It's that time of the year to prepare for our annual Christmas cookie bake for giveaway! This year, the Culinary Arts Ministry team from Adam Road Presbyterian Church has decided to create cookies that are easy to make, tasty, healthier and makes use of Redman's Super biscuit premix. Why the premix? Because it tastes awesome and you only need good unsalted butter as the other essential ingredient. So here are the cookie flavours I have come up with using the premix!
What's on the menu?
🔸Brown butter chocolate chip cookies
🔸Strawberry jam sandwich cookies
🔸Dark chocolate cookies with white chocolate star
🔸Matcha cranberry Christmas tree cookies
Besides the recipe and additional baker's notes, I will be including a longer form video on my Youtube channel for a more detailed visual, and a shorter form video on my Instagram reels. I will update this blog post with the links once I am done with video editing, probably within a week's time. The cookies are so simple to make even non bakers and kids can make them!
Redman has kindly agreed to sponsor the biscuit premix and unsalted butter for our mass bake.
We are including Alchemy Fibre, which is a prebiotic fibre blend of inulin and edible gum beneficial for gut health, cholesterol and glycemic load, to make the cookies healthier this year.
You may choose to replace the prebiotic fibre mix with inulin (available from health food stores) or simply replace with the biscuit premix if health is not a concern for you. The addition of the fibre affects the dough texture slightly but has no noticeable effect on the final baked cookies in terms of taste and texture.
❗Important reminder❗
Remember to take oven baking time and temperature as a reference only as each oven is different. Just bake until lightly browned and crisp. You may have to bake extra pieces just to sacrifice some for taste testing and calibrating the recipe for your oven.
Ingredients:
(makes about 14 cookies)
90g Biscuit premix
22g Alchemy fibre
70g unsalted butter
40g mini chocolate chips
Steps:
1. Place butter in a light coloured saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat until butter is browned*. Set aside.
2. Whisk together premix and Alchemy fibre. Sift into a mixing bowl.
3. Add brown butter and mix well to form a dough. Cling wrap and refrigerate for 15-20min/freeze for 6-10min to cool down the dough and allow the butter to firm up slightly. Dough should remain pliable after chilling.
4. Add mini chocolate chips and mix well*. Refrigerate 10min while preheating the oven to 160C fan/170C.
5. Portion out 14g (13g if you reserved some chocolate chips) of dough and roll into a ball. Place the balls about 6cm apart on a baking tray lined with parchment paper/Teflon sheet/silicone mat/perforated mat.
6. Bake for 10-12 min or until browned at the edges, rotating the tray halfway through baking.
7. Cool for 5 min before transferring the cookies on a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in airtight container.
*Baker's notes:
🔸You know the butter is done browning when you see numerous specks of brown bits in the butter and the hue of the liquid changes from yellow to a more brownish hue. It also smells great! Swirl the pan as the butter is being heated up or you may stir with a spatula.
🔸If you want the cookies to appear more aesthetically pleasing, reserve about 10-15g worth of chips instead of adding everything into the dough. I was lazy and didn't bother! Press a few reserved chips into the tops of each ball of cookie dough just before baking.
Strawberry jam sandwich cookies
Ingredients:
(makes about 10-11 sandwich cookies, 20-22 pieces of cookies)
96g Biscuit premix
24g Alchemy fibre
60g unsalted butter, softened
40g strawberry jam
Steps:
1. Heat strawberry jam in microwave oven or over stovetop until it is thicker or weight is reduced by 15-20%*. Set aside to cool uncovered
2. Whisk together premix and Alchemy fibre. Sift into mixing bowl with softened butter.
3. Mix together to form a ball of dough. Roll between two sheets of parchment paper until about 3mm thick.*
4. Refrigerate 20min or freeze for 10min. In the meantime, preheat oven to 160C fan/170C.
5. Cut 5cm circles of dough out with a round cookie cutter. Place them at least 3cm apart on a lined baking tray*. Use a small heart cookie cutter to cut out a heart shape in the middle of half of the circle cutouts for the top cookie in each sandwich*.
6. Bake for 9-11 min or until lightly browned, rotating the baking tray halfway through baking.
7. Cool on the baking tray for 5min before transferring onto cooling rack to cool completely.
8. Spread about 1/4-1/3 tsp of cooled reduced jam on the bottom cookie.* Press the top cookie onto the bottom cookie. Store in airtight container.
* Baker's notes:
🔸If you are using store bought strawberry jams, they are usually too watery to use straight from the jar so it is necessary to reduce it to evaporate some moisture. If you try to spread wet jam onto the cookies, they will turn soggy very fast instead of remaining crispy. The consistency of the reduced jam should appear noticeably more viscous while hot, very firm and fairly dry when totally cooled. Use 10 second bursts at high power if using microwave oven to reduce the jam. Stir after each heating cycle and check the weight to see if sufficiently reduced. Use low heat and constant stirring if you are reducing the jam on stovetop.
🔸 If your are upsizing the recipe, it is advisable to divide the dough into multiple portions to roll and chill. This keeps each portion of dough in optimal working condition when you are cutting out the circles. The dough should not be so cold and hard that it tends to crumble when cut, but not so soft that it is tricky to transfer into baking tray. Dividing the dough also ensures that at any point in time, you always have at least a batch of dough that is being chilled, ready for cutting out once you are done with the current batch.
🔸 Line baking trays with perforated mat if possible. This ensures that each cookie has a very flat surface which can sandwich the jam perfectly.
🔸 When cutting out the small hearts, press the cutter vertically downwards firmly and then give it a little wiggle while applying pressure. This ensures a cleaner cut. In the event that the dough cutout has jagged edges, you may use the side of a wooden toothpick to file off the rough outline of the heart after the cookie is baked.
🔸When filling sandwich cookies, less is more. Keep the jam layer thin except for the middle where it can be slightly thicker, but not thicker than the cookie (3mm). Leave a border of about 2-3mm without jam around the circumference of the bottom cookie. This is to ensure jam doesn't spill or peek out from the sides.
Ingredients:
(makes about 13 cookies)
90g Biscuit premix
12g Alchemy fibre
18g cocoa powder (I used Valrhona)
60g unsalted butter, softened
25g compound white chocolate chips
Steps:
1. Whisk together premix, Alchemy fibre and cocoa powder. Sift into mixing bowl with softened butter.
2. Mix well to form a ball of dough. Roll between two sheets of parchment paper until about 5-6mm thick.*
3. Refrigerate 20min or freeze for 10min. In the meantime, preheat oven to 160C fan/170C.
4. Cut 5cm scalloped circles of dough out with a scalloped circle cookie cutter. Place them at least 3cm apart on a lined baking tray. Use a small star cookie cutter to cut out a star shape in the middle of each dough cutout*.
5. Bake for 8min. Reduce baking temperature to 150C fan/160C, rotate the tray and bake for another 7min or until crisp.
6. Cool on the baking tray for 5min before transferring onto cooling rack to cool completely.
7. Place cooled cookies on a tray lined with a fresh sheet of parchment paper. Melt the white chocolate using microwave oven or double boiling method*. Transfer melted chocolate into piping bag, cut a small hole and fill the star cavities. Use a skewer to pull the melted chocolate such that it fills the cavity nicely if necessary
8. Freeze the tray of white chocolate filled cookies for 5min to set the chocolate. Carefully remove each cookie and store in airtight condition.
* Baker's notes:
🔸Please see 2nd and 4th notes under strawberry sandwich cookies for tips on portioning the dough and cutting out the small star cavity.
🔸If using microwave oven to melt white chocolate, use 10 second bursts at medium-high power, stirring to mix well after each heating cycle. The chocolate should be really runny and smooth before you transfer into piping bag. If using double boiling method, make sure the hot water doesn't touch the base of the bowl you are using to contain the chocolate. Be careful not to overheat chocolates or it will seize!
Matcha cranberry Christmas tree cookies
Ingredients:
(makes about 18 trees)
(makes about 18 trees)
90g Biscuit premix
24g Alchemy fibre
6g Matcha powder*
60g unsalted butter, softened
24g dried cranberries, very finely chopped*
Compound white chocolate chips (optional)*
Steps:
1. Whisk together premix, Alchemy fibre and matcha powder. Sift into mixing bowl with softened butter.
2. Mix well to form a ball of dough. Add chopped dried cranberries and mix well until the berries are evenly distributed throughout the dough. Roll between two sheets of parchment paper until about 5-6mm thick.*
3. Refrigerate 20min or freeze for 10min. In the meantime, preheat oven to 160C fan/170C.
4. Cut out the Christmas trees with a 5-6cm Christmas tree cookie cutter*. Place them at least 3cm apart on a lined baking tray.
5. Bake for 8min. Reduce baking temperature to 150C fan/160C, rotate the tray and bake for another 7min or until crisp.
6. Cool on the baking tray for 5min before transferring onto cooling rack to cool completely.
7. Pipe melted white chocolate tinsel* and freeze for 5 min to set the chocolate if you wish (optional). Store in airtight container.
* Baker's notes:
🔸You may use ceremonial grade matcha powder if you can afford it as it would give the most intense matcha flavour and colour naturally. If not, you may use culinary grade matcha powder. Do note that matcha powder oxidizes when exposed to air so the green color will turn duller and more brownish with time. You may use Redman's bakeable matcha powder if you want the cookies to retain the vibrancy as it has some green colouring added.
🔸Please see 2nd note under strawberry sandwich cookies for tips on portioning the dough.
🔸Please see last note under dark chocolate cookie for tips on working with melted white chocolate.
🔸 Matcha cranberry cookies are traditionally made as ice box cookies which are sliced from a chilled log of dough because the presence of the cranberry bits make it trickier for cookie cutouts to have neat edges. While it's possible to create neat cookie cutouts, it takes some patience. Chopping the cranberries until they are really fine (1-2mm) helps a lot. In the event the cookie cutout edges are untidy due to cranberry bits, carefully nudge the dough back into place where the cranberry bits stick out or are gouged out from the dough in the process.
Time management tips
Many of us are busy people so anything that helps to make a massive bake manageable is always welcomed. The great thing about cookies is the work can be spread out over time with short bursts of work in between.
1. You can prepare the dough in advance and store it in the freezer. For sheeted dough like the sandwich cookies, dark chocolate cookies and matcha cookies, you may roll sheets of dough between parchment and freeze them as a stack. You may portion the brown butter chocolate chip cookie dough into 14g portions and store in containers in a single layer in the freezer.
2. You can break the dough prep over time if you are preparing the dough for hundreds of cookies to make it more manageable. Just freeze the dough each time you make.
3. For cookies made from cutouts, you may freeze the cutouts in single layers separated by parchment. Make sure the base layer is chilled until firm before stacking.
4. Baked cookies can be frozen right after cooling down to room temperature and stored in airtight condition. Either pack them in their final packaging or store in single layers separated by parchment in airtight condition. Let the cookies thaw at cool room temperature before opening the container as exposure of cold cookies to warm moist air will cause condensation to form on the cookies, making them lose their crispiness.
5. Remember to add a minute or two to your baking time if you are baking from frozen. Just bake until lightly browned and crisp.
Do give these a try and they are yummy but simple to make!
with love,
Phay Shing
