Daring Bakers' Panna Cotta & Florentine Cookies

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

This month has been a tad hectic. With Chinese New Year at the start of the month, the preparation for that was chaotic, but fun.

The second half of the month freed up a lil'. But I have an excuse! It was my birthday! teehee.. So yeah, I slacked off until now..

Florentine Cookies
Ingredients

150 g unsalted butter
160 g quick oats
230 g granulated sugar (I only used 30g, and it still turned out pretty sweet to me)
95 g plain (all purpose) flour
60 ml dark corn syrup (I replaced this with 1/4 molasses and 3/4 honey)
60 ml whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
250 gm dark or milk chocolate (I only used half of this to drizzle ontop)


1) Preheat oven to moderately hot 190°C. Prepare your baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper.
2) Melt butter in a medium saucepan, then remove from the heat.
3) To the melted butter add oats, sugar, flour, corn syrup, milk, vanilla, and salt. Mix well.
4)Drop a tablespoon full, three inches (75 mm) apart, onto your prepared baking sheet. Flatten slightly with the back of your tablespoon, or use a spatula.
5) Bake in preheated oven for 6-8 minutes, until cookies are golden brown. Cool completely on the baking sheets.
6) While the cookies are cooling melt your chocolate until smooth either in the microwave, or stove top (in a double boiler, or a bowl that fits atop a saucepan filled with a bit of water, being sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl).
7) Peel the cookies from the silpat or parchment and place face down on a wire rack set over a sheet of wax/parchment paper (to keep counters clean).
8)Either spread on the bottom flat side of the cookies and sandwich them together. Or just put the chocolate in a piping bag and drizzle on top. Or you could do both, which is always good. =)




Chocolate Panna Cotta

Ingredients
240 ml whole milk
1 tablespoon unflavored powdered gelatin
480 ml whipping cream (30+% butterfat)
115 g sugar
145 g bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
½ teaspoon vanilla extract


1) Pour milk into a small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over the top, set aside for 2-5 minutes.
2) Place a medium saucepan over medium heat, stir in cream, sugar and vanilla. Bring to a low boil.
3) Add chocolate and whisk until melted. Whisk the milk/gelatin mixture into chocolate cream mixture. Whisk until gelatin has dissolved.
4) Transfer to ramekins, or nice glasses for serving.
5) Cover and chill at least 8 hours, or overnight

Coffee Gelée
Ingredients
480 ml good quality brewed coffee
60 ml hot water + 2 tablespoons
30 ml cold water
115 g granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons unflavored powdered gelatin
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1) Place granulated sugar and 1/4 c. hot water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, stir until the sugar has dissolved.
2) Sprinkle gelatin over 2 Tablespoons cold water and let it soften 2 minutes or so.
3) Stir the coffee, sugar, hot water, and vanilla into a small metal bowl, add gelatin mixture and stir well until gelatin has dissolved. If pouring over Panna Cotta, be sure that this mixture is no longer hot, it will melt Panna Cotta if it is, let it come to room temperature.

The Panna Cotta set beautifully, but the gelee were horrible. They didn't set right and was still liquid-ish.

I also made a Vanilla Panna Cotta with lemon gelee, again the gelee didn't set. I have no idea why.

I wanted to make a dairy free version, but I didn't have time to try them out. Maybe I'll try that sometime soon.

Pepperidge Farm Sausalito Cookies *COPYCAT*~~

And so I was walking in the hypermarket with my brother. He abruptly stopped in the middle of the biscuit/cookie aisle. Turned around and said, 'Let's make these cookies.'

"These cookies" refer to Pepperidge Farm Sausalito Cookies.

After some digging, we found something that looked pleasing. I made some changes to it, and voila... Here is the results:

Ingredients
226g softened unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
100g brown sugar
30g granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
255g macadamia nuts, chopped
283g white chocolate, chopped (I used chocolate chips)



1) Preheat over to 180°C.
2) Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
3) In the bowl of a mixer, beat butter, sugars, egg until creamy.
4) Add vanilla.
5) Scrape down the sides of bowl occasionally.
6) Add dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.
7) Fold in nuts and chocolate.
8) Line baking trays with parchment paper.
9) Form 1 inch balls. (Being the control freak that I am, I weighed each ball - 14g yields a good size cookie)
10) Remember they spread, so give them space to breath.
11) Bake about 13-15 minutes.
12) Makes about 40 cookies. (Which you can keep to yourself, or you can give to your family. Maybe.)

Just a random question, though.
Why do people love it when they receive homemade goodies?

Chocolate Cookies, revisited~~

For the people around me, one of my favourite things to make is Chocolate Cookies . I can make a huge batch of the dough, wrap them up nicely in clingfilm, and whenever someone comes around, in they go into the oven, and voila.... Freshly baked heaven.

The last time I made these, I omitted the chips and made their shape more uniform... 

This time, in go the chips with no reservation. And they look......friendlier to me, in their weird funky shapes. 

 

Sugar Cookies~~

I've always wanted to try making sugar cookies. But the name of them scared me, believe it or not.

"Sugar" Cookies...... does that mean, they're incredibly sweet? Does that mean they have an abundance of sugar? Just like how butter is the dominant ingredient in butter cookies?


And I've always been afraid to decorate, because half the time I feel that my decoration ruins the look. >.<

But here it is.I finally made it.  The recipe I used is from Bake at 350 here:

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

3 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
 2 sticks (salted) butter, cold
 1 egg
 3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract


1. Preheat oven to 180°C.

2. Combine the flour and baking powder, set aside.

3. Cream the sugar and butter. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix.

4. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat just until combined.

5. Roll onto a floured surface and cut into shapes. Place on parchment lined baking sheets (I stuck the cut-out cookies on the baking sheet into the freezer for about 5-10 minutes before baking, I think this helped hold the shape) and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let sit a few minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.

6. Then decorate.


I melted down chocolate and just dipped them in.

And mixed some icing sugar and water with some colouring to make basic shapes on the cookie. (I was too preoccupied with the icing at this point to take photos. And I totally forgot until I gave them away. o.0)

Going bananas~~

What exactly does one do when she has been feeling under the weather?
Finally able to move past the gloom that a foul creature has set upon her, but still not quite fully bouncing around in the happy clouds yet.

Why, she bakes!

Someone who has once declared that he has no intention of ever doing anything to hurt me has done exactly that. And furthermore, he doesn't seem to give a *tooot* about me anymore.
But that's all whiney-ranty gibberish now. I've moved past that.

Men will be men. (Please don't throw bananas at me if you're one of them, I mean no harm. Serious.)

 Now sometime alone in the kitchen, elbows deep in flour and butter is the way to complete the...therapy, would you have it.


I've been eyeing those lovely bunch of bananas sitting on the counter-top ever since their arrival  two nights ago. And this morning with no one at home to disturb my peace. I grabbed several of those awesome creatures. Ventured into my get-away haven. Closed the doors. Took a deep breath. And went to my happy place.


Banana Cookies 
from Simply Recipes

Ingredients
1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup of sugar Original recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar, I halved this, and it was still a tad too sweet for me..
1 egg, room temperature
1 cup of mashed bananas (about 2 ½ large bananas)
1 teaspoon of baking soda
2 cups of flour
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 cup of pecans (walnuts and chocolate chips are fine alternatives)  I used choc chips. =)

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 180°C. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat.

2 In a bowl, mix the mashed bananas and baking soda. Let sit for 2 minutes. The baking soda will react with the acid in the bananas which in turn will give the cookies their lift and rise.

3 Mix the banana mixture into the butter mixture. Mix together the flour, salt, and spices and sift into the butter and banana mixture and mix until just combined.

4 Fold into the batter the pecans or chocolate chips if using. Drop in dollops onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until nicely golden brown. Let cool on wire racks.

Makes about 30 cookies.

These cookies look heavenly. Smell heavenly. Taste heavenly. 
I do apologise, they seem to have left me devoid of my normal set of vocabulary.

That, or I've simply gone to heaven.

~~Chocolate cookies~~

This is an all-time favourite among the people around me. It's nice and simple and you can even pre-make the dough and freeze them so you'd have fresh cookies any time.



Ingredients

110g Butter
100g Light brown sugar
40g Castor Sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
140 g all purpose flour
30 g unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
A pinch of Salt
200g Chocolate chips (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180 °C. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
   
2. Using electric whisk, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.x
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.
   
4. Add the egg. Then beat in the vanilla extract.
   
5. Add the flour mix in stages, mixing until incorporated.
   
6. Fold in the the chocolate chips.
   
7. Using two spoons place about 1 1/2 tbsp of batter onto the baking sheet, leaving 2inch of a gap between them. Flatten each one slightly. (This is the stage where you can stuff them into freezer bags and into the freezer for later use.)
8. Bake the cookies for about 14 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through the baking time. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.
   
9. Makes about 24 cookies.