Eggless Peanut Butter Gems Cookies

In yesterday’s post about chocolate chip cookies, I mentioned that I could bake only six cookies at a time as it spread a lot. So after a couple of batches, I decided to improve things a bit.

A little bit of searching landed me with a few treasures – two small packets of gems chocolate (Indian version of M&M), half empty bottle of peanut butter and some oats.

I mixed all this into the choco chip cookie batter (it was more batter like than a dough) till I got a reasonably stiff batter, again not a dough, but not a soft dough anymore. And baked them in tablespoonfuls again.

The results were outstanding. I loved these polka dot cookies the best! It had peanut butter, choco chips and gems in it. Baking with peanut butter is something beyond description!

The gems disappeared in the batter for the first batch. From the second batch onwards, I picked them out of the batter and pressed on top of the cookie. For improved looks, you know :D.

This recipe is off to Blogging Marathon 27. Check out the Blogging Marathonpage for more details.

Ingredients:

• Chocolate chip cookie dough, halved
• Two small packets (or more)of Gems, M&M or any other chocolate
• Peanut Butter: 1/2 cup
• Oats (I used Quaker) : 3/4 cup

Method:

1. Make the chocolate chip cookie dough as per the recipe. It will be a soft, but thick, cake like batter.
2. Add the peanut butter and oats to the prepared dough. Note that you can add a bit more or cut a little less of the oats to the dough to get a stiffer consistency.
3. Drop by heaped tablespoons in a baking tray lined with butter paper.
4. Bake in a preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, until the edges turn brown a bit.

Eggless Chocolate Chips Cookies

Its fine when your flops are limited to your kitchen. It’s highly embarrassing if it happens at someone else’s kitchen.

Someone I know needed help with baking and I told them that I bake a lot. I should have stopped there, but went on boasting about my baking skills till they were looking at me with reverence. I was their Nigella Lawson, the baking goddess.

The next day, I noted down my all time favorite Best Brownies recipe and a basic yellow cake recipe and went to their place. The batter was made, the brownie was put in the oven, the sweet aroma filled the house. Took out the brownie and sliced it and tasted it.

It was THE worst cake I had ever made! Even my first dry cake wasn’t this bad, I tell you!! Well, red faced I proceeded with the yellow cake recipe. And it came out brown. Really brown!

Later I spotted that I had missed adding the eggs to the brownie batter and about the brown yellow cake, I have no clue what went wrong.

Luckily, they have a great sense of humour and we all laughed it off and with kids in preteens, everything got over finally. It was a relief that it didn’t end up in dust bin! It was that bad, I tell you…

Anyway, my boasting has stopped since then and I am very much back to earth now.

Now, the recipe here is a flop wrto the texture, it spread too much and turned out to be too thin and tested my patience a bit. But it was really tasty and chewy and had chocolate chips in it. So its fine, I guess. Chocolate chips make everything better in life, even failed brownies and brown colored yellow cakes!

Recipe Source: Jeena’s Kitchen

Ingredients:

• Butter    :  100g ( 1/2 Cup)
• Light brown sugar : 6 tbsp (75 gm)
• Flour     :      3/4 cup
• Chocolate chips : 1/2 cup
• Baking powder : 1 tsp
• Milk            :  2 tbsp
• Golden syrup (or honey)  : 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a baking tray with butter paper.
2. Cream sugar and butter till light in a big bowl. Add the milk, golden syrup and beat well. I used a hand mixer for all this.
3. Once its all incorporated, add the flour and chocolate chips. The resulting dough will be soft, more like a cake batter and a stiff cookie dough.
4. In the baking tray, add the dough in tablespoons with enough space for it to spread. I could bake only 6 cookies in a batch.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes. When the edges are golden, remove and let it sit on the tray for a minute or two. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

This recipe is off to Blogging Marathon 27. Check out the Blogging Marathon page to know more about a lot of fun, lot of recipes and lot of themes.

This was one of the cookies that I had packed for the BM 25 Meet.

Basic Cupcakes

You can read about my son’s language skills here in this post. He chose to keep quiet than to talk in Tamil (his mother tongue). He started speaking fluently only at the age of 3.5 – 4 after he started going to school full day. But that too only in English.

Someone asked him recently what his mother tongue was and he replied that its English. I was too shocked to reply and when I discovered my voice, I reminded him that he speaks in Tamil to his both set of grand parents.

He replied: “I know tamil only enough to talk with them”.

Though there is a small nagging worry that his Tamil is bad, I am more relieved that the kid is communicating in some language at least!

Anyway…Bhagus, my two-year old niece, talks only in Tamil. Now that kiddo is there, he speaks to her in a mix of Tamil and English. He asks her to “Food chappidu” (Eat your food) and ”You vilayadu”(You play with me), when he is talking with her.

But this took the price.

Kiddo (in phone to me): ”Bhagus is always killing me.”

Me:”Errr….killing you?”

Kiddo: “Yaah..Now mama is also killing me.”

At that point, my brother took the receiver from him and clarified “Bhagus is pinching him” (Tamil word for pinch is killu).

Now let me pinch myself when I send this post to Blogging Marathon 27, a month-long marathon for April. You can hear more stories from other participants here at the Blogging Marathon page.

Recipe Source: Simple Vanilla Cupcakes

Makes: 16, depending on the size

Ingredients:

• All Purpose Flour                 :              2 cups  +  2 tbsp
• Baking powder                      :              2 tsp
• Salt                                          :              1/4 tsp
• Sugar                                       :              3/4 cup
• Butter                                      :              1/2 cup (softened)
• Eggs                                         :              2
• Milk                                         :              1 cup
• Vanilla                                    :               2 tsp
• Add ons                                  :              1/2 cup (choco chips, berries (I used dried cranberries), raisins – optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Line cupcake liners in a muffin pan.
2. Cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and then the vanilla essence.
3. In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Add this to the creamed butter, alternating with milk.
4. Coat the berries (if using) with the 2 tbsp flour set aside initially. Add this to the cake batter and mix till everything is incorporated.
5. Fill the liners 3/4th full and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes free of batter when inserted in the middle.

This recipe is off to Swathi’s Favorite Recipes. This month’s host is Pallavi and the theme is Bookmarked Recipes.

Torcettini Cookies – Sugar Crusted Cookies

I am in Trivandrum with my parents.

My kid is in Bangalore with my brother.

My husband is in Chennai all alone.

And all three of us are happy. This is how : I get a break from my routine jobs. My kid gets to play (and fight) with my 2-year-old niece Bhagus. And my husband gets some peace when he comes home from work ;-)

Well..actually, I am happy where I am, but I would be happier if I was with my husband and kid. Anyway, hubby is picking the kid and coming home this Sunday. So it will be family time again for another 3-4 days until he gets back to Chennai.

Torcettini cookies was this month’s choice for Aparna’s We Knead to Bake, which suited me fine because my father wanted me to bake him some cookies.

I made two more batches of cookies other than this recipe. It was about 150 cookies in total. The other ones were oatmeal raisin cookie and an icebox cookie recipe. The box that you see here is what I took home.

I hope father did get some of these to taste, cos it all got over in less than two days. My niece was happy and she had a couple of ‘bikkis’.

This recipe also goes to the last week of Blogging Marathon, a complete 30 day marathon for this month. This is the last week and the mood is to unwind and have a good time, so there is no particular theme as such.

Check out some of the cookie recipes in this space :

• Eggless Checkerboard Cookies
• Eggless Stained Glass Cookies and Valentine’s Cookies
• Eggless Sugar Sprinkle Cookies
• Eggless Pinwheel Cookies
• No bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

I have three more recipes in the drafts which I will be posting soon.

Recipe Source: Aparna has adapted this from A Baker’s Tour by Nick Malgieri

Makes: about 24 cookies

Ingredients:

Yeast Mix:

• Active Dry Yeast      :        1 1/4 tsp
• Warm water             :         1/2 cup

For the cookie dough:

• All purpose flour     :        1 1/2 cups
• Butter                        :        40 gm (2.5 tbsp)
• Salt                            :         1/2 tsp (omit if using salted butter)
• Lemon zest              :         1 tsp
• Sugar                         :        1/3 cup (granulated white sugar)

Method:

1.  Mix warm water and yeast. Set aside for ten minutes for bubbles to appear. I added a tsp of sugar to this.
2. I used food processor for making the dough. This can be kneaded with hands as well. Add the flour and salt in the food processor bowl and pulse a few times. Cut the butter into cubes and add it to the flour and pulse it till resembles fine crumbs. Add the yeast mix, lemon zest and let it run till it forms a dough ball.
3. Place this ball in a well oiled bowl and rotate so that the dough ball is coated with oil. Cover and keep aside for one hour.
4. An hour later (or after the dough has almost doubled), punch it down and keep it in the fridge for an hour (or 24 hours max).
5. To make cookies, preheat the oven to 170C. Take the dough out and roll it into a 6″ square. The size is just to get cookies of more or less the same size. Run the pizza cutter through the square to get 4 equal strips.
6. Cut each strip into 6 equal pieces.
7. Keep the sugar (1/3 cup) in a small plate near the cookies.
8. Take one strip, roll between your hands to get a rope and then shape it like a ribbon (like in the pictures). I cut the ends of the rope to get a flatter end.
9. Press this in sugar and line in a baking tray. Repeat with the other strips.
10. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the biscuit turns brown and looks done.

Eggless Checkerboard Cookies with Step by Step pictures

Kiddo’s summer vacation is starting on Wednesday. And I am going home on Thursday.

For the whole of two months. Now how many of you are jealous with that statement :-)?

I was checking with my parents whether they need something from here and my father goes: “Your mom is asking you to make some cookies and come. Cake is also fine, but she specifically wants cookies.”

Me:”Amma wants it or you want it?”

Appa: “Me??? Its amma who wants it. I will just taste a small piece, that’s all”

And I can hear amma protesting at being used for appa’s cookie requests!

So batch of cookies are going home. To celebrate the summer vacation and to celebrate going home :-).

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for recipes from more participants and more recipes.

Recipe Source: The Essential Baking Book

The dough is same as the spiral pin wheel cookies

Makes  :   4 dozen plus

Note: The step by step pictures is not of this batch, it has a slightly different pattern than the one featured in the pictures here.

Ingredients:

• Butter                         :              180g
• Sugar                          :              1 cup (granulated or soft brown, not demarara)
• All purpose flour     :               2 1/4
• Baking powder        :               1 tsp
• Cocoa                        :               1 tbsp
• Egg                            :               1 (replaced with 1/2 tsp baking powder + milk)
• Vanilla Extract        :               1 tsp

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar with a hand mixer till its light and fluffy. Add vanilla essence and egg, if using. Butter should be at room temp., if its not you can microwave it at 10 sec intervals @ 40 % power. If you do this at full power, the butter will melt.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Tip this dry ingredients into the butter mix and using a wooden spatula, mix until everything comes together and forms a soft dough.
4. Since I didn’t use the egg, I had to use 1-2 tbsp milk for moisture. You will have to add the milk in tablespoons till the dough comes together.
5. Knead and make a soft dough (don’t handle it too much, though).
6. Divide the dough into four equal parts. Add cocoa powder into two portions and knead it in. Keep the other two portions plain. At any point, if the dough seems to be soft, you can keep it in the fridge for it to become firm.

1. For making checkerboard pattern, shape one pair of chocolate and plain dough roughly into a square shape of same shape. Cut off a small portion for the border from both pieces.
2. Stack one on top of the other. Now, divide this into two pieces.
3. Divide each piece into two (or three pieces, I have gone for a two in here, but the main pictures show three check pattern).
4. Turn one piece over to show the opposite colour. It’s now, chocolate-vanilla – chocolate-vanilla now. If you are dividing into three pieces, turn only the middle piece upside down.
5. Press the two pieces together (or three, whichever the case may be). Repeat with the other pair too.
6. Stack them on top of each other. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. The dough can be frozen for later use also.
7. Repeat with the other remaining set of dough to get the logs.
8. If you want a border, check the pictures below. Else slice these and bake in a preheated oven for about 10-15 minutes, keeping an eye on it once its 8 minutes or so.

1. For border design, take the small portion that was kept aside from both cocoa and plain dough. Roll it in between two parchment papers, the rolled portion should be enough to cover the whole cookie log.
2. Keep the log in the middle and cover the sides and top with the rolled dough.
3. You now have a border around the checkerboard pattern. Mine was not sufficient, I had to roll out one more small piece to cover all sides.
4. Slice this log to get checker board pattern.
5. Don’t worry about the first piece that doesn’t look good, it’s for you to taste test :-)
6. Bake in a preheated oven, with enough space around each cookie, for about 10-15 minutes or till the edges start turning a bit brown.

This recipe is off to Vardhini’s Bake Fest, hosted this month by Sowmya of Nivedhanam

Cranberry Muffins – Christmas Morning Muffins

Baking makes me happy (not always though, but most of the time). Unfortunately, it makes me sweaty too. So summer is not a time I switch on the oven.

I feel that the Christmas time is perfect for baking. Its cooler that time and though we don’t celebrate Christmas, you can’t help feeling the holiday spirit.

Every blog features Christmas special recipes and before you know, you are making the cake (as if we needed a reason!) and trying a dozen other recipes. And this is one such recipe I came across.

Don’t limit these muffins for Christmas alone. Make these anytime when you need a break from the traditional breakfast. In fact, make these for dinner and carry over to the next morning.

Eating these will make you happy, even if baking doesn’t :-)!

This recipe if off for the 30 day marathon by Valli. Check out the blogging marathon page for more details and more participants and a whole lot of recipes!

Recipe Adapted from : Vegalicious Recipes

Makes : 15 regular or 8-9 big muffins

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour               :        2 cups
• Sugar                                    :        1 cup
• Baking Powder                   :        1.5 tsp
• Baking soda                        :         1/2 tsp
• Salt                                        :        1/2 tsp
• Oil                                          :       1/3 cup
• Egg                                        :        1
• Milk                                       :       3/4 cup (Can substitute orange juice)
• Dried Cranberries               :       1/2 cup + 1 tbsp
• Chocolate chips                   :       1/2 cup

Method:

1. In a big bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar with a whisk. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs together with milk and oil. Fold this into the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Add the cranberries and chocolate chips, but don’t over mix. 
2. Line a cupcake pan with liners and add the batter till 3/4th full in the liners.  Sprinkle the remaining one tbsp of cranberries on top of the muffins. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 180C or till a wooden skewer comes free of crumbs when inserted into the center of the muffins.
3. For the glaze, I mixed 1/2 cup powdered sugar with a tablespoon or two of water, until you get a thick glaze. I poured a tsp or two over the muffins.

Note:

• I made 12 regular and 2 big muffins. The ones featured here were baked in ramekins.
• I over mixed the batter :D and ended up with smooth muffins.

Linking this recipe to Swathi’s Favorite Recipes hosted this month by Pallavi. The theme is Bookmarked Recipes.

Eggless Sugar Sprinkles Cookies

 

Meeting friends and family is always fun. Its more fun, if it involves some travel, there by making it all the more special. And if you are travelling with some of your blogging friends, to meet some more blogging friends – then that’s extra special.

BM 25 Meet was one of its kind and though it’s almost 2 months since then, I am still reliving the memories again and again.

I wanted to give some edible gifts for everyone and I wanted something that can be made at least 3-4 days in advance. I was planning on baking cakes, but then dropped the idea as it was not something that can be packed ahead. So after racking my brains a lot, I came up with cookies (Ah, well, actually my friend suggested cookies). And so cookies it was!

So, if you too, want to make an edible gift to someone, choose cookies! The dough can be made ahead and frozen, if you want to. The cookies can be packed ahead (be very careful since these crumble easily), there by giving you enough time to panic over your other items to be packed. These colourful sugar cookies would be perfect for Christmas as well.

Check out what other participants are serving for the month-long marathon at Valli’s Blogging Marathon Page.

Recipe Source: Chewy Sugar Sprinkle Cookies

Makes: around 2 dozen small cookies

Ingredients:

• All purpose Flour       :       2 cups
• Baking Powder           :       1/2 tsp (1/2 tsp more, if replacing eggs)
• Salt                               :        a pinch
• Butter                           :       200gm (2 sticks)
• Sugar, granulated      :       1 cup
• Egg*                              :       1
• Vanilla Essence          :        2 tsp
• Sprinkles                      :       1/2 cup

*I substituted egg with 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1-2 tbsp. of milk.

Method:

1. In a big bowl, beat the softened butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat till its combined.
2. Whisk the flour,salt and baking powder in a separate bowl and add this to the butter mix. Beat for a minute with mixer or mix with a wooden spoon till it forms into a dough. Add half the sprinkles to the dough and mix.* If you are not using the egg, you might have to add a tbsp. or two of milk for some dough to come together.
3. Refrigerate the dough for about 2 hours (max 5 days).
4. Preheat the oven to 180 C/350F. Take about 1.5 table spoons of dough and flatten it a bit using your hand. Press some of the sprinkles on top of it. Place this in a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Repeat with the rest of the dough and place them in the tray, leaving about 2″ space between the cookies.
5. Bake one batch at a time, for about 10 minutes, keeping an eye on it after about 7 minutes, as they burn fast.
6. Let them sit in the tray for 5 minutes and move to a cooling rack till firm. Keep these stored in an airtight container.

*Note: I tried pulsing the sprinkles, it wasn’t a good idea with the locally available sprinkles as the colour leeched all over and I ended up with green cookies!

This recipe is off to Vardhini’s Bake Fest, hosted this month by Sowmya of Nivedhanam

Coffee Flavored Cake – Tea time cake

Five o ‘clock and its tea time. And the tough question of ‘what to serve for tea?’ arises.

Well, we don’t have that problem at our place, as there is no tea time as such. Anytime is tea time. And anytime is snack time too!

So if you need a reason to bake these, call your friends. Ask them to come for a cup of tea. And serve these extremely soft coffee flavoured cake.

Coffee cake for a tea time get together….perfect!

Recipe Source: The Essential Baking Book, my main baking book :-)

Makes : 11X7″ cake

Ingredients:

• Butter                                         :            125 gm
• Powdered Sugar                       :            1 cup
• Eggs                                            :            3
• Vanilla Essence                        :            2 tsp
• Instant Coffee Powder            :            2 tsp
• Flour                                           :            1 1/4 cup
• Baking Powder                         :            1 tsp
• Sour Cream*                             :            1/3 cup

*To make sour cream, you can add 1/2 tsp vinegar to 1/3 cup milk and let it sit, covered, for 10 minutes.

For the Icing, if needed:

• Icing Sugar                                :            1 cup
• Coffee Powder                          :             2 tsp
• Butter                                         :            20 gm, melted
• Salt                                              :            a pinch

Method:

1. Pre heat oven to 160 C. Grease a 11X7″ pan and line with butter paper. The cake might over flow in a 8X8 pan, so fill accordingly.
2. Beat the softened butter, powdered sugar using a hand mixer. Once the butter/sugar mix is soft and fluffy, add in the eggs - one by one, and beat them in.
3. Dissolve the vanilla essence and coffee powder in one tbsp. warm water. Add this to the butter mix.
4. In a separate bowl, add the flour, baking powder and whisk until combined. Fold this to the butter mix, alternating with the sour cream. Stir until the batter is smooth (but don’t over mix).
5. Fill the greased pan till 3/4th and smooth the surface. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer comes free of crumbs when inserted in the middle. Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.
6. For the icing, melt the butter. Add coffee powder in 1-2 tbsp. of warm water. In a bowl mix the coffee powder mix, sugar and butter. This icing is really sweet, so I would suggest adding a small pinch of salt too. Spread this over the cooled cake.

This cake is shared with our BM participants, who are running a full month marathon this month. That means, a recipe a day for a whole month, from 20 plus bloggers! Isn’t that cool and exciting!?

Linking this recipe to Swathi’s Favorite Recipes hosted this month by Pallavi. The theme is Bookmarked Recipes.

Buttermilk Cake with Caramel frosting

Birthdays are so much associated with cake cutting and throwing a party now a days. It’s a great time for kids.

It was an unheard of thing, when I was growing up.

At our place, amma and grandma used to make a traditional Sadya, or at least a payasam (kheer). I would rule the day, doing everything my way.

I would demand to win any games played that day, ‘because its my birthday.’ I would even spank my brothers, if I got an opportunity. It’s a different matter that my brothers used to get back at me the next day, but the satisfaction of irritating them and getting away ‘because its my birthday’, was immense. 

In short, you are the king (or the queen) for the day!

Now for my son, we cut a cake every year, but he still hasn’t got around saying ‘I want this, because its my birthday.’

I have no idea when he would start doing it, but until then there is peace at home. And the cake too!

This cake was made for someone’s birthday last month. I was so worried that it will not come out nice that I kept on tasting(to check whether its fine) until I finished a really big slice, which they gave for our family. With 1/4th of the cake inside me, I decided that it was indeed a good cake :-)

Anyway, this cake is going to Valli’s 30 day Summer Marathon. Check out the page to see the other participants.

Recipe Adapted from: The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

Makes : Two 9″ cakes or a 13X9″ sheet cake (or 24 cupcakes)

Ingredients:

• Butter                                  :      200 gm
• Sugar                                   :      1 3/4 cup
• Eggs                                     :     4
• Vanilla Essence               :     1 tbsp
• Butter Milk                        :     1 1/2 cup
• All purpose Flour            :     2 1/2 cup
• Corn Flour                         :      1/4 cup
• Baking Powder                 :     2 tsp
• Salt                                         :      1/4 tsp

For the frosting: (Enough to cover one 9″ cake. Recipe source here.)

• Icing Sugar                       :           2 cups
• Butter                                 :           100gm
• Dark Brown Sugar        :           1 cup
• Milk                                     :           1/4 cup
• Vanilla Essence               :          a few drops

Method: 

For the cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease two 9″ pans or one 13″X9″ pan.
2. In a big bowl, cream the softened butter and sugar. Once light and fluffy, add the eggs (one by one) and beat with the hand mixer. Add the vanilla essence.
3. In a separate bowl, add the flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk thoroughly.
4. Add the flour mix and the buttermilk to this alternatively, in two or three batches and keep beating with the mixer. 
5. Mix with a spatula and pour the batter into the pans.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out free of crumbs when inserted in the middle.
7. Take off the pan and let it cool completely in a wiring rack.

To make the icing : 

1. In a pan, add the butter and brown sugar to a boil under medium heat, stirring all the time (about 3-5 minutes). Once the sugar is dissolved completely, add the milk and bring it to a quick boil.
2. Take off the heat, stir in the powdered sugar and vanilla using a wooden spoon. Beat the frosting until its smooth (with the spoon itself). Spread this over the cool cake and let it sit for 30 minutes before serving. 

Note: My caramel turned a bit runny, so it started collecting around the sides. I kept the cake in the fridge to prevent it happening.

 

Linking this recipe to Swathi’s Favorite Recipes hosted this month by Pallavi. The theme is Bookmarked Recipes.

Eggless Heart Cookies – Valentine’s Cookies

A lazy Sunday afternoon. Kiddo, hubby and I were lying down together on the floor, relaxing and just spending some good time together. I nested my head on hubby’s chest, closed my eyes, thinking happily about the little pleasures of life.

A couple of minutes later hubby asked me :”Did you read this morning’s news paper?”

“Errr……No”: I answered, wondering where this conversation was leading to!

Hubby: “There was this piece about this guy who pulled a temple elephant’s tail. The elephant got annoyed and pushed him away with its trunk. The guy fainted, but was revived and went home. Later he developed pain in his chest and died after sometime”

Me: “Okayyyyyyy…”, slowly understanding where it was going…

Hubby: “I mentioned it because if you don’t move your head from my chest soon, I might either faint or develop a pain there!!”

Me. red faced and totally embarrassed at being compared to an elephant, got up and left.

It’s the kiddo’s laughter that still haunts me!!

That may be the romance quotient at my place, but it needn’t be the same at yours! Try baking these cookies for your loved ones, to show how much you care (about the cookies, at least!)

This recipe is off to the 30 day long April Marathon, hosted by Valli. This recipe is same as the one for Stained Glass Cookies, with a different shape and minus the candy!

Recipe Source: My Diverse Kitchen

Makes: 4 dozen plus, depending on the size of cookies

Ingredients:

• All-purpose flour  : 3 cups
• Baking powder      : 1.5 tsp
• Salt                            : 1/2 tsp
• Sugar                        :  1 cup
• Butter                       :  200 gm
• Milk                          :  3 tbsp
• Vanilla extract       :  1 tsp
• Cocoa Powder       :   2 tbsp

Method:

1. Bring butter to room temperature. It should be soft. I microwaved the block of butter in 10 sec intervals couple of times at 40% power. If you do this at 100% power, you will have ghee instead of softened butter!!
2. Beat butter and sugar together using a hand blender in a big bowl, till soft. Add vanilla essence and milk. Beat again.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt. Add this in batches to the butter mix and bring it all together into a dough, using your hands. You might have to add a little bit of milk, if necessary, if the dough is not coming together.
4. If you find that the dough is too soft for rolling, shape it into a disc and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes till its firm.
5. Divide the dough into four equal portions. Add cocoa powder to two portions. Knead till you get a uniform brown colour dough.
6. In a slightly floured surface or between two parchment papers. Roll one portion of vanilla dough (plain dough) and cocoa dough into 1/4″ thick.
7. Using the biggest cutter of a nested heart cookie cutter set, cut out cookies from both the dough. Cut out smaller cookies from this big cookie and interchange to get alternate colours.
8. Bake in a preheated oven, at 180C for 10-15 minutes, keeping an eye on it all the time. Once its baked, let it cool for sometime and gobble them down!

This recipe is off to Vardhini’s Bake Fest, hosted this month by Sowmya of Nivedhanam