[Recipe] Decorated Festive Chocolate Cookies Together With Early Christmas Party

Last Saturday we have a small Christmas potluck gathering at my place with some of my old friends as well as the new friends from Twitter. Everyone has a wonderful time despite on the chaotic happening in the kitchen while some of us are busying with the food preparations.

And in order to make this a memorable gathering with Christmas atmosphere, Rey and I have decided to prepare some "door-gifts" for the guests which includes some of these mini decorated festive cookies in it. Can you spot Pooh, Minni and Tigger among these cookies?

  We made these Chocolate cookies instead of the usual one that is infused with spices because we are afraid that some of the guests might not prefer the aroma of the spice. So Chocolate flavor will be best for everyoe. These are some collage photos on the ingredients and steps on making the cookie dough.

Ingredients: (makes roughly 2 dozen)

90g Unsalted Butter
100g Caster Sugar
1 Egg
180g Self-raising Flour
2 Tablespoons Dutch Cocoa Powder
¼ Teaspoon Salt
½ teaspoon orange liquor, optional


My boy and I are busy with the cookie cutout and get them ready for baking and icing decoration.

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and creamy, add egg and orange liquor then beat till combined.
2. Fold in flour mixture (sifted flour, cocoa powder and salt together) in the egg till it forms a dough.
3. Turn dough on lightly floured surface and knead gently until soft dough is formed.
4. Divide the dough into two portions, flatten each portion on between sheet of baking paper and place in fridge for 30 minutes.
5. On floured surface, roll dough out to half a cm thick, cut into shapes using festive shaped cookies cutters.
6. Re-rolled leftover dough and cut again.
7. Baked in preheat 180 degree oven for about 8 – 12 minutes depending on the size of the cookies.
8. They will be soft when come out of the oven but will set as they cool.


After the cookies cool off and decorated with colourful icing, we packed them into individual packet and get them ready into the goodies baga together with some chocolate for the guests as "door-gifts".

Ingredients For Royal Icing:

65g Icing Sugar
1/2 Egg White
1/4 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
Assorted Food Colourings
Assorted Christmas Theme Sprinkles, optional

Method:

1. Sift the icing sugar and set aside.
2. Beat the egg white till foamy then add in lemon juice and icing sugar in a few batches till smooth. (about 5 - 8 minutes, it must be a spreadable consistency)
3. Divide the icing into a few portion then mixed with your desire colours.
4. Spoon icing into disposal piping bag, snip the tip off and pipe decorative outlines and design on each biscuit.

PREVIEW OF OUR CHRISTMAS POTLUCK GATHERING

Christmas Turkey prepared by Misstamchiak(Maureen) and Kai. Everyone is looking high and low for the roasted vegetables and sauce :p

Cheesy Ham Roll prepared by Yancai, Maureen and Rae. This is another way to present the sliced Turkey and it taste very yummy for us to snatch with just these limited rolls on the plate.

Stir-fried Fish Fillet with Thai Basil Leaves by me (Cuisine Paradise). This is something similar to the Chicken version recipe that I have posted HERE.

Spicy Egg and Cucumber Kerabu prepared by Rae(Shan). This cold appetiser consists of a lot of ingredients such as prawns, egg, cucumber, pineapple, belacan, dried prawns and etc.

Here is another main dish which is the "STAR" and highlight of the day too. Cioppino or fish stew that is prepared by Alvin and Lobs(Lobsterpaints) As you can see, there are big fresh prawn, mussels, clams and different type of fish that are stew together using tomato paste, red wine and many other herbs and seasonings. Very delicious pot :)

The whole table of food that are ready to be served. Yummy Chicken Curry by Susan, Grilled Chicken Drumlets by Joyce(ahpoohbear), stir-fried broccoli with mushroom, logcake, fruitcake and etc.

Thanks everyone for the hard work on preparing the food and travel all the way to my place in order to make our 1st potluck party a successful one. Thanks a lot pals.

Christmas with Sakae Sushi

Christmas is just 2 day around the corner and I am sure everyone is getting pretty excited with the Christmas Eve countdown event  and feast. At early this December Sakae Sushi has launched some innovative Christmas Theme (menu HERE) items to excite the sight and taste of their customers. Below are two of the Christmas items that we have a few weeks back.

  My boy was attracted to this "Christmas Tree Wonder" while waiting for our seats at the queue. So when the order came he was very excited with the layout of this mini Christmas Tree that is assemble using a graham biscuit base, potato salad body with avocado that decorates with fresh fish roes and yellow Star cutout from Tamago.
Price: S$6.99 per plate

Emo Iruka Delight was my choice and look at this lovely pressie that sparks with those tiny fish roes coating. This pressie is made up with 2 layers of 4 sushi roll each and sandwich with cheese slice.  This is indeed a very lovely combination in taste too.
Price: S$6.99 per plate


Despite with the two impressive Christmas items above we also ordered a set of  "Deluxe Bento" which serves with Prawn and mix vegetable tempura, mix Sashimi, Sakura ebi tofu, seasoned Scallop wings, grilled Eel with tamago and Chawanmushi, rice, miso soup and etc . This set was quite a huge serving which can be consume by 2 persons with additional of some sides plates from the conveyor belt.
Price: S$17.99 per set

Korea Winter Discovery 2010 - Jeju Part II

Continue from Part I (link HERE) of our "Korea Winter Discovery 2010 - Jeju" (link HERE), we will explored another 4 places in this post such as the Horse Riding, Teddy Bear Museum, Glass Castle and Nanta Show.

Korea Winter Discovery 2010 - Jeju Part I

Jeju Island (濟州島) formerly known as Cheju Island is an island off the southern coast of South Korea. This island is also known as the "Island of the Gods" which is a popular vacation spot for Koreans and many Japanese and Jeju is also one of the top honeymoon destinations for Korean newlyweds. Even thought we are there during winter but with its' typical mild coastal climate the minimum temperatures in winter is also above 0 degree due to the warm currents.