Journey down the baking trail: Cookies

I am moving an inch at a time on my baking trail. I have not been baking much for the past few weeks...was busy catching up with things that I have left behind...like watching tv drama and keeping up with the household chores.

I have been wanting to make these melt-in-the-mouth German cookies when I first saw it at my baking pal, Sherlyn's blog. I bought the bag of potato starch weeks ago, but it was on a spurt of the moment that I decided to bake them...even though I was recovering from a fever. My younger son as usual, was always keen and eager to help me with baking, and lately he is into cooking. I have to thank him for being a very caring child. Besides gladly playing nurse, he was very spontaneous in helping out with simple chores when I was sick.

It was a hot and humid evening when we went about whisking the butter and the sugar. After adding the flour mixture, we couldn't really form a dough...the mixture was still batter-like instead of doughy. I was certain that I didn't get the measurement wrong. The only thing I could pin-point was the additional one teaspoon of vanilla extract I added in. It could also be due to the weather, the room temperature was 31.5 degC...the butter was already very soft to the extend of appearing greasy when I was done with the mise en place...and there was nothing much to prepare since there were only 4 ingredients!

I decided to let the dough chill in the fridge and it was a good thing I did. We could finally form the mixture into cookie doughs. Due to the extreme heat, the dough started to soften as we continued to work them into small rounds. I was expecting the cookies to spread upon baking but all of them turn out well. The cookies were nicely baked...slightly pale on top but the bottoms were lightly browned. These delicate cookies certainly live up to the name...the buttery crumbs simply melts away in your mouth! My boys found them so addictive that they couldn't help popping one after another into their mouths.

Since there are so many recipes on my to-do list, I usually do not go back to the same recipe again too soon. These cookies are so good and so simple to prepare, I was addicted to baking them. I made another batch again two days later, but this time I mixed in 1 teaspoon of matcha green tea powder to half of the dough,

and 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder to the other half. I made the doughs much smaller so that my boys could easily pop them into their mouth without leaving crumbs all over. The dough was easier to shape due to the 'drying effect' of the matcha powder and the chocolate dough was also quite dry as I have added too much cocoa powder.

As suspected, the chocolate cookies tasted bitter...would have to cut down the cocoa powder or use more icing sugar if I were to make these again. I paired them with a cup of slightly bitter coffee, and they didn't taste that bad...what to do, no one wants to eat these chocolate ones :'(

These matcha morsels are pretty nice with just a hint of matcha flavour lingering on the background. Nevertheless, my boys still prefer the plain, vanilla ones.

I packed some for my cake friend, and carried it with the greatest amount of care during the journey. However, just before I gave it away, I dropped the whole bag and the cookies were all crusted. I was so devastated and there was no one to blame but myself! Anyway, I was feeling very thick-skinned that day and went ahead to give it away. I couldn't imagine how my friend picked up the bits and pieces of cookie crumbs, lol! Fortunately, I learned later that she has actually made these cookies before, otherwise I would not have done justice to these delicious cookies.



Melt-in-mouth German Cookies 德式酥饼

Ingredients
(makes 60 pieces)

125g butter, soften at room temperature
40g icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
125g potato starch
80g cake flour

Method

1. In a mixing bowl, beat butter and icing sugar till light and fluffy. Add in vanilla extract (if using) and mix well.
2. Sift in potato starch and cake flour. With a spatula, mix to form a soft dough. Note: if the mixture appears too soft and wet to shape, leave the dough to chill in the fridge for about 10-15mins .
3. Roll dough into small balls (about 2cm in diameter), arrange on lined baking pan and press lightly with a fork (dip the fork in water after each press to prevent cookie dough from sticking to the fork).
4. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 15 mins, upper rack (need not bake till cookies turn brown).

Recipe source: adapted from Small Small Baker