Almond Butter Cookies Topped With Blueberry Jam

I have been interning at a molecular biology lab for the past couple of weeks. The person I follow around the most is on vacation starting tomorrow, so I figured I should bring something for everyone today. Something homemade, of course.

I guess the urge also came from not baking for a long time.

I decided to make these almond butter cookies I have made a few times before, mostly from leftovers of cheesecake crust dough. As I mentioned in the first time, the recipe was originally for cookies. They are often well-liked by people who eat them, and don't require too much fuss to make.

Being at the lab full-time doesn't give me a lot of time, though. So I prepped the dough on Tuesday night, and baked it last night. Due to ingredient shortage, I ended up using salted butter instead of unsalted, and used less than the recipe called for... which explains the few cracks in the cookies, as they didn't hold together as well. I used more sugar, too, to balance out the salty flavor that came in from the butter.

I baked each tray of cookies (at 20 cookies a tray) for 5 minutes, then topped the indents I made with jam for the last 15 minutes of baking. This keeps the jam from becoming too candy-like.

I also made a little "card" with the ingredients list, in case someone at the lab was allergic to something. This gave me an opportunity to dive into my card-making materials box. I wrapped it up in some Saran wrap before putting it in the bag with the cookies, to keep it from becoming oily.

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RECIPE (with reduced butter and added sugar)

  Ingredients

• 400 g flour
• 200 g almond powder
• 330 g salted butter
• 150 g sugar
• blueberry jam, as desired

  Procedure

1. Take butter out of the fridge.
2. Preheat oven at 180°C.
3. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.
4. Add small pieces of butter and rub into the flour mixture until no butter remains on its own. Try to not work the dough too much.
5. Roll the dough into logs and refrigerate around 30 mins.
6. Cut the logs into desired, even pieces. (I had to reshape them because my logs were uneven.)
7. Using your thumb, make indents in the cookies.
8. Bake for 5 mins in the middle of the oven, then put jam into the indents. Bake for another 15 mins.
9. Let cool completely.

Double Layer Cheesecake

1 Cheesecake, 2 Layers.

Layer 1: Full batch of blueberry cheesecake.
Layer 2: Half batch of original cheesecake.
Topped with blueberry sauce.

Cheesecake ^^

So one of my friends gave me the recipe, and I usually adapt it to my own taste. I'm not one to stick much to recipes. Once I try them once, I add or remove stuff to satisfy myself. I have yet to find the ultimate cheesecake crust recipe, since in Belgium, I can't find the pre-made pie crusts that my friend told me to use. If you want to use those, this recipe makes 2 cheesecakes. But since I used store-bought pastry dough, this is the result. The topping is an attempt at making blueberry pie filling like the ones in cans, with frozen blueberries. Wasn't really bad, but not quite there yet.


Ingredients:
- 2 Philadelphia cream cheeses
- 300g or one small tub sour cream
- 2 eggs (I use Orgran egg replacer)
- lemon juice
- vanilla extract
- topping (anything you want, really)

1. Preheat oven (71°C)
2. Mix sour cream, cream cheese, lemon juice, vanilla, then add in the eggs
3. Pour into the crust then put into the oven for about 45 minutes or until slightly cracked
4. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours
5. Decorate with topping, and refrigerate until served.

Pictures:

Blueberry scones

Recipe from the Redwall kitchen. I don't know if this is how they're supposed to look, but then, I used frozen blueberries rather than wild blueberries. And because I'm more used to making cookies, so they just look like cookies (my mom thought they were not sweet enough because she thought they were cookies). But yeah, my cousin's and my breakfast for days when we have class early (aka, tomorrow).

And there was one that was slightly burnt... So I cut it up for first taste!

An acquaintance is going to give me the recipe to these REALLY GOOD scones that a teacher at my high school once made. Can't wait!