Perfect Recipe

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
± 16 cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
½ cup rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

On medium speed, cream together the butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat to combine. On low speed, gradually add the flour until just combined. Stir in the oats, and then the chocolate chips.

Use a large cookie scoop (3 tablespoons) and drop dough onto prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden. Cool completely on the baking sheet and then store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Christmas Cookies
±40 cookies

⅔ cups Shortening
¾ cups Sugar
½ teaspoons Grated Orange Or Lemon Zest
½ teaspoons Vanilla
1 whole Egg
4 teaspoons Milk
2 cups Flour
1-½ teaspoon Baking Powder
¼ teaspoons Salt

Decorative Icing:
1 and 1/2 cups powdered Sugar
1 larg egg white
1 tsp vanilla essence or lemon juice
Food Coloring

Directions:

Cream shortening, sugar, orange peel, and vanilla thoroughly. Add in egg and beat until light and fluffy. Add in the milk and mix.
Sift dry ingredients together, then blend into cream mixture. Divide dough in half (thirds if you double your recipe), slightly flatten between two sheets of waxed paper, then refrigerate for one hour (or freeze for 20 minutes).
Roll out dough on lightly floured surface and cut into shapes with a cookie cutters. Transfer shapes to lightly greased cookie sheet.
Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 6 minutes. Do not allow the cookies to brown.

While cookies are baking, mix powdered sugar, essence, egg white and food coloring to make the decorative icing. Remove cookies from oven to a wire rack to cool. Then, using a pastry bag or Ziploc bag, pipe with white icing to decorate.

Note: when making the white decorative icing, make sure that it is thick and somewhat retains its shape.

Cornstarch Guava Cookies

Ingredients:

250g sugar
500g cornstarch
100g all-purpose flour
200g unsalted butter
2 eggs
Vanilla extract
Guava paste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F and place rack in center of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Sift cornstarch, sugar and flour together. Add the lightly beaten eggs, vanilla extract and blend in the butter. Knead well. Let stand ten to fifteen minutes. Roll the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Place the balls on parchment lined cookie sheets. Press down with your thumb to make a small well in the center of the cookie and fill with guava paste. Do not press too hard or the cookie will fall apart. Or you can use cookies cutters and spread guava paste in one cookie and top with another cookie.
Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until slightly firm. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet to firm up before moving them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Subway Chocolate Chip Cookies
36 cookies.

Ingredients:

125g butter, softened (if using unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon salt with the butter)
110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
90g (1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons, very firmly packed) brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (1 teaspoon natural vanilla essence)
1 large egg (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
100g (2/3 cup) self-raising flour
150g (1 cup) plain flour
200g (about 1 rounded cup) chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees fan-forced).
Line one to three large baking trays with non-stick baking paper. If you have a fan-forced oven, you can use three trays and bake all of the cookies at once. Otherwise, bake the cookies one or two trays at a time so they bake evenly.
Using an electric mixer or electric hand-held beaters, beat butter, caster sugar, brown sugar and vanilla together until pale and creamy.
Stop the machine occasionally and use a spatula to scrape down the side and base of the bowl. Add the egg and beat until well combined.
Stir the plain flour and self-raising flour together in a small bowl. Add the flour and chocolate chips to the butter mixture and stir until well combined.
Form heaped teaspoons of dough into balls and place balls about 6cm apart on a baking tray. If baking the cookies in batches, you can refrigerate the dough between batches to prevent it from becoming too soft.
Bake for about 13-15 minutes, or until cookies are lightly golden but still very soft (they will firm up on cooling). The longer the baking time the crunchier the cookies will be. If you are using two trays, and you don’t have a fan-forced oven, swap the trays around halfway through the baking time so that the cookies brown evenly.
Leave cookies to cool on the tray for about three minutes, and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Once the cookies have cooled to room temperature, store them in an airtight container.

Cinnamon Biscuits
Makes 40

Ingredients:

¾ cup + 1 tablespoon (184g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup + 1 ½ tablespoons (218g) caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 ½ cups + 2 ½ tablespoons (375g) all purpose flour
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 egg white, lightly beaten with a fork
granulated sugar, for sprinkling

Directions:

Place butter, sugar and cinnamon in a food processor and process until smooth. Add the flour, egg and egg yolks and process until a smooth dough forms – my processor wasn’t strong enough to process the dough, so I prepared it on my Kitchen Aid using the paddle attachment. Lightly knead the dough, divide in two parts and wrap each one in plastic wrap; refrigerate for 30 minutes or until firm.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F; line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
Roll 1 leveled tablespoon of the dough to form a log (roughly 10cm/4in long). Carefully bend the top to form a candy cane and place onto prepared sheets, 2.5cm (1in) apart. Repeat with the remaining dough. Brush the canes with the egg white and sprinkle over the sugar. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool.
Store the cookies in an airtight container for 2-3 weeks.