Christmas Cookies (which even I can bake)
Due to the fact that I'm invited to not one but two Christmas parties, I decided to bake some Christmas cookies. As @erodedthoughts never fails to remind me, I suck at baking. I'm a great cook but baking ... ugh. Luckily, generations of lazy people had the same problem so there are plenty of recipes for easy cookies. In my case, I chose to bake "Engelsaugen" (translates to "Angel's eyes", if that isn't christmas-y I don't know what is).
The original recipe calls for 300g flour, 200g margarine (I'm sure you can use butter too, but I have a friend with a milk protein allergy and don't want to kill her), 100g sugar, 2 packages of vanilla sugar (each about 7g), one egg, a pinch of salt and raspberry jam. I decided to make two batches.
Put the margarine, sugar, vanilla sugar and salt in a big (big) bowl and mix.
Add the flour and eggs
Mix into a nice dough:
Then take small amounts of dough, roll them into earth-shaped spheres and place them onto a sheet of baking paper. Frighten your kids by telling them they can't have any dough because they will literally die of salmonella, wait till they're back in their rooms, crying, then eat some dough yourself.
Find a kitchen utensil with a flat, round part that is a bit smaller than your proto-cookies and make dents into them. Please don't punch holes through the dough!
At this stage, they always remind me of red blood cells. Did you know that red blood cells look the way they do because they lose their nucleus during their development? Yes? Alright, let's move on.
If you're anything like me, you don't own most baking utensils. Especially not a pastry bag. But who needs that, anyway? Just take a small freezer bag, put a good amount of the raspberry jam in it, cut off the tip and then fill up those cookies!
Then put them in the preheated oven at about 180°C (air circulation). For how long? I don't know, 10 minutes I guess. I just keep an eye on them and take them out when they start turning slightly brown. They shouldn't become too dark!
Repeat those steps until you either hate yourself or the dough is empty.
The result will be a nearly sufficient amount of delicious Christmas cookies that taste so great while they're still warm ...
Wow, looks really good
why do you have an electronic weight machine in your kitchen?? or are you making cookies in your lab??
It's a regular kitchen scale? Costs like 15€? My mom bought it for me when I moved out from home.
wow, it's a normal thing, in my country we are like "yey much seems good, and Bam! perfect dough. every single time." it's like an art thingy.
Have you ever made cookies? Or does this refer to bread.
I've never made cookies but my mom has, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't have the scale unless it's a secret. :P , and yes I am referring to the bread, Indian kind.
see the round bread thingy below, those are called Roti's.
I have an analog one. When the recipe says "half a kilogram of X", I am not about to start guessing.
Most people who cook have one.
we guess all the time, I mean what could go wrong. :P
The mad scientist approach. :)
That raspberry jam idea is awesome.
Wow! I just completed a baking tutorial though I know I wouldn't try it. It might taste nice, I don't know but I wouldn't like to try it. It looks so much like the bionic eye to me in the last picture...
Well-done anyway...
Now you know why they're called angel's eyes
Hmmm... If I remember my religious lessons/childhood campfire stories right it isn't the Angels that have glowing red eyes! I wouldn't want to confuse anyone young and impressionable as they might start to wonder about other Christmas traditions!
Well, the angels always start out with "don't be afraid....". Red glowing eyes might be an explanation why :P
You made me laugh!
So many eyes! The last picture makes me think of a cluster of frog eggs with larval tadpoles writing around the middle!
Baking's not so different from chemistry, right? It's no surprise you'd be good at both!
... Delicious? :P
They look like the Christmas versions of the Jewish Hamentashen just smaller and circular.
Yeah, they kinda do! The look reminded me of Sufganiot more, with the red jam in the center. Also, seasonally appropriate. :)
Have you had any this year. I haven't yet.
Nope. Fried dough and sugar! I am fat enough naturally, I assure you. At most, I have one with the family when lighting candles with the little nephews.
Cool :D guess small sweet cookies are a hit in every culture and religion
That was pretty damn smart using the freezer bag. I will be adding that to my life hacks list!
The freezer bag is great, can be used for semi-liquid chocolate and other stuff too! Or even soft cookie dough.
LOL, last time I tried to compensate and make a bag I used parchment paper and made a glorious mess that I proceeded to blame on my son who was two at the time. He just kept repeating "dad" every time my wife looked at him.
You made so many of them! At least arrange them into the Steemit logo ;-P
Did I ever mention I'm incredibly lazy? :D
Amazingly you're never to lazy to remind us how lazy you are. Fact!
LOL. You're awesome and should have a cookie raffle and ship some here, perhaps. :)
But then I would need to make another batch D:
Indeed you will! Especially since these are Ilana-friendly. I am like your friend - milk protein makes me itch, wheeze and upsets my stomach.
Allergies like that really suck.
They totally do. I am also allergic to olives and their flowers which is pretty awful as the olive tree is our national symbol and it planted literally EVERYWHERE in Israel. At least I can eat olive oil.
I also suck at baking and I don't know why. There was a British reality TV show I used to watch about baking and it seemed a lot easier. Is a curse or maybe just my cheap tools.
Probably a curse, tools aren't that important :P