Mia Bakes: Oreo White Rabbit Double Chocolate Cookies

It was a random day when I randomly thought, "it's been a long while since I've last baked some chocolate cookies..." and so a casual google search brought me over to cookiemadness.net and before I knew it, I was reading up a recipe for a subway copycat double chocolate cookie. 

But then, I wanted to use up the remaining 1/3 bag of my green banana flour, and the pack of not-very-nice chocolate peanut butter oreo cookies I've picked up from Sheng Shiong supermarket, which has gone stale in the packet. So, what would happen if I were to replace part of the plain flour with green banana flour, I wonder? Let's find out, shall we?

To get 14 to 18 large cookies, you'll need: 

100g plain flour
50g green banana flour 
40g unsweeten cocoa powder
115g unsalted butter, soften
80g brown sugar
50g castor sugar (I used stevia blend)
1 egg    
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
14/ tsp salt
80g white rabbit candy
80g oreo biscuits
20g oreo biscuit crumbs
30g dark chocolate chunks

First up, chop up your white rabbit candies and lightly crush up your oreo cookies with your hands into large chunks (I did 5 to 6 pieces per cookie and realised I could have left them much chunkier). Set the aside. I've used the pre-packaged oreo cookie crumbs for the extra 20g of crumbs, but if you can't find it in stores, you can go ahead and crush up more cookies (no filling!) into fine crumbs, or simply leave them out. 

In a clean bowl, cream the soften butter and sugars together with a wooden spoon or spatula until quite pale and fluffy (you need not go crazy beating in tons of air with a handheld mixer). Then, mix in your egg and vanilla extract until well combined. Sift in the dry ingredients (if you're lazy, just sift the cocoa powder like I did) and fold until you're left with a few pockets of dry flours before folding in the candies/cookies chunks and crumbs/chocolate chunks until everything is just combined. 

There's no need to chill the dough as it'll be quite stiff (though still rather sticky), but you can definitely wrap them up in cling wrap and freeze them for up to a few weeks so there's no need to bake them all off at the same time. 

So with slightly oiled hands and a 1/4 cup measuring spoon sprayed down with some non-stick cooking spray, scoop up 1/4 cupfuls of the cookie dough and place them onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. The cookies DO NOT spread much, so make sure that you pat them down flat on the baking sheet and just leave 1.5 to 2 inch of space in between them. 

Then send them to bake in an oven pre-heated to 175 degrees Celsius (lower by 10 if on fan) for about 10 to 12 minutes. 

As you can see, I was expecting the cookies to spread out quite a bit and flatten into "subway copycats", but it didn't happen. 

One even started puking melted white rabbit candy towards the end of 10 minutes.... But I can't deny that they smelled so good when baking!

These cookies turned out thick, crumbly and cakey. But packs a punch of sweet flavours from the chewy white rabbit candy, oreo biscuits and dark chocolate chunks. 

Not exactly gooey (I baked mine for full 12 minutes, so if you prefer a gooey, underbaked centre, do go for just 10 minutes), but definitely yummy!

Till then,

Mia Foo

Continue

Mia Bakes: Chocolate Lava Salted Caramel Chips Cookie

Well, guess what? It's LAVA COOKIES, Y'ALL!

Came across the salted caramel chips while randomly browsing the baking aisle at the supermarket and just decided to pick it up without much thought initially. Hahaha, and since I've bought it, I gotta use it right? 

So yup, let's make some salted caramel chips cookies with a chocolate lava centre then!

To make roughly 20 cookies, you'll need:

125g plain flour

60g soften unsalted butter

100g brown sugar
(I've used 35g baking stevia + 30g brown sugar)

1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
(omit if you're using salted butter)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 small/medium egg
90g salted caramel chips
20 cubes of your favourite dark chocolate
I used 70% dark chocolate, feel free to use milk chocolate or even white chocolate if you fancy them.

First up, cream your butter and sugar together until the mixture turns light and fluffy, then beat in your egg and vanilla extract until well combined. Sift in all your dry ingredients and fold until almost combined before folding in the salted caramel chips.

Your batter should be only very slightly sticky, but still easily pliable. Do add in some more flour along the way if you feel that your batter is too runny. Or else you'll have problems wrapping the chocolate cubes in!

Then, wrap up your batter in cling wrap and leave it to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour for it to firm up.

After the cookie dough has firmed up, take it out from the fridge and start wrapping your chocolate cubes into 1 heaping tablespoon of dough (I weighed mine and they're about 32 - 35g each). Feel free to pop them back into the fridge if you find that they've gone too soft to work with easily.

Then, place your chocolate-centre cookie dough balls on a baking sheet, spaced 2" apart and bake them at 190 degree Celsius for about 10 to 12 minutes. Keep a watchful eye on them at the 10th minute, they should just be slightly browned at the side and still pale in the centre!

When they're done, they will still be quite fragile, so do be extra careful when transferring them over to a cooling rack. These cookies are best eaten warm, so do not leave them to cool completely before tucking in!

Otherwise, you may also heat the cooled leftover cookies slightly in the microwave for perhaps 30 to 60 seconds to get the chocolate centre molten again before eating!

Look at that molten dark chocolate centre! Best #cheatdayeat ever!

Till then,

Mia Foo

Continue

Mia Bakes: Chocolate Wholegrain Buckwheat Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Well, I do notice that I've been doing lots of baking recipe posts these days. But these buckwheat cookies shan't wait because my 3/4 full pack of wholegrain buckwheat flour is waiting to go bad if I don't do something about it soon enough. Wanted to try some buckwheat bread and decided that I didn't like the flavour it gives my bread, so some chocolate cookies it shall be! 

To make 13 (1 tbsp) cookies, you'll need:

63g wholegrain buckwheat flour

10g unsweeten cocoa powder

10g corn flour

30g unsalted butter

63g (chopped) dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa)

60g castor sugar (I uses stevia)

1 medium egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 baking soda

75g peanut butter chips 

First, melt your dark chocolates over a double boiler and leave to a side to cool. Cream your butter and sugar (it won't cream very well because of the ratio, just make sure it's well combined) before beating in the egg. Make sure your melted chocolate is cool enough before adding it into the egg mixture, and then mix in the vanilla extract. 

Sift in your dry ingredients and mix until almost fully combined before mixing in your peanut butter chips until just combined. 

To get thicker cookies, chill your dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes before dropping tablespoonful of dough onto your baking sheet. Space them about 1.5 to 2 inches apart as they do spread a bit. If you'll prefer a thinner and bigger cookie, skip the chilling part. But do space them further apart as they will spread a lot more.

Bake at 180 degree Celsius for about 9 to 11 minutes (depending on your oven). 

These cookies are slightly crisp on the outside, and crumbly/cakey on the inside. The "double chocolate" flavour (cocoa powder and melted chocolate) has successfully masked the distinctive buckwheat flavour while not making the cookies overly sweet. 

Best of all, they're wholegrain, albeit NOT a low calorie food. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

Continue

Mia Bakes: Cocoa Nibs Crunchy Cookies

Okay, I promise this shall be the last baking post I'll do for this year. And the reason for this bake post is because of two new 'babies' I've bought on iherb.

Raw cacao sweet nibs to replace our sugar (and fat) laden chocolate chips.

And a 1:1 sugarless sugar replacement that supposedly bakes and tastes exactly like sugar. 

I've previously baked 1 batch of chocolate chip cookies following their 1:1 replacement instruction and also using semi-sweet hershey's chocolate chips and the result was... SUPER SWEET. 

So my advice to you is, do not follow the 1:1 replacement instruction. Start low, with about 50% reduction and then slowly work your way up if it's not sweet enough for you. 

So now, let's get over the ingredients so we can get started:

For 15 (1 tbps-sized) cookies, 

60g unsalted (soften) butter

100g AP flour

10g potato starch

(you may sub with corn flour/starch)

15g top flour

(you may sub with cake flour)

1/2 tbsp honey 

(you may replace this with milk and increase your sugars)

25g brown sugar

25g baking sugar substitute (sugarless sugar)

(you may use castor sugar)

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg (small to medium size)

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 & 1/4 tsp baking powder (or 1/2 tsp baking soda) 

1/4 cup organic raw cocoa sweet nibs

(you may use normal chocolate chips)

You can get the sugarless sugar, cocoa nibs and other ingredients I've used HERE.

The baking procedure is basic and standard. First up, cream your soften butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. Beat in your egg, honey and vanilla extract until well combined. Sift in all your dry ingredients and fold until just combined before adding in your cocoa nibs and folding your batter until the nibs are evenly distributed.

Using a tablespoon, spoon the batter onto your baking sheet lined with parchment paper. If you're chilling your dough, the cookies will NOT spread at all hence you MUST flatten your cookies and you may position them closer together on your baking sheet. 

Chill your cookie dough (on the baking sheets) in the fridge until they're harden up and bake until they're beautifully browned on the surface. 

I can't advise you on your oven setting and baking time as I've baked them in my mum's air fryer/roaster, which works very differently from a conventional oven. 

Anyway, just FYI, I baked mine at 215 degree Celsius in the air fryer for 5 minutes first before cranking down the temperature to 180 degree Celsius for the next 25 minutes. 

The AF bakes much, much, muuccchhhh slower as compared to an oven (my oven broke down and I haven't gotten a new one) and based on past experience with my oven, the cookies should bake within 15 to 20 minutes (depending on how thin you've flatten them) at 170 - 180 degree Celsius in a conventional oven.

These cookies are crunchy throughout and kept their crunchiness over the days they lasted. Due to addition of cornstarch and top flour, they're slightly crumbly and tender, like a shortbread cookie. 

But the cacao nibs killed it all. T.T
Contrary to those raves on iherb reviews, the nibs tasted sour with a weird, herbal aftertaste. It wasn't even the cocoa bitterness I enjoy in my dark chocolates. Texture wise, some were crunchy while some were overly crisp, somewhat crackly, and it made me feel as though I'm biting onto eggshells.

So my conclusion is, unless you're really desperate to follow through with an extremely 'healthy diet' and absolutely need to find a healthy alternative, if not just stick to your good old chocolate chips, please!

Till then,
Mia Foo

Continue

Mia's Recipe: Vanilla Sugar Cookies & (Failed) Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

In slightly more than 12 hours, I will be off to China for my 1 week break with my family! So before my 1 week hiatus, let's try out some baking!

Together with Sa, we tried our hands at 2 recipes in a day, one adapted from Laura Vitale and another from Yoyomax12. They're both really amazing bakers so if you haven't checked them out on youtube, please do. 

First up, let's get on with Laura's Vanilla Sugar Cookies. 

We'll need:

224g of AP Flour

1/2 tsp of Baking Powder

1/2 tsp of Salt

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

227g of Unsalted Butter

(about) 170g Sugar + sufficient for coating

1 Egg

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

First up, cream the butter, soften at room temperature, with the sugar and mix in the egg until well incorporated. 

Mix in the vanilla extract before sifting in all the dry ingredients to get a pretty soft and gooey batter. 

Next, using a cookie-scoop or just a tablespoon, scoop the batter uniformly into a bowl of sugar and coat them well before putting them on a baking sheet, at least 1 to 2 inches apart for they spread quite a lot, to bake at 175 degree Celsius for about 15 to 18 minutes if you're making large (subway sized) cookies. 

Our batches of large sized cookies rolled in caster sugar before baking. 

Just an additional tip, Laura's recipe actually called for 200g of sugar, but since we wanted it less sweet, we only added in 170g of sugar and did 2 batches, one not rolled in sugar and one rolled in sugar. For someone with just an average liking for sweetness, I will recommend you skipping the sugar coating as well, if not the cookies will turn out to be very, very sweet. 

Also, do make the cookies much smaller in size as the cookies are of a more crumbly texture and the bigger they are the easier they crumble to pieces as you pick them up. 

Our batches of bite sized cookies that were not rolled in sugar before baking. Just showing you a gauge of how much the batter will spread in the oven. :)

Next up, it was Yoyomax12's recipe for Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies! Prior to the baking day, I've already spooned out teaspoonfuls of nutella on a sheet of baking paper and kept them in the freezer to 'stuff' them into the batter for baking. But it ended up as a big flop. Why so? Read on to find out. For now, let's get on with the ingredients so we can get started. 

We'll need:

295g of AP Flour

70g of Cocoa Powder (unsweeten)

1/2 tsp of Baking Powder

1/2 tsp of Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

250g of Unsalted Butter

155g of Caster Sugar

160g of Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

2 tsp of Vanilla Extract

396g of Chocolate Chips (Semi Sweet)

(about) 30 spoonfuls of frozen nutella 

As usual, cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy before beating in the eggs and vanilla extract till incorporated. 

Then, sift in all the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Lastly stir in the chocolate chips before leaving the batter in the fridge for at least 2 hours to stiffen up. 

And after 2 hours we're supposed to shape the stiffen dough into dough balls with the frozen nutella as the filling. But here came the issue. 

The dough was too too hard to shape and the nutella starts to melt IMMEDIATELY when taken out from the freezer in our hot climate. 

So unless you are quick at shaping the dough balls plus you don't mind doing it by taking out the nutella globs from your freezer ONE BY ONE (recipe makes about 30 cookies), go ahead. 

If not, skip this stuffing to save you a lot of hassle. 

If you're baking them in large sizes, spread them 1 to 2 inches apart as they also do spread a great deal, and bake them at 175 to 180 degree Celsius for 9 to 12 minutes, or until the top starts to crack. I know it's hard to gauge when the such double chocolate cookies are done as it is impossible to see them browning in the oven. 

As I like my chocolate cookie drier and crumblier, I tend to go lower with my temperature (I set mine at 160 to 170 degree Celsius) and bake them for longer time (I baked my bite sized cookies for about 10 minutes) to make them 'crunchier'. It might also get a little burnt, giving them the bitter chocolate taste. 

Ha Ha Ha! Yes, I know I'm weird. 

Looks good, no?

And here's sharing how the actual stuffed cookie will look like. We gave up on it after seeing how it will turn out as:

1. The nutella stuffing will not be runny at all

2. You really cannot taste the difference of having nutella as the surprise centre

My share of the cookies. 

Sa's share of the cookies. Yes, she took most of the plain uncoated vanilla sugar cookies as she felt that it was horribly sweet. 

So, have you tried similar recipe before? Especially some nutella stuffed cookies, and succeeded? Do share with me your tips in the comment box below! 

Have you joined MollyMia's first beauty giveaway yet? Giveaway is closing this month so do hurry and check it out HERE

Till then,

Mia Foo

Continue

Mia's Recipe: Shiroi Koibito Remakes

It has been ages since I last baked (it was some failed, taupok like cookies) and somehow I just got the idea to bake some cookies for my grandma and here it goes. I gave replicating the famous Hokkaido Shiroi Koibito cookies a try, with only a handful of ingredients!

If you have no idea what's Shiroi Koibito, here it is.

 

You will need:

100g Butter

100g Cake Flour (Or AP Flour)

1 Large Egg

60g Castor Sugar

Vanilla Extract (Optional)

White Chocolate (for filling) 

-credits to ochikeron for recipe-

Just that! Simple, isn't it? :)

So moving on, we'll start off by creaming the butter (soften at room temperature) and sugar together until pale and fluffy, like so.

After which, crack in the egg and mix well before sifting in flour and fold until fully combined. 

Add a dash of vanilla extract for flavour and this will be optional. Mix well and fill the batter into a piping bag. 

Pipe out the batter onto 1.5" squares template placed under your baking sheet. If you're too lazy to work out a template, you can just eyeball it. That's what I did. :)

Bake the cookies at 190 degree Celsius for 8 to 10 minutes. Make sure your batter is evenly piped out on your baking sheets if not you'll get uneven browning. 

When your cookies are baked, leave them out on a baking rack to cool and melt your white chocolate over a double boiler. 

You may either spread the melted chocolate between 2 cookies with a butter knife (like I did) or pipe them out with another piping bag.

Freeze to harden completely. 

And there you have it! Crumbly, buttery cookies with yummy white chocolate filling inside. 

And see what I meant by making sure your batter is piped evenly? If not your edges will be over-browned but your centre still too soft. And yes, at one point I just got sick of drawing squares so I switched to circles. HA HA HA!

Till then,

Mia

Continue

Mia's Recipe: Crunchy Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookies

It has been a while since I've baked, being bogged down by many other nitty gritty issues recently. I had actually planned to bake some rainbow cake in a jar for my colleagues as x'mas presents but somehow chucked that idea into the refuse chute.... :( 

Nevertheless, I still have to share this recipe I've tried a while ago. It's CRUNCHY chocolate cookies with chocolate chips! 

Let's get on with the ingredients you'll need:

1. Butter - 125g

2. Brown Sugar - 50g

3. Caster Sugar - 40g

4. Semi Sweet + Unsweetened Baker's Chocolate, MELTED - 125g

(you can tweak the ratio you want by yourself to get varying level of sweetness)

5. Vanilla Extract - 1 Tsp.

6. Egg - 1 no.

7. AP Flour - 150g

8. Cocoa Powder - 30g

9. Baking Soda - 1 Tsp.

10. Salt - 1/2 Tsp.

11. Chocolate Chips - 100g

This recipe will give around 4 sheets of 16 bite sized cookies each.

First up, if you do not have baking soda on hand, you can always substitute it with 2.5x to 3x (actually in terms of actual content, it's 4x, but it might change the texture of your cookie if you used too much) of Baking Powder. But it's always better to stick to Baking Soda. 

First up, cream the sugars with the butter (soften, at room temperature) until it turns light and fluffy. 

Add the melted chocolate after it has cooled down (I did this because I didn't want my butter to melt along with the hot chocolate mix. Plus, we gotta wait for it to cool to add in the egg eventually) and stir well until thoroughly mixed. 

Crack in the egg and add in vanilla extract. Mix well. 

Add all the dry ingredients into a bowl and sift well. Fold in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. 

Add in the chocolate chips and fold until just combined.Remember, do not overmix!

Drop heaping teaspoonfuls of the batter onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 170 degree Celsius for 25 mins. 

Do tweak your baking time depending on your oven and size of your cookies. The batter is also very firm so you can either work with your hands or with two spoons. 

After reading up on whether keeping the cookie batter overnight will produce better tasting cookies, I've decided to do an experiment on it. I separated my batter into two batches and kept half of them in the fridge overnight, wrapped in cling wrap.

My verdict is, there is no difference. However, a cookie batter can typically be kept in the fridge for up to 7 days or in the freezer for up to months. So for convenience sake you can always prepare more batter to keep in the freezer and bake them as and when you crave for some freshly baked cookies. But taste-wise, I'll say skip it. 

Till then,

Mia

Continue