwork gets busier and the final exams loom ever closer. But, in the meantime while I still can, I've been trying to fit in some baking, some photography and a teeny bit of photo-editing when I feel up to it. It can be so tiring! But they make all the difference to photos, that's for sure. Here are some photos I took on one of those relaxing weekends in Montreal. Nothing I liked better than to take my time walking all over the place, camera in tow. There were so many beautiful streets there. From the architecture (remember how I mentioned they have those apartments with the staircases that go all the way up to the second floor from the street level? I never got tired of looking at them!), to the quaint accents that personalised individual apartments, to the gorgeous flowers and trees lining the streets... It's such a beautiful, charming city. Ok, 'nuff talking, more photos. :) 







I know, 3 photos of the same exterior? :D (In fact it was probably 10 of them) I couldn't help it. I was so in love with this apartment and the flowers outside! 









I honestly, for the life of me, cannot remember if I've posted this photo on my blog before because I'm pretty sure I've showed it to my friends or whoever is a dog-lover. :D This little adorable thing was just staring out at the streets on the balcony and when I passed by, I couldn't help but want to take a memorable photo of it. This one was excruciating to take because it took me at LEAST 5 minutes of squeaking, "HEY DOGGY!! DOGGYYYYY!!", before it finally deigned to turn its head in the general direction of the camera. Go figure.

--

In other news, I finally replaced my cracked, weather-beaten iPhone 4 with an iPhone 5. :D Majorly happy and now the photos I take with the iPhone just seem so much clearer. Looking forward to taking more shots with Instagram (yesss I'm addicted) and seeing the results.

Home-cooked: Matcha Shortbread Cookies

Here's presenting to you... my attempt at Matcha Shortbread Cookies! :) 



Recently I've gotten into a bit of a Matcha craze. I've always loved green tea (especially with soy milk!) but my love for it was catapulted to a whole new level after I visited Nana's Green Tea Cafe at JCube and had probably the best Green Tea Latte in my life. It was probably a combination of factors that made that drink so perfect. Firstly, I noticed that the owner of the cafe was Japanese, which automatically makes all of the green tea drinks legit by association ;). Next, the green tea latte that came out had just the right amount of bitterness. I hate drinks that are overly sweet/sweetened so this one was just right. Added to the fact that it was a quiet cafe in the late afternoon with a really cozy ambiance and that each sip of warm latte was lifting layers of worry and anxiety (school...work...life...what's new? just a lame bunch of first world problems) off my back, I came to the conclusion that it was a perfect cup of green tea latte that was perfect for the occasion. 

(Here's my little Instagram shot.)

Nana's Green Tea Cafe is at JCube (really near Franc Franc! 2 good reasons to go there even though it's all the way in the West ;p) and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you check it out. It has such a huge array of Green Tea drinks and desserts that are absolutely mouth-watering. They are a little on the pricey side but for some good quality Japanese tea and desserts, I'd say it's well worth the splurge. (Hopefully I'll do a proper post about that place soon.)

So back to the post proper, I decided to try baking some Matcha Shortbread Cookies or Sablés. I got the recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini , another cooking site that I'm eager to trawl through over the next few weeks. It's easy enough to make and I like how they turned out with the flower shaped cookie cutters. :D

Slightly adapted recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini
Matcha Shortbread Cookies (Very slight changes made here!)

- 100 grams of good-quality butter, softened (add 1/4 teaspoon of salt if you use unsalted butter) 
- 50 grams (6 tablespoons) of confectioner's sugar 
- 1 egg yolk 
- 90 grams (3/4 cup) flour 
- 40 grams (6 tablespoons) finely ground almonds 
- 2 teaspoons matcha powder (I bought mine at NTUC and it's called Uji Matcha. You can check out Evan's Kitchen Ramblings for more info about where to buy matcha powder in SG. :) 
- 2 tablespoons sugar, preferably an unrefined cane sugar in coarse crystals, such as turbinado or demerara

1. In a medium mixing-bowl, cream together the butter and confectioner's sugar with a spatula. Add the egg yolk and mix it in thoroughly.

(I actually prefer using an electric mixer to cream the butter and confectioner's sugar together! When I used a wooden spoon the first time round, there were chunks of sugar that ended up unmixed which I only discovered at the end when I was shaping the dough. Bit late then. It's probably because confectioner's sugar tends to clump together by nature of its texture so it also needs a fair bit of sifting to separate the grains out.)



2. In another bowl, combine the flour, ground almonds, and matcha, and stir with a whisk to remove any lump. Add to the first bowl and stir it in until the mixture comes together to form a ball; don't overwork the dough. Lightly shape the dough into a ball. Wrap in cling film and place in the freezer to firm up for 40 minutes (or in the fridge for 2 hours).



At this point, the mixture was really kind of moist so I'm not too sure how you're supposed to roll it into a log without adding a decent amount of flour to it. What I did was that I just placed the moist ball into cling wrap and let it harden in the fridge for about 1 hour. After that, I still needed to add about 1/4 - 1/2 cup of flour for ease of rolling it out.



3. Preheat the oven to 180° C (360° F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll out the dough on a well-floured surface till about 1/4 inch thick (it's easier to remove from the cookie cutter if it's thicker), adding flour to firm up the dough when necessary. Cut out your cookies with desired cookie cutter and place on parchment paper, about 1 inch apart.

 

For me, instead of rolling it into a log and cut using a knife as in the original recipe, I decided to roll it flat and use cookie cutters. Perhaps it has to do with Singapore being an extremely humid place, because after awhile the dough started getting awfully soft and moist, making it difficult to cut out with the cookie cutters. I ended up having to chill the dough a bit longer in the fridge. So I guess just go by whatever is easier for you - you can chill it longer or add more flour to make it less moist.



For extra crunch and added sweetness, I sprinkled the sugar on top of the cookies. They definitely help to offset the slight bitterness of the matcha flavor if you decide to add more matcha powder.

4. Slip into the oven and bake for 12 minutes, or until the cookies just begin to turn golden at the edges. Let rest for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a rack to cool completely.



Ta-dah! :) I love how these turned out. Slightly brown at the edges and a nice pale shade of green in the center. Perfect with some actual green tea too, as my friends rightly pointed out. I'm so glad these turned out really tasty because they're the perfect treats for green tea lovers. Give them a go? And let me know how they turn out if you do. 

xoxo

Snippets from Paris

Finally, finally... I've started editing my Paris photos. :) I have a feeling I'll be bouncing back and forth between the Paris and Montreal ones (because I think I'm still just about halfway through with the Montreal photos. I did take a lot of photos when I was there.) but at least I'm getting started! The boy has been pestering me about our Paris photos so after listening to one too many reminders, I decided it's about time I got started on at least a handful. And it helps that this weekend is more relaxing too. :) I was able to bake Citrus cookies and a loaf of Japanese milk bread that I must say I'm pretty proud of. But a separate post for that soon!













This is just a teaser but when I look through the photos, I can only think, gosh, Paris is just so damn gorgeous. Especially the most ordinary of things/places/scenes, at moments when you least expect such beauty, it's there. -- Looking forward to sleeping today. I've never loved weekends more. Don't you just love the feeling of waking up in the morning and then, knowing that you don't need to get out of bed, you rest your head on your pillow, snuggle in deeper beneath your comforters and think to yourself, I looooove this feeling? That's me on weekends. xoxo

Montreal's Best: Fitz and Follwell

One of the absolute highlights of my Montreal trip? Going on bicycle tours held by the amazing people of Fitz & Follwell Co. :D Montreal is such a bicycle-friendly city - there are Bixi bicycles available for rent every other street corner; tons of bicycle lanes (which is pretty much non-existent in Singapore, thus my enthusiasm when I first found out about it) covering a substantial portion of the city, and pretty much all the students cycle around to and from the universities. At least it seemed that way. So when I happened to walk by the Fitz & Follwell store, not only was I taken in by the very cool interior decor and extremely friendly staff (yeah, they actually remember your name ;p), but I was totally psyched when I heard that they would be holding all sorts of bicycle tours when Spring arrived. I ended up going on two - Montreal Highlights, and Hoods & Hidden Gems. Both of which are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I think I took more photos on the tours but these were the few that I could scrounge up for now. :)



It's great that the tours are suitable for cyclists of all levels. I'm pretty much a novice rider (and surprisingly enough, only fell ONCE. Every time I managed to stop my bicycle successfully at a traffic light without falling off was a pleasant surprise. I blame it on the very high bicycles that just weren't built for a midget like me. -_-;;) but it was still incredibly enjoyable. There was one guy from London who probably cycles everywhere as a hobby and actually brought along his own extremely funky Brompton bicycle that was FOLDABLE. If it weren't so expensive and if S'pore had a couple more bicycle lanes, I might want to get something like that one day. :) You can just stow it in its case and carry it on the plane easily!  



The guy second from the left was the tour guide Martin. He is just PLAIN AWESOME. :D Extremely warm and friendly, knowledgeable about Montreal, speaks great English (you know someone has a real mastery of the language when they can  naturally pepper their speech with so many humorous jokes) and was just a great tour guide all in all. He happened to be the tour guide for both tours and if you manage to get him as your guide, you're in for a really enjoyable tour. :)


Here's a point we stopped at along the Lachine Canal which is a beaaaauuuutiful cycling path along one of the canals in Montreal. 



Lunch at Atwater Marche. Yummy pizza and a drink of your choice. Nothing but hot chocolate for me because it was coooooold that day. Remember, I was there in like March. 





The resident dog of Fitz & Follwell. Can't remember her name but she was a real calm sweetie. 

Look at all the incredible tours they have. Would you believe they even conduct FOOD TOURS in the summer? I felt like dying when I realized that they would only be conducting them in the summer and I was leaving right before that. Montreal is already a haven for foodies based on guide book recommendations but with actual locals leading the way and the chance to work off those extra calories along the way? YES PLEASE. 

Fitz & Follwell Co. 

115 Avenue du Mont-Royal West, 

Montreal, QC, H2T 2S9 

(514) 840-0739 

Remember, going on one of these bicycle tours is an absolute MUST if you're ever in Montreal. It's such a warm, welcoming store that you'll want to keep going back in there if only for the cosy atmosphere and warmth of the staff and store owners. :)

short, easy words like "what about lunch?"

Hello, most-perfect-7-layered-pancake-I've-come-across-in-my-life-that-comes-complete-with-a-generous-mound-of-all-my-favorite-berries. :)

 

Ohhhh yeah. Doesn't that look insanely good? IT WAS. This was actually taken agesss ago when my friends and I (we've labelled ourselves The Brunch Club which sounds rather affectionate eh? But it's really just to mask our true colours -- that we're all just a bunch of gluttons who can't get up before 11am on a weekend!) decided to venture out to this fantastic restaurant called Barracks @ Dempsey (so named because apparently it used to be British military barracks; not that you would be able to tell from looking, because it's been renovated so well) for brunch one sunny Saturday morning. The dish in the above picture is the 7 layer Pancake,which, if you haven't already gotten the cravings for, will bring you down to your knees based on sheer looks alone. Coupled with the very generous helpings of blueberries/strawberries/pistachios/apricots/raisins jammed pack in between the layers of soft, fluffy pancakes, it's PURE BLISS I tell you, PURE BLISS. :) Probably the best pancakes I've eaten...ever. And really because I just love the combination of pancakes with summer berries. It's also probably the one thing I might be able to try making for myself one day since it's just a matter of getting the ingredients and artfully displaying them on a plate with homemade pancakes...BUT, I'm not really going to try that anytime soon because once I start making them at home, it means I have the ability to prepare AND eat all that pretty much every weekend...or every day for that matter if I give in to my cravings. So it's good to save some things for outside dining.

(Oh, but I guess an actual 7 layered pancake would be too good to be true. ;p Incase you haven't noticed, it's really only 1/4 of 7 layers. HMMPH.) 



Funky newsletter-style menu. That's one of the things I love about this place -- unique aesthetics (which includes the interiors of the restroom!). 





Eggs benedict! :) I'd love to learn to cook these one day. But after watching that scene in Julie & Julia in which she uses up about a dozen eggs... Not quite on my priority list of things to do. 



The Oregon Salmon Hash was a real winner! Warm, hearty mixture of salmon chunks, potatoes, chives, sour cream... all in perfect proportions of course. I remember really liking this and licking it clean to the base.



Squid ink pizza. I know it's supposed to be one of the dishes the Skinny Pizza franchise is famous for but I'm more of a traditional, good ol' plain crust pizza kinda gal. What you see on your plate definitely plays a huge role in how you make sense of it and appreciate its flavors. (i.e, looking down at my slice of blackened crust pizza, I had a hard time reminding myself that I wasn't eating some form of hardened ash. ;p True story.) 



Calzones always look better than they taste, in my opinion. I just like how they look like GIANT curry puffs. :D

Now on to the desserts! 



Rumbaba rum-baba...cha-cha-cha! That name just sounds awfully catchy doesn't it? I'm not the biggest fan of this cake that really just tastes like a sponge cake soaked to the brim with rum. But my alcoholic friends with good alcohol tolerance really swear by this baby. 





This was probably a chocolate and banana cake. :) 

So, I'm pretty sure we didn't eat ALL of that in one sitting...............

I'm quite certain. These must be photos from two separate occasions lumped together. It's not possible that we were able to scruff down ALL THAT FOOD. O_O Or did we? 

Barracks @ Dempsey 

8D DEMPSEY RD 

SINGAPORE 249672 

T +65 64757787

Whatever the case, Barracks @ Dempsey is definitely one of my favorite brunch places to go to in the entire SG. There are only a number of drawbacks and these are probably the main reasons why I've only gone about twice in the past year or so:

1. It's hard to get to this place without a car. That's the way Dempsey is built. -_- Which is annoying but it's part of the nature of that place - an enclave with tons of awesome, mostly expensive restaurants that, if it were more accessible, would definitely be overrun by people at nights and on weekends, making the experience not so enjoyable. 
2. It's kinda...pricey. But that's the case with most Dempsey restaurants. I'd say, give this place a shot and you won't regret it though. Save up for a few weeks or go there when you decide you want a treat. 

In a nutshell, it's perfect for: 

- first dates (thumbs up to any guy who brings a girl for brunch here!! :D)
- a date with close friends 
- a morning/afternoon/night of indulgence
- reminding yourself of the sheer JOY that GOOD FOOD can bring 




To end off the post, here's a shot of the mug my friend had bought for me from her trip to China. Very loosely translated from Chinese, it means, "EAT WELL, SLEEP EVERYDAY". :) I can't think of a better motto for life, eh? 

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Recently it seems that my blog has morphed more into a food blog with occasional outfit shot posts... I'd really initially envisioned it to cover more topics that these two ;p but most of the time when I do get to go out/enjoy some free time, the only things that are picture-worthy are when I go out for meals. Hence all the food shots. Asian-style. 

I do want to share more things like clothing collections from my favorite labels/designers...or photos of interiors that are gorgeous and inspirational...or more things related to design... but those things do take time to put together. And unfortunately, I guess work/studies are always going to have to take the upperhand when it comes to deciding what to with my free time. I'm hoping it won't be that way after I graduate though. We'll see. 

But in the meantime, I shall get back to editing more of my travel photos. AND, another thing I shall start doing a little more of is sharing some of my favorite quotes. Today I just realized how incredibly touching Winnie the Pooh quotes can be! A. A. Milne, the author, writes in a way that is so simple and perfect for kids, yet pregnant with meaning that probably only older children/adults can decipher. Just happened to read some quotes online today and here's one for the road:

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?” 

 ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh 

xx 

Strangers' Reunion

Always happy to discover new places that I LOVE. :)





Strangers' Reunion is now one my new favorite cafes. Tucked away along the stretch of shophouses lining Kampong Bahru road, I find it hard to believe that I never knew this place was there all this time. I went in there during a weekday for lunch with my mum (don't you love days off from school/work?) and it's a very small, cozy place with people coming and going (and always forgetting to close the front door). 





A cafe with decent cappuccino art automatically scores brownie points with me! :) 



Ohhh this was my favorite. Buttermilk waffle with berries, banana slices and a hefty scoop of vanilla ice cream. MMMM. Maybe it's the buttermilk but this waffle was just extremely light and fluffy, yet crispy at the edges. Makes me want to try making waffles for myself. :D 



Roasted pork baguette - a unique twist on roasted pork that's normally eaten with rice and other meats. The baguette was excellent and crispy. Only qualm I had was that the roasted pork is a little hard to bite into easily especially when eaten with the baguette. It would've been easier if the pork was softer/the baguette less thick and crispy. Individually they were good but when combined, didn't quite make for an easy eat. 



Left: I LOVE the clever way they hung these tiny flower vases all over the cafe. :D Isn't it charming? There are so many aspects of their interior decor that inspired me and make me want to do something similar with my own apartment next time. Ohhhh so many things I wanna do with my future apartment. 


Right: Perfect place for a quiet afternoon cuppa. 

Strangers' Reunion

37 Kampong Bahru Road, Singapore 

Tel: +65 9368 3610 

Opening Hours Mon–Sun: 9am – 10pm (Closed on Tue) 

 I should definitely try one of their coffees the next time. Two-time national Barista Champ is no mean feat! 

(dress: GAP, cardigan: Need Supply, Bag: Melie Bianco)

 

In a nutshell, Strangers' Reunion is just a great place for a peaceful afternoon alone with a book/thoughts/cup of coffee or tea/with friends. I love discovering a new place in SG that I'd love to go back to. It's also because SG's such a small place, there's the tendency for the prevailing sentiment of youngsters towards the city to be that of boredom. But really, there are tons of great places around the corner if we look hard enough. 


Ok enough with that sentimental diatribe. Next time for sure, I'm ordering COFFEE.