CHOCOLATE THUMBPRINT DULCE DE LECHE COOKIES AND ~ A GIVEAWAY

Despite the success of my dulce de leche I have never considered cosy-ing down into a couch to shovel dollops of dulce de leche from a jar into my face. HO no. The completion of the dulce de leche was no more than a stage in a journey that I had begun when I swiped that can of condensed milk off the shelf. 

So you might think I've had sleepless nights thinking "waht do hi do? waht do hi do?". Ahh ~ truth is ...Hi had known what Hi was to do. HO yes. Hi had plans.

This is plan number one : Chocolate Shortbread Thumbprint Dulce De Leche Cookies with a Pistachio Filigree. Long  Cool no?

The Chocolate Shortbread recipe came from Oven Haven. A beautiful blog. She on the other hand got it from Nostalgia. It's rich, it's chocolatey and it's short. Add your thumbprint, roll in crumbled pistachios and flourish with a dollop of dulce de leche.  Wooooo...what a twist!

I'll let you into a little secret. These cookies are SO chocolatey!! mmm-hmmm
 

The Recipe ~

2 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup icing sugar

226 gm butter

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla essence

Some chopped pistachios

Dulce de leche

Preheat oven to 300 F (150 C)

Cream butter in an electric mixer until creamy. Add icing sugar and beat until light and creamy. Add vanilla. On low speed add flour and cocoa powder 1/2 cup at a time and mix until the dough comes together. You might want to take it off the machine and finish the mixing with your hands. 

Using a melon baller scoop scoopfuls of dough and roll into a ball. Press the ball of dough into a thick-ish disc and coat the sides of the disc with pistachios. Lay the disc of dough on a baking tray and make a thumbprint in the centre using your thumb/finger tip or the end of a clean wooden spoon.When done all......

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes of less according to the size of your cookies. I baked mine for about 15 minutes.

Take them out of the oven and using the end of a wooden spoon press down into the depression again because the depression would have puffed up a little while baking. But don't worry. Just push it down again with the back of the wooden spoon. Let cool completely and then fill with dulce de leche just before ( or a few hours) before serving.

But wait!.....the thrill isn't quite over yet. Ho no.


SURPRISE!!! 

A giveaway ~ A box of cookie presses ~

If you have been following my blog you'll know what Malaysians use tart presses for ~ they're for Pineapple Jam Tarts. Like these ~

But they're great for any kind of jam filled cookies. I have a collection of these presses and I thought you should have one too. Wherever you are you're welcome.

I'll be in a very good mood for a week until Saturday  3rd of July. So leave a comment and I'll announce the lucky winner on Sunday 4th of July 2010.


The tart presses will arrive at your door in that little red box. Isn't that fun?

DULCE DE LECHE ~ PRONOUNCED DOOL-sey deh LEH-chey

The only thing that contained my impatience was fear. The fear of being scarred for life and of the kitchen turning into a battleground. So I had to let the can sit like a little tin queen while I threw sidelong glances its way each time I crossed the threshold into the kitchen. 


Then it was payback time. I opened it and all that waiting had returned to me a deep, glorious, golden dollop named Dulce le leche (DOOL-seh deh LEH-chey). I called her name and she came. I must have looked surprised because Dulce le leche was divine and regal. I would never have guessed that she had once been a simple little milkmaid. A 'Milkmaid Condensed Milk'.


This is all thanks to Quinn of Quinn's Baking Diary. The young Quinn who bakes like a pro ( you must see her  lovely blog) and who made dulce de leche here. I had met sweet Quinn briefly when she returned home for the Chinese New Year holidays earlier this year.  She had given me a set of these bright and cheery pumpkin coloured baking accessories. Exactly what I needed.

I have plans for these line dancing dulce de leche. Oh yes I do. 

Slide to the right, slide to the left

Cha cha cha......cha cha cha.......

YEEHAW!

And while you're here go for the Chocolate Shortbread Thumbprint cookies with Dulce De Leche AND a GIVEAWAY!!

The recipe ~

1 can of condensed milk
A large pot
Lots of water
Small fire
Lots of patience
Time

Place the de-labelled can of condensed milk into the pot. Fill it up with water until the can is submerged with about 2 inches of water over the top of the can.

Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer. Cover pot with a lid and wait. For at least 2 to 3 hours. Or more, like I did. I left mine on a very small simmer for about 4.5 hours. Or was it five?

Once done I left can in the pot for 30 minutes and then placed the whole pot under running water in the sink. When the can is cool enough to handle lift it out and let it stand. NEVER OPEN THE CAN AT THIS STAGE. IT WILL EXPLODE.

Let it stand overnight. Temper your tastebuds to the glory of dulce de leche the next morning.

Note: Thanks to Wendy of Table for 2 or more I realize that what I used was in fact Condensed Filled Milk (but not sweetened creamer) which is different from pure Condensed Milk. Condensed Filled Milk contains part palm oil. But hey! I'm not complaining. I got perfect dool-sey deh leh-chey, no? Sometimes miracles do happen :). 

So, my fellow Malaysians, no excuse not to make dool-sey deh leh-chey anymore, yes?

PAD THAI ~ CHEZ PIM'S

I suppose when one has sucked, slurped and savoured a piping hot Char Kuay Teow from a road side stall no other noodle dish can ever quite make it into your book of heavenly noodles. 

I made Pad Thai today. I used rice vermicelli instead of flat rice noodles because I wasn't feeling animated enough to make home made flat rice noodles (I never use commercially made ones). 

All in all the Pad Thai was good. This is my second attempt at Pad Thai because I thought I did not quite get it right the first time. What made it different from other local fried noodles is the fact that it had the slight sourness of tamarind to it. I had also added extra chillie powder to the tamarind/fish sauce sauce because I like it hot.

This was a noodle dish that did not blow me away but it was not bad. It was good. I'll give it a 7. I'll give Char Kuay Teow a 12 ~ no matter which competent person fries it. Pad Thai lovers please don't hit me. But you know, maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just a hopeless Pad Thai maker. So go ahead and try this recipe from Chez Pim and hit tell me about it. 

I spied Chez Pim's Pad Thai on Ju's lovely blog here and ever since I saw her absolutely gorgeous Pad Thai my left hand has been smacking my right hand into making it. Finally it has. One bookmarked recipe down and 3 million to go.

You'll find the recipe here on the lovely Chez Pim's blog.

CHERRY PIE

There is a first time for everything. A first time for mistakenly attending a wedding reception of complete strangers on a sweltering afternoon and a first time for making a pretty cherry pie. The one gets you feeling hot, sweaty and silly while the other one gets you feeling warm, fuzzy and cheery. I did both this day Sunday. I don't have to tell you which was the better one.

I've had a few questions on how I attended the wrong wedding reception. Well folks, my husband had misread the date of the invitation. (Next time I'll read the invitations). So we went on the wrong day but at the correct place. I got all dressed up just so I could sweat in my nice fancy clothes. Unnecessarily. At the least we provided plenty of amusement for our boys...ho ho ho.


Cherries are so expensive at 56 ringgit per kilo. I had bought a box which was 250 grams at 13.99 ringgit. So I had some adjusting to do for the filling when I decided to do Shirley's of Kokken69 cherry pie recipe from her lovely blog. But it was a perfect amount for  the size I made.Which was a sweet 6 inch pie.


The crust however I had followed largely and it turned out light and flaky just as Shirley had described. Lovely.

The recipe ~ from Shirley of Kokken69 ~

The filling recipe to which I had made some adjustments because I like a pie fruit filling a little soft and juicy as opposed to somewhat raw. So I cooked it.


250 gm fresh cherries
3 T sugar, according to how sweet or less sweet you want it
Juice of 1 lime
1 T cornflour
4-5 T water


Bring all the ingredients together in a small pan or pot. Make sure the cornflour is dissolved. Stir constantly. Bring to a simmer and allow to simmer until the syrup is thick, the cherries a little soft and and the whole looks juicy ans syrupy. It doesn't take long at all. Just 6-7 minutes or less. Adjust for sweetness. I had put too little sugar and I found it to be not sweet enough.

 The crust ~

165 plain flour
113.5 gm chilled butter
1-2 T iced water
pinch of salt
granulated sugar to sprinkle


Sift flour into a medium bowl. Add the salt and mix well. Grate the butter into the bowl. Just use your fingers lightly to mix the butter and flour up evenly. I did not crumble the mixture until it became fine breadcrumbs because I wanted the pastry to be more flaky. Add iced water and stir the mixture and then using your fingers bring the dough together into a firm ball. Do not knead so that the butter does not melt and the gluten is not worked up. Too much kneading will make a tough pastry. 


Once the pastry comes together, chill it if necessary and then roll out in between 2 pieces of baking paper to 1/8 inch thick. Cut a round slightly larger than the pie pan and then lift the pastry and line the pan. Cut the edges to neaten.


At this point I beat an egg and brushed the pastry with egg just so that it will not get sogged (I invent my own words just in case you haven't noticed or if you're new to this blog) by the cherry pie filling.


Top with the cherry filling and refrigerate while you prepare the top crust.


Gather up the pieces of dough into a ball, roll out to 1/8 inch thick and cut strips as I did or thinner if you like. Lay the strips over the filling as you like, latticed or not, press the edges to seal, neaten the edges by running a knife around the edge of the pan  and then sprinkle granulated sugar over the top. 


Bake 30- 35 minutes at 170 C.