Sugar Pie Cookies

I don’t know if I can say this is a recipe, but it’s so easy to make using left over frozen pie sheets, and I thought I’d post it here.  What you need are frozen pie sheets and sugar.  That’s it.

Although it’s effortless to make, they taste delicious and one whole tray of cookies were gone within 1 hour (by D).

<Sugar Pie Cookies>  makes about 30 tiny cookies

• 2 pie sheets (half-thawed)
• 4~ tbs sugar

1. Line a pie sheet on a clean kitchen surface.  Sprinkle sugar to the every corner.
2. Line another sheet on top.  Sprinkle sugar to the every corner.
3. Gently roll the pie sheet towards the top, while sprinkling extra sugar on the way, until it is completely rolled up.
4. Cut into 1 cm thickness.  Coat with more extra sugar, and bake in the oven at 180° for 30 minutes or until golden.

I used granulated sugar, but you can use raw or dark sugar too to enjoy different taste.  Let it cool on the tray until completely cooled down, and keep in an airtight container.

Orange Mousse

I made this orange mousse on the BBQ (post is here), and everyone loved it.  I had made cheese cake as dessert already, but in the morning I thought I would make one more dessert.

This mousse is such easy to make, and you can actually use bottled orange juice you have in your fridge – if you don’t have any fresh oranges.  That’s what I used, and it tasted as good.

<Orange Mousse> makes about 2L

• 200ml water
• 100g granulated sugar
• 13g gelatine (powder) + 2tbs water
• 240ml orange juice (100%)
• 30ml lemon juice
• 30ml cointreau (optional)
• 340ml fresh cream

1. Soak gelatine in 2 tbs water.  Whip the cream to the soft peak.
2. Place water and sugar in a sauce pan, and simmer over medium-low heat, while stirring with a silicon spatula, till the sugar dissolves.  Turn off the heat, and add the gelatine.  Stir well to blend.
3. Transfer the gelatine mixture into a mixing bowl.  Add orange juice, lemon juice and cointreau, and mix.
4. Place the bowl over iced water.  Stir until the mixture become slightly thicken (but not until the gelatine sets).
5. Mix the whipped cream to the mixture.  Blend well.
6. Pour the mixture into a mould, and keep in the fridge until it sets.

It’s a perfect dessert in summer.  Enjoy with orange coulis, whipped cream, or fresh fruits!

Mitarashi Dango

Dango is one of my favorite Japanese sweets!  I love the chewy texture.  Sanshoku-dango (three-color-dango) and mitarashi-dango are must item for me for 3PM tea time, and always get one or two while I’m in Japan.

Dango is made from rice flour, but there are actually few kinds of rice flour in Japan, called dangoko, joshinko and shiratamako.  It’s bit confusing and many people don’t know if there are any differences between them.  They are all made from rice.  Differences are the process of making each flour and also a kind of rice.  Dangoko is made from a combination of mochi rice and uruchi rice. Joshinko is made from uruchi rice.  Shiratamako is made from white mochi rice.  Dango made from dangoko are chewer than those made from joshinko or shiratamako.  Shiratamako gives soft texture and chewiness to dango and it doesn’t go hard when it’s cold.  Joshinko is mainly used to make most kinds of Japanese sweets (eg: mitarashi-dango, kashiwa-mochi etc)

I happened to have joshinko at home, and made mitarashi-dango using a recipe from my grandma!

<Mitarashi Dango> makes about 15

• 70g joshin-ko or rice flour
• 35g corn flour
• 10g sugar
• 170cc water

1. To make dango, blend all dry ingredients in a bowl. Add water and mix until smooth.
2. Place the mixture in a sauce pan, and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thicken and the color is almost transparent.  Remove from the heat, and cool.
3. Meanwhile, prepare a steamer.  Start boiling water, and line baking sheet on the bottom of the steamer tray.
4. When the mixture is cool enough to handle, shape into small balls by hands.  You can use corn flour if the mixture keeps sticking to your hands.
5. Arrange the dango on the baking sheet, and steam for 20 minutes.
6. To make sauce: place water, sugar and soy sauce in a small sauce pan, and simmer until the sugar dissolves.
7. Mix corn flour with 1 tbs water.  Gradually add the cornflour mixture into the sugar water, stirling constantly, to thicken the sauce.
8. Pour the sauce over dango and serve.  If you like better flavour, grill dango slightly and caramelize the sauce over the heat.

Cherry Pancake

Here is the recipe of cherry pancake I made on Christmas day.  You can prepare the mixture ahead and keep in the fridge until needed.  Try adding different fruits instead of cherries for a variety!

<Cherry Pancake>  makes about 6 

• 1 handful of cherries, pitted
• 1 egg
• 25g sugar
• 150ml milk
• 30g butter, melted
• few drops of vanilla extract
• 150g plain flour
• 5g baking powder

Cookies for a Christmas Tree

Baking cookies is one of the fun activities you can do for Christmas!  You can create them in any shapes, and decorate with your favorite color.

Poke a hole on the cookie dough before baking so that they can be hung on your Christmas tree.    Make sure the hole is big enough as the hole will go smaller after baking.

a

<Cookies> makes about 30~40 of 5cm Christmas trees

• 160g butter, unsalted
• 120g sugar
• 1 egg
• 320g plain flour
• a drop of vanilla extract

<Icing>  makes enough for 60 cookies

• 1 tsp vanilla yogurt
• 4~6 icing sugar (adjust the consistency: hard, but soft enough to pipe out)
• coloring 

1. Cream butter in a bowl using a whist or hand mixer until whitish color.  Add sugar, and mix until the butter is fluffy.
2. Add
3. …
4. Mix until the dough comes together.  Wrap in plastic, and rest in the fridge for more than 30 minutes.
5. Roll out the dough into 5mm thick.  Cut the dough into decorative shapes, using cookie cutters.  Arrange cookies on lined oven tray, and bake at 180℃ for about 10 minutes, or until the bottom of the cookies are golden. 
6. Once the cookies are cooled down, mix the ingredients for icing and put it in a small piping bag, or plastic bag.  Make a tiny hole on the tip, and decorate your cookies.
7. Leave until the icing is set.  

Merry Christmas to you all !! (^0^)-☆

あ