Monday, February 5, 2007

Baked In A Batch

From the title itself, it's pretty obvious that it'll be under the baking good's label. I was dumb-founded when Fatass planned to bake various unbakes into baked cookies. Biscuits or cookies, it does not matter much. What matters the most were the ingredients used, time to be baked in the oven and the handler. Okay, not an ideal catch-phrase I've used here. Does not ryhme together, but at least, readers might get the idea what I'm trying to barked out of it.




Since Fatass Mich and Servante' De Molly had scratched their head for days, thinking about Esther's buhbye-gifts, I suggested that a box of cookies would be an ideal and perfect gift. Make it easy, would it be a bit of fun if you get to chow down on C-grade assorted cookies in Melbourne while having a good cuppa and flipping your Physics exercise book while your friends are celebrating CNY in the latter's cousin's house? (*Winks*). In short, the C-grade assorted cookies might remind you about
Molly and the infamous C-grade baker, Fatass. (*Devilish grin*). So, both of them agreed on my brainy brainstormed ideas. Servante' De Molly will get those ingredients while Fatass Mich will figure what cut-out dough would be like. Having a good thought of real chocolate-box cookies made by Fatass, it might be a senseless thought and I might be brainless by the minute I talk about it. Fatass Mich was determined and convinces us that she can handle the unbaked dough in weeks. Mind me, I was exaggerating! Aiming to catch all the reader's attention for the sake of this bloggie for a few seconds before getting to this line.




Moving on, it would be a perfect timing since Fatass plans to bake the unbakes for her best butts-buds-pals, close friends and mum's friends. So, it's like killing two birds with one dried poo. It's more hassle-free.




Anyway, it took Fatass Mich one sleepless night to get the ooey goey dough into the oven and lastly, into the containers and disposable plastic's. Although it doesn't seemed to be as good as what it would look like, at least, there's a few lines of words hidden in the baked dough. Take a bite on it, you'll get what I mean. Sincerity, care, love and poos. A big applause and owhhh. For the attempt to simplify them, I'll kick off the cute word; 'poos'.




I've counted. Exactly, baked them in a batch, Fatass successfully got 8 C-grade cookies. It was what most Chinese human beings would call for; when it comes to betting their wholesome hard-earned money on 3D's, 4D's, 5D's, 6D's - my version of D's. Eight, 8, Lapan; which translates into the word 'fatt' in Cantonese. 'Fatt' goes along with 'choy'. So, it's 'fatt choy', which means longevity and being prosperous. Besides, 'fatt' does go with Rufus and fatass too. Think hard. (*Smiles Lamely*).




Before laying off her hands on the electrical mixer, Fatass jotted all the ingredients and recipes from all sorts of cooking book. Then, she looked out for refrigerated cookies. To name a few, almond cookies, dark choc chips cookies and lemon biz. To save time, she get her fatass off the chair and mix the ingredients for a few of the planned-out refrigerated ones, then only to the "straight away into the oven-ones". Refrigerated cookies are the ones which need to be stored 30 minutes+ into the fridge before popping them out into the preheated oven. After the cooling and hardened process, the cookie dough will be much easier to be cut-out with cut-out moulds.




Almond cookies were the first batch. Rolled into a long cylinder with approx 3cm in diameter before they were refrigerated. Simple recipe; flour, almond essence, butter, castor sugar were incurred, but had the expensive ingredient; 200g of finely chopped almonds for a tastier almond cookie. RM4.90 for 100g. Do the maths. And the outcome for the recipe was about 1 red-covered container. Approx 5-6 dozen depending how thick and wide the cookie was. They look inauspicious when they were half-way baked. They do look like fry tofu when they were baked, look like, but texture wise; I can assure you that it's not. How we wished it was, where it crumbles when we had our first bite on it. And that shiny part glistening on its upper surface was indeed a bad idea; eggwashed by beaten egg whites and egg yolks. Crunchier but almond cookies should be soft. Should be. Tends to be.




Getting to the refrigerator back and forth to get the dark choc chips cookie dough and to make sure that they were cold and solid enough to withstand the knife-cutting part, it was fun. Fun for me to see Fatass doing the job. What goes back and forth? Fatass. If there's back and forth, there must be something to do with up and down. To ease off your boredom, here's a quick riddle. What goes up and down? Hmmm... I bet you'll know the answer. (*Smiles Lamely*).




Shape does matter. Sizes too. It deters the baking time. The verdict; the flatter cut-out cookies were a lot crunchier and darker. The half-rounded poo-look-alike was softer, tasted like how rock cookie was. Fatass did put some toasted nuts in it, nuts... Not macadamias. (*Frowns*).




Lemon biz was, erm. It had gone into a huge oven-make-over. All flattened out. Probably due to the double action baking powder. I thought the bigger it was, the better it is. Not 'I', Fatass that is. She's wrong. Anyhow, it turned out to be a real biz. Too lemoney. Dipped into the icing and powdered sugar just to make it look more edible. (*Grin*).




While waiting for the refrigerated cookies to be baked ones, Fatass Mich hurriedly crawled in exhaustion towards the table where the electrical mixer was placed. To wreck her nerves, I purposely chivvied her. I gave her an innocuous remark though. I'm not a meanie afterall. (*Angelic Smile*). Moving on, it's something related to CNY. Chinese pretzels were not complex and Fatass had fun "tying" them.



Effortlessly easy. Paws down. With easy-to-find daily essential items; flour, eggs, butter, salt and sugar. Why not? Well, chinese pretzels, that is! The pretzels were tied cutely. To be exact, it's 'weirdly', but that part was as easy as D-O-G. The frying part was nicely done by Christina. Thank you very much, Christina. Here, I wanna apologize for chewing your hair that day. (*Devilish Laughter*).




Choc Chips Cookie was next. Differs from the black ones; dark choc chips cookie. The only similarities were the choc chips and butter used. The weight of the ingredients incurred were so much different, and this had yellow coloring added in it. Texture wise, this cookie is softer. However, it still maintain its crunchiness, though not as crunchy as the black ones. Besides, smells buttery than the latter. Margerine does the magic.




Ahh, freshly baked somemore. That's where the aroma gets into my sensitive part of all; with my scent receptors awakens, my big black nose.




Typically, this is a pressed cookie dough. Got a croissant-alike cookie by using the cookie-dough-presser. If you're as imaginative as I am, you might see some sea shells with a small black poo on top of them. (*Smiles*). Since Fatass Mich is well-known for her lazy lifestyle, it is not surprising that she spoon the batter to the tray rather than giving the cookie-dough-presser a try.




Moving on, here comes another cut-out cookie. The peanut cookies. Not a nut-aholic. But this is yet another uncomplicated recipe that new self-proclaimed baker should try. Mind me. I'm an angel at heart.




The cut-out moulds were more like a sakura flower. And after popping the unbaked to the preheated oven, it turned out to be a star. Blame the wheatflour. (*Smiles*).




See the yellow-brownish thingy, which looked kinda flaky and thin on the surface of the peanut cookie? It's all because of the beaten eggs. The cookies were eggwashed before putting them into the oven.




Here comes the altered recipe which was altered from the peanut cookies. Choc bits and cocoa were added in it. Tasted much like chocolate cookie crumbles.




Found a cuter mould, a rabbit cut-out mould. Hmm, it's a playboy logo. Well, the ears always get stucked onto the moulds. So, Fatass made only some out of those playboy-bunny moulds. Consume loads of our time. (*Yawns*)




From the peanut cookie recipe, Fatass Michelle omitted the nuts and fold in finely chopped almonds and replaced granulated sugar with castor sugar. Since Valentine's coming so soon, why not something fancy and colorful like a pink cookie, most likely the best mould for it is the heart-shaped ones. So, strawberry emulco was added. Pink colorings was all gone. So, strawberry emulco is a good substitution for that - the emulco is all we have at that time. To some, the cookie smelt like BENADRYL. To others, it gives them the idea that the cookie should be a 'Strawberry Cookie'. (*Smiles*).




After cooling the baked cookies on a rack, it's time to store them into the containers. The only packaging we have were can-be-microwaved plastic containers, red-covered plastic containers, white breakfast bag and biz plastic bag. Red-covered plastic containers need a huge amount of baked cookies to filled them up. That's what we got for Esther, a buh-bye gift for her cause she's going Aus, Melb to pursue her Physics degree. (*Smiles*). I've chosen the biz plastic bag for Fatass best butts-buds and her close friends since it's more convenient and assorted cookies would look better in those bags. Job done! (*Hurray*)




It was super tiring but worth-while. Quite an experience for Fatass. Looking on the brighter side, we should be happy because glutton Rufus and I get to grab a bite on some of those choc-free cookies. Wonderful experience and a good number of cookies to start off with, EIGHT! (*Yay*)



Signing Out;
Master Whisky.De.Bordeaux