Mia Bakes: Choco-Peanut Butter Ban Ban Cookies

As I've mentioned before in my previous ban ban cookie recipe post (HERE), the flavour of matcha and chocolate didn't seem to go that well with each other, hence I've decided to switch up the recipe a bit and got these instead.

Choco-Peanut Butter half half cookies! 

So let's get over the ingredients so we can get started!

For the chocolate cookie dough, you'll need:

63g bittersweet chocolate 

(AT LEAST 60% cocoa, if not reduce your sugar)

63g salted butter, soften at room temperature

(if using unsalted, add in 1/4 tsp salt)

35g brown sugar

25g castor sugar

(or any baking sugar replacement of your choice, I used stevia)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 small egg

75g all purpose flour

15g unsweeten cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

150g peanut butter chips

First up, melt your bittersweet chocolate over a double boiler and set it aside to cool down. Cream your butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. Stir in the cooled melted chocolate and mix well. Add in the egg and vanilla extract and mix well. Sift in dry ingredients (very important to sift cocoa powder) and fold until almost thoroughly combined before adding in peanut butter chips and folding until just combined. Never over-mix your batter. 

Then, keep your batter in the fridge for at least 20 to 30 minutes while you prepare your peanut butter dough. 

For the peanut butter cookie dough, you'll need:

250g creamy peanut butter 

180g castor sugar

(or any baking sugar replacement of your choice, I replaced half with stevia)

1 tsp baking soda

1 extra large egg

(or 2 small eggs)

1 tbsp cornstarch

150g bitter-sweet/dark chocolate chips 

(you may add more if you want them to be extra chocolatey)

For this dough, it's a super quick and easy 1 bowl recipe. Firstly, stir in the sugar with the peanut butter until well combined, before beating in the egg. Then, fold in your dry ingredients and lastly, the chocolate chips. 

Using a 1/2 tbsp, scoop 1 spoonful of each of your dough and drop them beside each other (touching) on your prepared baking sheet. Do remember to space out your cookies at least 2 inches apart because they do spread out, a lot. 

Then, with slightly oiled hands (your peanut butter dough should help you with that) carefully mold the two flavoured doughs together into a ball and press them down slightly. 

If you'll prefer flat and thin cookies, send them straight into the oven to bake at 175 degree Celsius for about 18 minutes. Each oven bakes differently hence do keep a watchful eye on your cookies, especially at the initial part (for they may spread gloriously into each other) and towards the end (so they do not burn). If you find your cookies getting dangerously close towards each other, you may crank up your temperature to 190 degree Celsius to "set" the cookie edges first (for perhaps about 5 minutes) before turning your temperature back down to 175 degree Celsius. 

Big and flat ban ban cookies from doughs that were sent straight into the oven.

However, if you prefer a slightly dome-shaped cookie, pop your dropped cookie doughs into the freezer for at least 10 minutes to harden up before popping the chilled dough straight into the oven. You can either tweak the temperature slightly (I baked at 180 degree Celsius for 10 minutes and then 170 degree Celsius for another 10 minutes), or bake them for an additional 1 or 2 minutes at the same temperature. 

Slightly smaller and fatter cookies from doughs that were frozen for 10 minutes before baking. 

I have to say, peanut butter and chocolate just complement each other so well! These cookies will be extremely soft and feels spongey/cakey when first removed from the oven, so remember to not disturb them and let them cool completely to harden up. The outsides are slightly crisp and the insides chewy, filled with decadent sweetness of the chocolate and complemented with buttery, nutty fragrance of the peanut butter. 

SO YUMS CAN!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Matcha Tofu Mochi Doughnuts

Well, other than the super cute paw mold (get it from taobao HERE) I've previously used to bake some Castella Cakes, I've also bought an equally cute mini doughnut mold (get it from taobao HERE) via ezbuy.sg (super convenient, I'll tell you!) that has been sitting in my baking drawer for quite a while. 

And since I've knocked off from work on time today (and there's no gym session scheduled), I thought... why not try making the tofu doughnuts I've been reading up on for the past few weeks? 

Aren't they just adorable?!

Well, to get you started on the recipe, you'll need:

90g top flour + 10g wholemeal flour 

(or 100g all purpose flour)

35g glutinous rice flour

60g castor sugar 

(I used 30g sugar and 30g sugarless sugar)

1 egg

1 and 1/2 tsp matcha powder

(more if you prefer stronger tea taste)

2.5 tsp baking powder 

(or 1 tsp baking soda)

25g salted butter

100g silken tofu 

(there's actually green tea soft tofu, if you want to try them out!)

50ml milk

First up, beat your egg and sugar on high until it turns pale yellow and thick, before beating in soften butter until well combined. 

Sift in your dry ingredients and mix until just combined before adding in your silken tofu by passing it through the sieve. 

Add in milk and mix until just combined. 

As the batter is quite runny, it's easier to transfer the batter into a piping bag to fill up your doughnut molds before sending them into the oven to bake at 175 degree Celsius for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until the surface is browned to your liking. 

The more underbaked your doughnut is, the more chewy it will be (as this is a mochi doughnut) but the tofu taste may also be more distinctive. 

If you absolutely dislike the tofu taste, but wishes to lower the calorie of your sweet snack (by relying on tofu), you may rinse your tofu with hot water (and cool them down to room temperature first) before adding them into the doughnut batter. 

The batter does puff up slightly during baking, but not so much so do fill up your doughnut rings to at least 3/4 full (I filled to almost 100% filled and got cute little FAT doughnuts). 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Nian Gao Mochi Balls

Finally, it's Lunar New Year! How's everyone's CNY celebrations so far? Mine has been a #cheatdayeverday since CNY eve till date, so I'll probably have ALOT catching up to do after my CNY break is over (starting tomorrow). 

Other than stuffing myself silly with the usual CNY goodies like fried hae bee hiam (especially so this year, somehow), pineapple tarts and kueh bangkit, there's always one particular CNY goodies that I absolutely MUST eat every year. 

NIAN GAO!

Nian Gao (directly translated as Year's Cake) is actually a sweeten rice cake the Chinese usually eats during our Lunar New Year. It's either eaten freshly steamed, or sliced and deep fried in normal flour batter or sandwiched between thinly sliced yam or sweet potato, battered and then deep fried. 

Loads of refined sugar, carbs, and fats! What a glorious yummy snack! 

Yes, #fatedieme I know. Don't rub it in.

This year, I've decided to at least cut down on some of the fats and bake my nian gao instead, by marrying it with another of my favourite snack, MOCHI!

First, let's start by cutting the nian gao into roughly 1.5cm small cubes. Make sure you've refrigerated them so that they're harden up. They're a horror to slice if they're all fresh and soft. 

For the mochi bun/shell, you'll need: 

(recipe adapted from gingybite, makes 30 small mochi balls in total) 

180g glutinous rice flour

20g tapioca starch

1.5 tsp cinnamon powder 

(omit and replace with milk powder if you do not like cinnamon taste)

1 egg

60ml vegetable oil

1/2 tsp salt

100ml water + 20ml milk 

(120ml water if you're replacing cinnamon with milk powder)

Making the mochi dough is super easy, just dump ALL the ingredients into a big bowl and mix until it comes together into a soft dough. It should be soft, yet not liquidy, slightly sticky on your hands but still pliable. 

Divide the mochi dough into small balls of roughly 15 to 16g each and wrap a nian gao cube into each mochi dough to form small ping pong sized mochi-nian gao balls. Make sure there's no obvious exposure of the nian gao or else you'll just end up with nian gao-volcano mochi balls in the end. 

The mochi balls will not spread (at all) during baking, so feel free to space them closer together on your baking sheet. For crispier surface, brush the mochi balls with some water before sending them into the oven to bake at 180 degree Celsius for about 25 minutes, or until you see (some of) your mochi balls cracking open and lava nian gao bubbling through. 

Be sure to let it cool slightly before biting into one because it'll burn your tongue. But try not to wait until they turn completely cold as well, for the lava nian gao inside would have harden back up.

As the mochi shell is not sweeten at all, the sweetness of this snack totally depends on how sweet your nian gao is. And since the nian gao is store-bought, it also means you can't control how sweet this will get, unless you make your own nian gao as well. 

But who cares if it ends too sweet or not sweet enough? The texture of the crispy outer shell of the mochi paired up with the gooey chewy molten nian gao is more than enough to worth all the hassle of baking this cute little CNY treats!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Cornflakes Crunchy Butter Cookies

Well, guess what? I'm supposed to be putting up a food review but I decided to let this recipe post jump queue. CNY is around the corner and I've been baking more often than usual (aside from my weekly breadmaking) to test out new recipes for my CNY cookies. 

My mum has been bugging me to bake those honey cornflakes cups, but I'll very much prefer butter cookies. So I reckon, why not mix the two up? 

So let's get over the ingredients so we can get started. 

You'll need:

100g salted butter 

(Golden Churn is preferred)

75g caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

150g Top flour (or cake flour)

30g potato starch
(you may use corn flour, but I personally feel PS gives more crunchy cookies while CF makes it more tender)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

30g cornflakes, lightly crushed with hands.

More crushed cornflakes (to roll your cookie dough in)

Instructions are simple. First, cream your butter and sugar until it turns pale and fluffy. Then, add in your beaten egg and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Sift in your flours and fold until just combined, before folding in the crushed cornflakes. 

The dough should be easy to work with, and shouldn't be sticking to your hands. 

I used a weighing scale to portion my cookie dough into 13g each (my first scoop was a 13g hence I decided to go with it) and then rolled the dough into more crushed cornflakes before putting them onto a baking sheet, spaced a few cms apart.

You need not space them out too much as these cookies do not puff up much, nor spread a lot. I didn't even need to chill the dough before baking. 

Bake the cookies at 175 degree Celsius for about 20 to 25 minutes or until the surface turns slightly browned. 

These cookies are full of buttery fragrance (do remember to use good quality butter if not your cookies will not taste as good) and crunchy from all the cornflakes bits. 

If you'll prefer a more crumbly and tender butter cookies, just cut down the baking time and not let your cookies turn too brown. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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