Cookie Making with Gremlin

It's been a long while since I've last blogged - lots have been happening on both sides of the extended family, and I've been sick with allergy for more than a month.

8-year-old Gremlin is here from yesterday (ok, sorry for the bad grammar) till tomorrow. (Phew!!!)


He belongs to the "me-me-me" generation. In his world, things get tidied up by invisible house-elves (you know, those things that wear pillow-cases in Harry Potter movies), and these are the ones that clear up after him when he eats, drinks or messes up the place, whatever.

I've realised that these "Me" kids really expect to be entertained all the time. And I mean, ALL.THE.TIME. They are quite incapable of self-entertainment. Then again, what do you expect, when they've been brought up on a daily diet of 8 hrs of TV, doing nothing but waiting for the next show to make them laugh??

I really believe that TV deadens the mind.


I have to say I wasn't too pleased about being his house-elf for these 2 days. Look at the products, and try to imagine the hours spent cleaning up.

P/S - besides those featured here, we made another batch of Baking 911's Chewy Chocolate Chip cookies which had me washing up till 11pm at night!

The recipes were from Nigella Feasts 'Fun Foods' episode. I must say, I was impressed by their simplicity and ease!

Cut-Out Cookies
Ingredients

• 1/3 cup / 90g butter
• 1/2 cup /100g sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cup / 200g flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt

Instructions

• Cream the butter and sugar, adding the vanilla when fluffy.
• Add 1 tblspn of flour, before breaking the egg into the bowl.
• Continue the creaming, and gradually add in all the flour, a tablespoon at a time, baking powder and salt.
• Get the dough into a ball, add more flour if desired.
• Cover with cling wrap, and chill for half-hour. (I didn't bother sticking to the half-hour, I went jogging and then took a walk to West Mall before continuing).
• Preheat oven to 350 deg F / 180 deg C.
• Shape with cookie cutters.
• Bake for 10 min (I had to bake them for 15 min) to desired colour.

Tin Hang Zai preferred the more browned version (15 - 20 min) whilst Gremlin preferred the pale-looking cookies that were baked for only 12 min.

Icing

• 1 1/4 cup / 150 g icing sugar
• 2 tblspn hot water

Mix, and colour as desired. You need to buy only the primary colours (red, yellow, blue) - the rest can be made from these 3.

Creative Input

• Get from the gremlin or whoever you are baking with.
• Obviously if you are the house-elf, you are going to be too tired to have any creative juices flowing out of you at 11pm at night!