Almond and vanilla biscotti

Teacher's day is here! To celebrate my daughter's very 1st Teacher's Day celebration, I made some Almond Biscotti for her two teachers. To thank them for taking such good care of my baby girl!

I found a recipe from one of my cookbooks, Donna Hay - Modern Classics Book 2

We'll need :
2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup blanched almonds
3 eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 160C.
2. Place flour, baking powder, sugar and almonds in a bowl and mix together. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well to form a dough. Divide the dough into two.
3. Place dough on a lightly floured surface. The dough would be quite wet and sticky, so dust your hands with flour and shape into two logs and flatten it slightly.
4. Place logs on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper and bake for 35minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

5. Using a sharp knife, cut the logs into thin slices and placed on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper.

6. Bake for another 10-15 minutes or until the biscotti are crisp.
7. Store in an airtight container and serve dunked into espresso coffee or liqueur. Makes 40.

Since it was a present, I placed them into airtight ziplock bags and wrapped them in pink tissue paper. There enough for the both of them, plus some for our own enjoyment! Yums!

Happy Teacher's Day! Hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.

Fruit Paradise - Fruit Tart Shop

Located at Orchard Central, this shop sells, well, Fruit Tarts! We accidentally came across the shop while shopping and we were captivated by how pretty the tarts look in the fridge! It looked SO pretty, we wondered if they were even real! After staring at them for awhile, we were amazed that they are REAL... So we went in and tried them out!



I tell you, it was almost impossible to choose which one to order! Even after ordering, I was tempted to pull the waitress back to change my mind. But I stuck to my decision and got the Banana Caramel Tart.



It's a custard cream base tart with bananas and almond flakes, drizzled with caramel sauce.

My Hubby got the Blueberry Tart, which is the fresh cream base tart with blueberries and blueberry jelly cubes.



They look very rich, creamy and deadly. But surprisingly, they taste quite light. Personally, I would prefer it to be sweeter, but I guess many people are health conscious. Overall, it was a nice tea break. The tart was nice, the tea was a perfect complement to the tarts, the service was excellent and the prices was reasonable. My only complaint was that my tea was not hot enough. What a kill joy... -_-

Check them out

Jam Drops

I got this recipe from Donna Hay - Modern Classics Book 2. I was a little bored one evening, so I wanted to do something simple, fuss free. This is a sweet, buttery and crumbly cookie with jam in the middle. Very easy to do, and a nice snack to nibble on. :)

180g butter, softened
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
1 egg
2 cups plain flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Jam of your choice (I use rasberry)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Beat butter and sugar with electric mixer till its light and creamy.

3. Add egg and mix well.

4. Stir through the flour and baking powder and mix into a dough.

5. Roll into small balls with about 3cm in diameter. Place onto baking tray with non-stick baking paper, allowing room for the biscuits to spread a little during baking.

6. Flatten the dough slightly and make a little indent in the middle of the dough. Fill the hole with jam.

7. Bake for 10minutes or until golden brown.

8. Cool on wire racks.

Dad’s Pineapple Tarts

There’s 2 ways to make pineapple tarts. One way was to blend everything up using the mixer, and the other is the rubbing in method. Dad gave me this rubbing in method recipe for a more fluffy tart; basically you rub flour and chilled butter with your fingers to get a breadcrumb-like texture.

But if you have warm hands like me, you would probably end up with a overly wet dough due to the butter melting from the warmth of your hands. If that’s the case, you can use a pastry blender to cut the chilled butter into the flour. Works for me!



Warning! This dough is much more difficult to work with as it is SO SOFT!
Key points to remember:
1. Minimum hand contact – work quickly! The more you handle the dough, the softer it gets!
2. Dust! – Make sure your table, rolling pin and cookie cutter is well dusted with flour.
3. Plastic sheet – Cut out a clean plastic bag into a sheet and put it over your dough when you roll it, this would prevent the dough from sticking onto your rolling pin.

Tart pastry:
300g cake flour (sifted)
220g butter (cubed and chilled)
100g sugar
15g custard powder
1 egg yolk
Ice water

Method:
1. Roll pineapple jams into little balls and set aside.

2. Preheat oven at 180°C.

3. Mix the flour, sugar and custard powder together.

4. Using a pastry cutter, cut the chilled butter into the flour till it resembles breadcrumbs.

5. Mix in the egg yolk and gradually add in the iced water till the mixture forms a soft dough.

6. Cover up the dough and chill in the fridge for about 2 hours.

7. Dust the work area with flour before rolling out the dough till it's about 0.7 cm thick.

8. Dust the pineapple tart mould with flour and cut flour into shapes.

9. Brush sides of tarts with egg wash.

10. Bake in a greased, lined baking tin for 10 minutes.

11. Remove tarts from the oven. Fill centre of tarts with the pineapple jam balls.

12. Return tarts to oven to bake for a further 5 minutes, or until golden brown.

13. Cool the tarts on wire rack.