Father's Day Ginger Cookies (and Mother's Day and Valentine's Day Decorated Sugar Cookies)

For a bit I was buying my parents actual presents for various gift-giving occasions. But for Mother's and Father's Day this year, I was out of ideas.

So for my mother's day I baked sugar cookies. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures but they were identical to one's I had made Oppa for Valentine's Day. I ended up cutting the sugar by 1/3 and they were still plenty sweet, especially with the white chocolate piping, but not overly so. They got my parents' and sister's stamp of approval as being delicious without been insanely sweet. They are also very easy to work with and hold up in the mail, both in terms of taste and integrity, since I mailed these across the country to my parents. And I prefer using white chocolate to decorate versus normal icing (too sweet, too runny) or royal icing (too sweet, funny taste). White chocolate has a richer taste and dries quickly.





So for Father's Day, I made my dad some cookies. I went with these ginger cookies since neither of my parents are a fan of sweets so I felt I could go with ginger cookies, cut down on the sugar without sacrificing much flavor since there's such an abundance of spices in this one. These do spread but not significantly. Next time, I might make them even flatter before baking to get a crispier cookie which I prefer over the cakier texture that a thicker cookie produces. I might also increase the amount of spices even more but that's more personal preference since I love the ginger/cinnamon combination. The white chocolate drizzle makes them prettier-looking and is also a nice compliment to the spices. I highly recommend it.



And I even handmade a card! Buying cards is so difficult because so few are just blank on the inside which I definitely prefer over the length cheesy poems written in so many of them. Maybe my handmade cards aren't nearly as pretty-looking as store-bought cards but they seem so much more homey. :)



Decorated Sugar Cookies

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
10 tablespoon) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

white chocolate chips
gel food coloring

1.Whisk the flour, salt and baking powder together.
2. Beat the butter for a minute or so, until smooth. Beat in the sugar and continue to beat until the mixture is light and pale. Add the egg and yolk and beat for another minute or two; beat in the vanilla.
3. Add the flour mixture, mixing only until it has been incorporated. The dough will now be soft and malleable.
4. Turn the dough out onto a counter and divide it in half. To make roll-out cookies, shape each half into a disk and wrap it in plastic. Chill for at least 2 hours. This can also be frozen for up to 2 months.
5. Preheat the oven to 350⁰F. Working with one packet of dough at a time, roll out the dough between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper to about 1/4'' thick. Cut the cookies into whatever shapes you like. Transfer to baking sheet, placing them about 2'' apart.
6. Bake the cookies for 9 to 11 minutes, rotating once in the middle. The cookies should feel firm, but they should not color much. Let them cool slightly on baking sheet then transfer off to cool complete.
7. Melt white chocolate chips in microwave in 30 second increments to ensure the chocolate doesn't burn. Add gel food coloring (not the liquid kind!). Transfer to pipet bag and decorate as desired.
8. At room temp, cookies will keep for 1 week in a sealed container.

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Ginger Cookies

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup sugar (I reduced to 1/2)
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses (I reduced to a tad less)

1/3 C cinnamon sugar (I skipped this)
white chocolate to drizzle

1. Whisk together flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
2. Beat butter until creamy. Gradually beat in the white sugar. Beat in the egg and dark molasses.
3. Mix the flour mixture into the butter mixture thoroughly blend until a soft dough forms.
4. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
5. Preheat oven to 350⁰F. Pinch off small amounts of dough and roll into balls and place 2" apart on an ungreased baking sheet.
6. Bake uuntil the tops are rounded , about 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
7. Drizzle with melted white chocolate.


Enjoy!

Asian-style Birthday Cake

I made this two weeks ago for Oppa's birthday. I usually only make cakes for big occasions and this was definitely an important one. When I had asked him what he wanted, he said he wanted the Asian-style birthday cakes that you usually see in Asian bakeries but then said it was probably too complicated and he'd rather go with chocolate instead. So to surprise him, I spent three days making this beauty. Without any fancy mixers either! Hand-beating egg whites and whipped cream makes quite the arm workout.

But the final product was so worth it!

Three layers of light fluffy cake, with sliced fresh fruit and custard filling, finished with homemade whipped cream frosting and glazed fruit. It's very light, fluffy, and not too sweet either - perfect for summer!



And here it is with the candles all lit!



Everything about the cake was absolutely delicious and everyone at the party loved it.

Asian-style Cake with Custard and Whipped Cream
adapted from Pocket Daydreams

Sponge Cake

Ingredients
3/4 cups of flour
0.8 cups of sugar, split into 2 even portions
6 large eggs, room temperature, separated into yolks and whites
1-1/2 tbsp canola oil
1-1/2 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 9″-diameter baking pans
Simple syrup (1 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp water)

1. Preheat oven to 340⁰F. Line and grease bottoms and sides of cake pans.
2. Separate eggs very carefully because any yolk in the whites makes beating the whites much more difficult. Mix first sugar portion (0.4 cups) with the egg yolks and beat until slightly thick and pale yellow. Stir in the vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until they are starting to form peaks. The egg white will still be drippy.
4. Add the remaining portion of sugar (0.4 cups) in three separate additions while continuing to whip egg whites. Continue until stiff peaks form. Egg whites will cling to the beaters with no dripping.
5. Combine 1/2 of the meringue with the egg yolk mixture, folding carefully to minimize volume loss.
6. Gradually add flour and mix.
7. Add oil and milk to the batter.
8. Fold in the remaining half of the meringue carefully.
9. Divide batter into the two greased pans. Tap pan to make sure the batter is even.
10. Bake for about 20-25 minutes at 340⁰F until tops are a light brown.
11. While cake is baking, prepare simple syrup by combining 1 tbsp sugar and 2 tbsp water in a small saucepan. Stir until sugar dissolves as it just begins to boil.
12. Remove cakes from oven and let it cool in the pan to room temperature. The cake shrinks as it cools so loosen edges from the pan to allow it to shrink evenly.
13. Once cooled, remove cakes from pan.

Custard

Ingredients
1/4 cup of granulated sugar
1/4 cup of all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup of milk
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla

1. Mix the sugar, flour, and salt in a medium saucepan. Stir in 3/4 cup of milk and mix until smooth.
2. Bring mixture to a boil at medium heat, whisking constantly. Do not scrape off any clumps that form on the sides and bottoms as it will leave clumps in your custard.
3. Cook another 2 minutes and remove from heat. At this point the mixture should have thickened up dramatically.
4. Mix together egg with remaining 1/4 cup of milk, then combine with the mixture in the saucepan, whisking vigorously to combine. Return to heat and cook until just about to boil. There will be a lot of lumps at first, but just keep whisking until most of the lumps have disappeared.
5. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Whisk until no lumps remain. Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap directly touching the surface of the custard to prevent any skin from forming on the custard.
6. Chill at least 2 hours in the fridge or overnight if desired.

Whipped Cream Frosting

Ingredients
1 tbsp cold water
1/2 tsp unflavored gelatin
1 cup (1/2 pint) of chilled heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tbsp of confectioner’s sugar

1. Freeze your beaters and mixing bowl until they’re nice and cold.
2. Soak gelatin powder in the cold water for about 5 minutes to let it absorb the water. End result will be clear and mushy.
3. Place bowl in a small pot of simmering water and stirring until clear. Let cool but do not let it get cold.
4. Prepare a bath of ice and cold water.
5. Place your well-chilled bowl in the ice bath and pour heavy cream into the bowl.
6. Beat cream at high speed until the beaters leave a trail in the cream and has a nice coat on the beaters.
7. Slowly sprinkle sugar and vanilla around the cream.
8. Add the melted gelatin all at once while beating until cream thickens and clings onto the beaters.
9. Put in refrigerator while you start assembling the cake. This should be just enough to frost and decorate the cake without too much extra.

Assembling the Cake

1. Brush a thin layer of simple syrup on the bottom layer.
4. Spread a layer of custard onto the top of the cake layer. Add prepared fruit pieces on top of the custard. I used strawberries and honeydew. Cantaloupe would be delicious as well. Cover with some more custard.
6. Place the second cake layer on top.
7. Brush simple syrup on top of the second layer. Also brush the edges if they seem dry.
8. Frost the cake with the whipped cream topping by first frosting it with a crumb coat and then set it in the fridge for a few minutes. The crumb coat prevents crumbs getting pulled from the cake and into the frosting as you frost the cake.
9. Finish frosting rest of cake. Decorate with glazed fruit.

Glazing Fruit

1. Prepare the gelatin by soaking 1/2 tsp of gelatin powder in 2-1/2 tsp of cold water for about 5 minutes to let it absorb the water. Place bowl in a small pot of simmering water and stirring until clear. Let cool but do not let it get cold.
2. Dry fruit and roll in the gelatin and placed it on a plate to gel. Roll in second coat if one coat isn’t shiny enough.
3. Put in the fridge to set.

Enjoy!

New Blog, New Blogger, First Post

Hi everyone!

My name is Linda and welcome to my first time blogging! I love to bake, especially cupcakes, but I've also been starting to explore some "real cooking" too. I've been baking for about two or three years not but have only been cooking for about the last year. This blog will be a record of my various success and the occasional oppsie-daisies. I wish this to be an entertaining read at the very least.

So here's to a hopefully, long-live blog and a happy journey!



:),

Linda