Peanut Butter Chips, White Chocolate Chip Brown Sugar Cookies

American-themed hallway dinner? Due to a lack of time and inspiration, I decided I would make cookies. Easy right? I've made so many choc-chip cookies before, it would be easy!

Wrong.

I went and weighted my remaining half block of butter, and found out that I had less than 150 grams of butter. The recipe I usually use requires around 340 grams. I did not really want to end up with only 6 cookies, so I went to look for an alternative.

This recipe was the one I used. Since it uses oil instead of butter, I could use it safely even with my butter shortage. Instead of putting all the sugar, however, I did not put the 1/2 cup of granulated sugar (as I used some white chocolate chips, which are plenty sweet already). I also added more flour as I felt the dough was too wet and would spread too much while baking. The last adjustment made was that I used white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips (Reeses ones that a cousin brought me from the US).

The cookies are pretty much vegan, except for possibly the white chocolate chips~

These cookies were well liked by my hallway mates during dinner!

White Choc Chip Cookies with Lemon

These cookies were baked on August 18th, 2014. I brought them on my second to last day at the Dutch summer course I was taking. Since I left about a week early due to university schedule clashing, I thought I would treat my teacher and classmates. We were together for a short time -- merely 3 weeks -- but I felt that we bonded a lot more than I would've ever expected.

The labels are hand-made. I got the translation of "White Chocolate Chip Cookies with brown sugar and lemon" from what I learned and Google Translate (so forgive any mistakes ^^).

I admit I probably am getting into the habit of bringing baked goods whenever I'm somewhere, or need to say "bye" to someone.

I baked these cookies with some lemon in them because I usually curb the sweetness with some walnuts, but since I didn't have any, I cut down on the sugar and added the tartness and fragrance of lemon.

I just realized that I have never posted the recipe I usually use for making chocolate chip cookies, despite having made them quite a few times. Well this one's a tweak on the recipe, but I guess it'll have to serve for now. I'll post the original recipe properly the next time I make choc chip cookies.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup golden sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• zest 1 lemon
• 2 tsp Orgran egg replacer
• 4 tbs water
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp hot water
• 1 cup white chocolate chips

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 175°C.
2. Cream butter and all sugar until smooth. Add in lemon juice and zest.
3. Mix the egg replacer and the 4 tbs water (proportions ~2 eggs) and beat them into the mixture.
4. Dissolve baking soda into the hot water before adding.
5. Stir in flour and chocolate chips.
6. Put on baking sheet by large spoonfuls.
7. Bake for 10-15 mins.

Vegan Flan/Crème Brulée

In my plum tart post, I mentioned a vegan custard recipe, which I used as a base for the fruits on the tart. I had put the leftover custard into small oven dishes and filmed them to prevent the formation of a weird skin.

I then put a layer of brown sugar on top and broiled them in the oven until melted and slightly toffee-like.

Unfortunately, either because I took too long between the making of the custard and the caramelizing/toffee-ing, or because of the reheating and re-cooling, the texture of the custard wasn't the smooth creaminess I found in the tart base. The flavor, however, was wonderful, especially with the melted brown sugar that became both a small film of crunchiness and a delicious caramel sauce. This will be something to try again, maybe with tweaks to the recipe.

Rest assured, the recipe was fine in the tart~

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VEGAN CUSTARD RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 500 mL milk of choice (I used unsweetened soymilk)
• 2 tbs honey/syrup/unrefined sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbs cornstarch (which I didn't have so I subbed with 6 tbs wheat flour)

  Procedure

1. Mix milk, sweetener, and vanilla in a pot and heat until almost boiling.
2. Make a slurry out of starch and a bit of water, and add to the pot, stirring.
3. Simmer until thickened.
4. Consume as fast as possible.

Apple Cake with Whipped Cream and Caramel

On a weekend with guests over, my brother made some homemade pizza while I made a cake. I originally intended to make jam-topped almond butter cookies, but due to time constraints, I settled for egg-free cake with diced apple inside.

Turns out after I baked it and decorated it with whipped cream and caramel sauce (caramel always fails with me...), the inside was not cooked enough. So I had to scrape off the cream and re-bake the cake some more... Just goes to show that I have a lot of failures as an amateur baker...

I also accidentally left all my baking decoration tools at my dorm, so I had to make do with a plastic bag to try and pipe designs on top. As usual, when I use a plastic bag, I cut the hole too large, so it makes for sloppy decorations.

All in all, this cake was a pretty bad failure, though the end result was tasty enough.

Apple Topped Spiced Cake

While planning to visit yet another family friend, my mom said something about buying a tart or cake to bring along. Personally, I felt it was unfair that one family friend got homemade goodies, while another one would get store-bought. So I decided to whip up a quick cake.

The recipe for the cake itself is the same as this one, but without the fruits, and with more milk and oil (215 g and 111 g respectively). I topped it with hand-whipped whipped cream (whipping cream and some icing sugar).

I cooked apple slices (thicker than the ones I use for apple tarts) in some brown sugar syrup, before laying them on top of the whipped cream. Then I dusted the whole thing in cinnamon, and glazed the apples with a bit of leftover apple glaze that I had from one of the last times I made apple tarts, which I flavored with a dash of rosewater.