Chinese New Year bakes: Sugee/Suji Cookies

Following my last post, here are the photos of the Chocolate M&M cake and chocolate M&M cupcakes that were baked for little Cheryl who loves pink and purple colours and Chocolate!

I know, I know it's a little early to start Chinese New Year baking! Seems like we have barely recovered from all the Christmas baking and cooking and now we are preparing for Chinese New Year (CNY). CNY starts on Thursday 19 February this year (extended weekend yay!) and is the year of the Sheep.

I kickstart my spring cleaning yesterday with a thorough washing of my built-in dish rack and just started the washing machine to launder one set of curtains. Hopefully the weather holds so that the curtains can hang dry quickly.

My first CNY bake is the super easy Suji/Sugee cookies. It's one of my favourites and I found out over last weekend that this is a cookie that is a favourite festive cookie among the 3 big ethnic groups in Singapore; the Chinese, the Malays and the Indians. My sis and I got to talking on Monday why we love Suji/Sugee cookies and when we were introduced to it as our Mum doesn't bake her own cookies. We concluded that we were introduced to this yummy melt-in-mouth cookie by my mum's ex-colleague, Aunty Hasnah who bakes really delicious cookies. This is the 2nd year that I'm baking these cookies. I remember having a sudden craving last CNY eve and my dear friend, D had to go all the way to Mustafa in Little India to get me a can of QBB ghee as most shops have already closed for the holidays. I baked these cookies at 9pm on CNY eve last year after reunion dinner with the family! The batch of cookies which I have baked last week is all gone over last weekend. Brought a bottle to the church gathering and my friend's little daughter was popping them so fast that we had to hide the bottle!

Suji Cookies (adapted from QBB website)
250g Ghee
500g Plain flour
150g Icing sugar
1 tsp Vanilla essence
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

1)Pre-heat the oven to 170 deg C
2) Melt the Ghee and leave it to cool
3) Add vanilla essence to the cooled ghee

4) Sieve plain flour, icing sugar, baking soda and salt together into a big bowl.

5) Pour the ghee into the sieved flour mixture and knead into a firm dough

6) Shaped into bite-sized balls and place them on a lined cookie tray. The dough is pretty crumbly so shape with gentle pressure.
7) Baked them for about 18-22 minutes. The cookies will be white and crumbly in texture.
8) Cool before packing into containers.

I am submitting this post to "My Treasured Recipes #5 - Chinese New Year Goodies (Jan/Feb)" hosted my Miss B of Everyone Eats Well in Flanders and co-hosted by Charmaine of Mimi Bakery House

Update 8 January: Baked another batch of the cookies for my friends today and took more pictures of the process.

Schokoladen-Brote: Chocolate Crackle Cookies

I was away over the weekend visiting a friend and exploring a different side of Penang. We had a good time looking for the murals and eating our way around.  Finally bought my cake stand for RM29.90! It was such a steal! Many thanks to my host for driving me to the 2nd Tesco to get the stand (it sold out when I finally made up my mind to buy). I wanted to buy the cupcake stand too but thought better of it. I will post a picture of the stand when I bake a cake to display :)

I was in Penang when the World Cup finals were played. We were way too tired after the whole day of walking to stay up to watch the game but there were fireworks going on at 4 plus in the morning when Germany won. Congratulations to Germany! As promised to my friend, Ben, I would post a German recipe when Germany wins.

I got the below recipe from my German boss when I was working for a bank. She actually gave me a photocopy of the recipe which is in German and only translated the ingredients in English so I have to guess the method myself.

Chocolate Crackle Cookies

200g dark Chocolate
90g Butter
115g caster Sugar
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla essence
215g all purpose Flour
25g Cocoa powder
1/2 tsp Baking powder
A pinch of Salt
175g icing sugar

1) Pre-heat the oven at 160 deg C
2) Melt chocolate and butter together using a double boiler method
3) Remove the melted chocolate and butter from heat, add the caster sugar and stir till melted.
4) Add the eggs one at a time, stiring till well mixed
5) Add vanilla essence.
6) Sieve the flour, cocoa powder,salt and baking powder together.
7) Add the sieved flour into the melted chocolate mixture.
8) Chill in the fridge for an hour.
9) Shape the cookie dough into small balls. Coat the cookie balls with icing sugar.
10) Bake the cookies for 10-15 minutes. Cool before storing.