Random baking

Here's some random baking photos for the past month. I don't have recipes to show you. These were just 'bake by feel'.. because I was too lazy to get my measuring tools out. Hehe.. :P

Childish vanilla cupcakes. For GK. A pre-birth celebration for the little one inside. :)

Happy cupcakes (Chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate coconut ganache). For JK. Happy cupcakes for a happy person :P

Rustic jam tarts (Apricot jam and Apple, rhubarb + cinnamon jam). Well, I was making cookie dough.. then couldn't be bothered making cut out cookies anymore. So I decided to make jam drop cookies. These are a bit larger, so I guess you can call them tarts! Haha.

Baking is therapeutic. Decorating is fun.
I have so much that I want to make.. but I can't seem to find enough time or energy.. :(

Easter bunny cookies

Wednesday night (08/04/09)

I think I may have destroyed my cookies. :(

Everything was perfectly fine.. until I drew faces on the majority of them. The dark chocolate hasn't hardened like the white chocolate has already. I'm wondering if it will ever harden at all.. (It's pretty cold right now too. Why isn't it setting??!)

I'll hope for the best and see how it is tomorrow morning. I'll show you photos of them tomorrow or so..

Right now, I'm devastated. I was happier after baking the cookies, but now the decoration disaster has taken it away. Such is life. Such is life..

Thursday morning (09/04/09)

I checked my cookies before heading off to uni. The chocolate faces hardened! Yay! So I packed a box of 18 cookies to bring with me. But as I was doing so, some of the eyes fell off. So I had to quickly do eye surgery on them. (Which explained why some of them were so ugly. Sorry guys!)

Friday morning (Good Friday, today!)

My Easter photoshoot~ Hehe.


I know Easter isn't all about chocolates and Easter bunnies though, but that's what this shoot was all about! The chocolate eggs were given to us recently (Thanks!). I haven't bought any Easter eggs this year. Actually, I rarely buy them.


Hehe. And then I packed a plate for the house down the road like I always do. (You know who you are!). Haha :P

Happy Easter everyone! :)

Even if you don't celebrate it for it's real meaning, it's okay. Society has made it a tradition no matter what religion you believe in. Everyone grew up with the Easter bunny didn't they? I remember the Easter egg hunts, the Easter activities during primary school etc. Mmm. And I love hot cross buns! I want to try making some.. but probably won't because we have some at home already.

Coconut and white chocolate bunny cookies
Makes about 43 cookies.

1 1/3 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup dessicated coconut

75gm butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

100gm white chocolate, melted
25gm dark chocolate, melted
extra dessicated coconut

Sift flour, baking powder and coconut in a mixing bowl.

In another mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Then add egg and vanilla extract. Beat.

Mix butter/sugar mixture into the flour mixture. Rub until you get evenly coloured (yellow) crumb consistency.

Scoop one tbsp of the crumb mixture and place into cookie cutter. (I used a bunny shaped cookie cutter/rice mould that I got from Singapore). Press down with the mould backing (if available, otherwise use fingers and try to press down firmly and evenly). Place onto a lined baking tray.

Bake at 165C in a preheated oven for 7 mins.

Allow to cool before decorating.

Spread melted white chocolate over the top of a cookie. Quickly coat with coconut before it sets. Do this to all of the cookies, and allow the chocolate to harden.


For the eyes/face, use the melted dark chocolate. Apply as necessary and allow to set.


I brought this rabbit mug back from Singapore two months ago. Hehe. I planned this photoshoot well ahead of time, didn't I? :P


They don't look like bunnies when they're upside down. Not sure what they look like though.


My favourite cookie out of them all! The perfect face. :)

And the ones that didn't make the photoshoot.. because they weren't photogenic enough:

Well, at least the faceless ones made it into the rabbit mug. Haha. My apologies for being so.. shallow. :P

I hope they tasted okay! I know people have said that they're good, but I'm assuming you're all just being polite. But why did my sister scoff down 4-5 in the one sitting though? I'm not sure if it's just because they were in front of her, if she was hungry, or if she truly liked them. Haha. I had one (that I broke when I was trying to press the chocolate into a plate of coconut. I guess I was being too forceful as I was scared the chocolate would harden before the coconut could reach it. Haha). I think it tasted okay?

Coconut vanilla cookies

Putting my heart into every cookie. :)

Following the theme of Valentine's day, I decided to make heart cookies.

(I got these wooden dolls from Hong Kong last year. I love them! :))


Coconut vanilla cookies
Makes about 13 large thick cookies.

1 cup oats, ground (I used a coffee grinder)
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup dessicated coconut

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 brown sugar
85gm butter, cubed
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp red food colouring

In a large mixing bowl, sift flour, ground oats and baking powder. Split the dry mixture into 2 bowls.

In another bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add in egg, vanilla and mix.
Split the butter mixture into the 2 flour bowls.

Add red food dye into one bowl.

Add coconut into the other bowl.

Mix bowls separately and form a dough for each.
Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a few hours.


And now you're ready to mould your design out. Just like play-doh.

I had a hard time doing this. Though I did hope for the best and wished the design wouldn't deform on me.. Here's how it looked rolled up:


Refrigerate for a few more hours or overnight.

Then slice to bake. Now to see if my design was ruined..

Nope. It was actually quite okay. Though the coconut didn't really help with the texture. It was partially crumbly and hard to slice. So be careful when slicing.

Pretty crumbs. Hehe~

Place cookies on a baking paper lined tray.
Bake at 175C in a preheated oven for 12 minutes. (Time will depend on the size of your cookies. My cookies were quite big and thick)


Transfer onto cooling rack before storing... or giving them away.


The cookies are soft on the inside and taste coconutty/vanillary/buttery. I'm not quite happy about the cookie dough texture because I like to be stingy on the butter. You see.. I'm afraid of butter. So I like to reduce it. I think these would have been easier as cut out cookies instead. But I wanted to make this design. The last time I tried this was with checkerboard cookies. And I actually made a mistake in the design. See if you notice why. Haha.