Cheesy Bak Kwa Cookie

Do you have this problem: After the whole CNY is over, you still have a lot of CNY goodies left behind.  You get a bit sick of eating them cos that is what you have been eating the whole of CNY at every house you go visit. I know I do.. I still have a pile of CNY goodies at home waiting for me to pound some calories into my body.. And most of them were not even bought by us, they were given by friends and relatives just like most of us. After a while, the goodies are not as tasting as it was in the start of CNY. 

One Sunday, I looked at the bak kwa that was still lying on my table screaming to eat me. I decided to bake it instead. Then I remembered about the Bacon Parmesan Cookies I made the last time, and I thought to myself, what if I used bak kwa instead of bacon? What will the taste be like? So I went ahead to bake them..

Bak Kwa with cheese cookie.. What y'all think about it?

Ingredients (Makes about 90 cookies)

1. ½ cup of Unsalted Butter at room temperature
2. ¾ cup of Shredded Parmiggiano Reggiano
3. 1 Tbsp of Raw Sugar
4. 2 Eggs
5. 3 bak kwa diced into small squares
6. 1 ¼ cups of All Purpose Flour
7. ½ tsp of Baking Soda
8. ½ Tsp of Baking Powder
9. ¼ Tsp of Salt

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 190C and place some parchment paper on a couple baking sheets, set aside
2. In a small bowl, combine together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside
3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, parmigginao regginano and brown sugar. Add the eggs and mix until you have a creamy mixture
4. Add the dry mixture and mix to combine. Fold in the bak kwa bits.
5. Using a cookie scoop, drop the cookies on the parchment line baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 14 minute or until golden brown
6. Cool for 5 min and serve warm. 

Picture of the cookies right after it is out of the over.. Piping hot!!

Nice?

Packed and ready to be eaten :)

I realise that it is better if you serve them warm then let it cool completely. The melted cheese in the warm cookie has a great aroma and soft texture. I left it overnight and took a bite cold, the cookie just did not taste as nice as it was when it was first out of the oven. 

Hope you like this cookie. Happy CNY :D

Vanilla Malt Cupcakes + Hello Kitty Overload Birthday Celebration

Baby G had her 1st birthday and Mama G. asked me to make cupcakes for Baby G. Her request: Any cupcake is good, as long as it is tasty. She just wants a Hello Kitty themed cupcakes. Hah. No Problem..

So I started searching for recipe. I knew this cupcake will end up very sweet. I anticipated lots of fondant for the hello kitty, so I wanted something with a simple taste.. Nothing too complex in terms of texture. But I did not want just plain Vanilla cupcake. I searched the web and found Cupcake Project's Vanilla Malt Cupcake. It was perfect, a simple texture yet something different from your normal type of cupcake.


For the recipe:
Makes 16:

¾ cup sugar
½ cup malted milk powder (I used Ovaltine)
1 ¾ cups cake flour, not self-rising
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temperature
¾ cup whole milk

Instructions:

1. Preheat Oven to 180 degree C. and line your cupcake tray with liners. 
2. In a bowl, mixed in the flour, baking powder, soda, salt and malt powder. Set Aside. 
3. Using your stand alone mixer (with paddler attachment) or handheld mixer, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and light. Add in the vanilla extract.
4. Add in the eggs into the butter mixture and mixed till smooth 
5. To the mixture, slowly add in the dry ingredients and milk. (I used half flour --> half milk, continue until all in mixed) Ensure you do not over mix your batter, else you will have a hard bread like texture. 
6. Bake the cupcake for 20 minutes or till your toothpick comes out clean when you insert it in the middle. 

For the frosting, I decided to go all Vanilla as well. I decided to use Vanilla paste frosting. I thought it will turn out too sweet but surprisingly the taste is something that even for a person like me who do not like anything sweet to actually say it was okay. Amazing. Again, I adapted the recipe from Cupcake Project's Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting Recipe. Wells, some recipe calls to use the actual bean but I prefer to use paste. 

For the recipe: 

Enough for 12 cupcakes

1 1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted (add more until it reaches your preferred consistency)

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste (add more to taste)

1 tablespoon of milk (I did not add it on my recipe - Singapore weather too hot. Milk will turn bad plus frosting melts more readily with our temperature)

Steps: 

1. In your standalone mixer or handheld electric mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy
2. Add in the vanilla bean paste and until well mixed. Mix for a minute or so. 
3. Add the sifted icing sugar 1/2 a cup at a time. Be careful the mixer is at low speed
4. You may want to add milk if you find the consistency too thick. 

Note: I used SCS butter, not because they paid me to say so but because I realise that other butter that is sold in Singapore tends to melt faster than SCS and given our weather they melting process is accelerated exponentially. 

My masterpiece.. I think it looks like clouds.. So fluffy and light. Smells delicious too.. 

Vanilla Malt Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream frosting. So Yummy~~~

Clouds in my kitchen 

How course, the first batch was just to test water. Could not wait till the actual baking day to try a new recipe. So of course I used the first batch to try ways to include a Hello Kitty theme to my cupcakes. First thought was to make a Hello Kitty fondant something like this:

Picture from Solid Recipe

But I did not have black & yellow colouring so I improvised and it became this:

Fusion Pink Hello Kitty. 

Mama G saw this and say too fusion pink! Haha. I also say.. So weird right. Complete Failure. Plus the fondant melted after 24 hours. It just looked horrible and it was too sweet. The fondant is OMG sweet to the max. This is not the standard Drama Mama B. has. NG!

Was about to give up doing something hello kitty and resorting to just using paper cupcake toppers that Mama G. bought:

But CANNOT! 过不了自己那一关. Ha. Meaning I cannot let myself go for such sub-standard cupcakes. 

So I decided to bake cookies - Hello Kitty Cookies. At least there is some Hello Kitty stuff that I can proudly say I made by hand.  I must be crazy, but I think I baked like 70 of them. 

Hello Kitty Sugar Cookies

I will have another blog on my Hello Kitty Cookies. Please stay tune for that :) The flooding of the royal icing nearly killed me to the max. 

Final Product

Cupcake with Hello Kitty Cookie on top. I coloured the frosting pink. The whole theme was pink. 

The end product with the hello kitty 2-tiered cake that Mama G. ordered. 

Happy Birthday Baby G!