The Ultimate Bake Off...

Proud to present my cookie jars~!

It was on a Thursday evening that the idea of baking cookies for Christmas came about. It was almost the first time after so many years that I had my cookie jars filled up with delicious cookies. It was just two days before Christmas now that my dream to have filled up cookie jars almost came true, but now there are left with only a few pieces of cookies only. I think I have to know that food don't stay long in the house let alone be locked up in jars. But for a split second, just to snap a photo of those jars made me very happy. 

It was not an idea to bake for Christmas. And I do not enjoy making cookies. It was tedious and messy. I do not like to have my hands oily with butter, don't like the mess of having flour sifted out of the mixing bowl and I will feel demoralized if the cookies fail to turn out perfect. Let's blame the Internet connection. It was so bad that it even refused to load up. The baby dinosaur on the computer screen didn't appear but a sad face like that logo of RHB bank appeared instead. It's my off day and I just sat there, not knowing what to do. I just planned to do up my blog posts and post up my photos as I need to delete them off from my hard drive. I switched on the paid channels of Astro and not one programme caught my attention. I wanted to stitch but due to old age, my back aches when I sit stitching too long. So, I flipped through the recipe books and started jotting down what to do. I have a whole long list of things that I want to bake.

That failed apricot steamed cakes....

We went to buy cute little cardboard cups for the steam cake. Mi mama is a pro in making steam cakes. The only time I steamed a cake was that perfect pumpkin cake. This apricot cake mixed with soda refused to even rise. So, let's take this as I have failed project #1. Let's move on to the next one. The apricot cake tasted really good but it just didn't rise. That's one heavy and lazy apricot steam cake.

That delicious almond teddy with Gouda....

Next, I have different kinds of cheese which I need to use up before they end up in the rubbish bin from becoming mouldy. We bought that bear cookie cutter. I have always love bears. That's the best almond and cheddar Gouda cheese cookie~! Fancy using another type of  cheese instead of the same ol' boring cheddar. The aroma of having Gouda baking in the oven made me bounced for joy. And the teddy browned perfectly after staying in the oven, basking under the red-light hot rod for 25 minutes. It's a pleasure to have them in the mouth. I have exactly four teddies left in the almost empty jar. I don't think the teddies will live to see Christmas morning.

The yummy cheesy cookies with Camembert....

I have prepared the next cookie batter before the teddies were all done. This second batter was really wet and not friendly to be hand-handled. The recipe book just showed that a spoon should be used to scoop the soggy batter and just plopped them into a heap of shapeless cookie. We refused to follow instructions, more like I demanded for a beautifully-shaped cookie. The one and only Christmas tree cookie. That's not Cheddar cheese as well. I changed that boring Cheddar with Camembert. Before you get to taste the cookie, the fragrant aroma of Camembert will greet your nose first. The melt-in-the-mouth cookie is way better than crunchy teddy. I love both cookies~! I've never tasted such good cookies before~!

I like this snowflake design but if that Christmas tree turned out well, I would be happy, too. Looks like the Christmas tree is never meant to be. I'm not done yet~!

The not-so-delicious walnut chocolate bunny cookies....

We had two trays of walnut chocolate bunny cookies. I dislike the taste so I gave Judz three only and the rest, I sent them away to my neighbour. Oh, I didn't send them before asking them to try it first. They like it and they don't mind helping me finish up everything. Such lovely and helpful neighbour I have. Some neighbours you just feel like wringing their necks or never want to get to know them. I need my neighbours to enjoy eating with us in the kitchen. That's what neighbours are for :D

The cookie makers....

Truth be told, I did not make any of those cookies. I just mix the ingredients. I'm only good in mixing and no good in shaping them. Mi mama made those teddy bears and bunny heads. Hubby made those snowflakes. Mi mama didn't want to deal with too soft batter.... neither do I. Hubby made them all and I eat them all. 

When I chose what to bake, I only read the ingredients' section. I totally missed out on the methods. From having nothing to do, I just sacrificed my beauty sleep on that day. I have totally forgotten that there's only one oven in the kitchen and all these need to be baked. The trays were queuing up silently on the table.

That blueberry cheese bread...

Then, there's this blueberry cheese bread which needed baking. I did a big square tin but I didn't take the full photo as the middle section caved in. It was already 2 a.m. by then and I didn't have enough active brain cells to figure out why the bread caved in in the middle. I thought the middle wobbly part when shaken didn't bake properly. In the end, I left the whole thing on the table to be figured out the next day. In the end, the whole wobbly part was because of the cream cheese. It was really good. I was really happy but I won't be baking anymore cookies for the time being. It's just too scary having not enough sleep because of baking.

How did the cream cheese on top went into the mid-section? I'm baffled....