Chewy apricot banana muesli cookies

- Zaty.

The first and only time I had apricot cookies was many years ago, in NZ (a classmate offered it to me). She said it was vegetarian, which intrigued me, because I thought most baking required eggs. She said eggs can be substituted with bananas for many sweet desserts. Many years later (i.e. now) I have decided to experiment!

I used this as my base recipe. The tweaked recipe (below) has some changes and additions because I didn't have some ingredients and I felt like adding banana and rose flavoring which I had lying around, hihi.

This makes about 40 chewy 2-inch-sized cookies:

Ingredients

1. 1 cup brown sugar
2. 3/4 cup margarine, softened (I used 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup coconut oil)
3. 1 medium-sized banana, mashed
4. 2 tsp vanilla flavoring
5. 1 tsp rose flavoring
6. 1 Tbsp water
7. 2 1/2 cups muesli with raisins
8. 1 3/4 cup white flour
9. 1 tsp baking soda
10. 1/4 tsp salt
11. 1 cup dried apricot, finely chopped

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 180degC. 
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, margarine, banana, flavorings and water. Mix.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients into the bowl. Mix.
4. Scoop dough by rounded tablespoons and push with another spoon onto a baking tray lined with baking paper - about 2 inches between them. While waiting in between, place the mixing bowl in the fridge - this will make the cookies slightly crunchier.
5. Bake for about 8-9 minutes per batch.
6. After taken out of the oven, place cookies to cool on a tray. They'll be good to munch after a few minutes.

I've offered them to a number of people - my landlady, her hubby, my neighbor, my SO and his sibs... they all love it. I'm very happy with how these turned out :)

Awesome Chocolate Chip Cookies

- zaty.

So far I've tried a number of choc chip cookies -- crunchy, chewy, big, hard, soft, a mixture of either or all of these etc -- and I think I like the crunchy on the outside but slightly chewy on the inside kinda type. I found an awesome recipe for choc chip cookies on popularcookierecipes.com which I like to use as a rough guide to make these cookies, because I've only made them a few times before (at this time of writing)... and I tend to forget the ingredients and their general measurements lol :P

I made a few changes to the linked recipe above, I:

1. used a bit less sugar, because I don't like it too sweet
2. added chocolate powder, because I just felt like it
3. used sea salt, because I saw another recipe using it so I'm curious about how it'll turn out
4. added a bit of milk, because I like the idea :P
5. used baking powder instead of baking soda (yes, the horror!), because I didn't have baking soda and I'm too lazy to go get some

Anyway, here's tweaked recipe, which roughly makes 5 dozen cookies that are about 2 inches in diameter. :)

Equipment

1. Oven
2. Spatula
3. A large mixing bowl
4. Baking tray (2 if possible)
5. Baking/lining paper
6. Measuring spoon/cups
7. Airtight container
8. Dining tray/baking rack/large plate

Ingredients A (wet):

1. 1¼ C sugar (mixing white sugar and packed brown sugar is better)
2. 125 g butter, melted
3. 2 Tbsp cooking oil
4. 2 large eggs
5. 1 Tb milk
6. 5 drops of vanilla essence (you could also try 4:1, vanilla and peppermint)

Ingredients B (dry):

1. 2¼ C all purpose flour, well-sifted
2. 1½ tsp baking powder (or 1 tsp baking soda)
3. 1 Tb cocoa powder
4. 3/4 tsp salt
5. 1 C of chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 190degC.
2. With a spatula, mix Ingredients A one by one in a bowl until well-combined.
3. Stir in Ingredients B one by one, and mix everything well. The dough will become quite firm.
4. Line the baking tray with baking paper.
5. Scoop half a tablespoon of dough and use the spatula to push it onto the baking paper
   (arrange each scoop of dough so that there is about 2 inches of space between each cookie to prevent the cookies from melting+combining together).
6. Place the tray in the oven for about 8-10 minutes
   (8 mins = slightly chewy brown-on-the-edges-lighter-in-the-centre cookies, 10min = darker and crispier; I'd go for 9 mins).
7. Prepare another batch on a second baking tray
   (keep this and the rest of the dough in the fridge/freezer while waiting for the batch in the oven!) ^*^
8. After a batch of cookies are done, take it out and replace it with the second tray you have prepared. Transfer the freshly baked cookies onto a clean surface (baking rack, dining tray or large plate) to cool down at room temperature
9. The cookies are good to eat/store just before the previous batch is done in the oven - transfer the baked cookies into an airtight container as soon as they've cooled down to prevent them from going stale. :)

And that's pretty much it. Now I'll enjoy my cookies with some mint tea. :D

^*^ a cold dough will 'melt' faster, making the cookie melt quicked and make it thinner (and crispier) around the edges. Just the way I like it :D

Sugar Cookies

- Zaty.

Recipe will be posted later :)

For Cookie Lovers, this is for free~

- Odie.

*got this email from a friend of mine, and i thought that it's kinda relevent to post it here. On the second thought, i find this email s very interesting. It's about the famous amos cookies. famous amos cookies as biskut raya, anyone? hehehe.. (note: i havent tried baking it. so please dont blame me if it doesn't taste anything like the famous amos one =p) *

This is a true story

My daughter and I had just finished a muffin at Famous Amos Caf in Bangsar & decided to have some cookies. Because both of us are such a cookie lovers, we decided to try the "Hawaiian Nut Cookie".

It was so excellent that I asked if they would give me the recipe and the waitress said with a small frown "I'm afraid cannot". Well I said, "Would you let me buy the recipe?"

With a cute smile, she said "YES". I asked how much and she responded, "only two fifty, it's a great deal!" I said with approval, "Just add it to my bill"

Thirty days later, I received my VISA statement from Famous Amos and it was RM285.00. I looked again and remembered I had only spent RM9.95 for two muffins and about RM20.00 for a pie. As I glanced at the bottom of the statement, it said, "cookie recipe - RM250.00". That's outrages!!!

I called the Famous Amos's Accounting Dept. and told them that the waitress said it was "two-fifty", which clearly does not mean "two hundred and fifty dollars" by any POSSIBLE interpretation of the phrase. Famous Amos refused to budge.. They would not refund my money, because according to them, "What the waitress told you is not our problem. You have already seen the recipe - we absolutely will not refund your money at this point."

I explain to her the criminal statues which govern fraud in Malaysia. I threatened to refer them to police for engaging in fraud. I was basically told, "Do what you want, we don't care, and we're not refunding your money." I waited for a moment, thinking of how I could get even, or even try to get any of my money back. I just said, "Okay, you people got my RM2-50.00, and now I'm going to have a RM250.00 worth of fun." I told her that I was going to see to it that every cookie lover in Malaysia with an email account has a RM250.00 cookie recipe from Famous Amos...for free... She replied, "I wish you wouldn't do this" I said, "Well you should have thought of that before you stole from me", and slammed down the phone on her.

So, here it is!!! Please, please please pass it on to everyone you can possibly think of. I paid RM250.00 dollars for this...I don't want Famous Amos to ever get another cent off of this recipe..... Recipe may be halved:

Ingredients
2 cups butter
4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups brown sugar
5 cups blended oatmeal (measure oatmeal & blend in blender to a fine powder)
24 oz. chocolate chips
1 tsp. salt
18 oz. Cadbury bar (grated)
4 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)
2 tsp. vanilla

Steps
- Cream the butter and both sugars.
- Add eggs and vanilla; mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, & soda.
- Add chocolate chips, Cadbury bar and nuts.
- Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.
- Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees.
- Makes 122 cookies.

Have fun..!!