TOP 10 COOKIES FOR RAYA

Since  the festive time (Eid) is just  around the corner, here  are  Top 10  Cookies For Raya   that are made year after year.    This is the perfect time to savor and share these little treats for family and friend.

The process begins  1-2 weeks before the festival and this time of the year, most  family would gather around to bake these cookies.  With a combined effort,  jars of delicious cookies could be made faster as each member of the family is assigned to do the task.

Top 10 Cookies for Raya.  To view each recipe, click on the title  of the cookies.

1.  Suji Cookies    

Pleasantly buttery and slightly crunchy cookies.  It uses clarified butter (ghee).  It will remains white after baking.  Place them 1 in apart as these expand while baking


2.   Black Sesame Seeds Cornflakes Cookies                                                      

These cookies are the first one to disappear from my cookie collection.    You can't stop gobbling them, the are really GOOD.  Black sesame seeds and crushed cornflakes are used for making  Black Sesame Seeds Cornflakes Cookies


3.    Cocolate Almond (Cokdam) Cookies                                                                           

Deliciously simple yet elegant and tasty.  Chopped almond, chocolate spread and cocoa powder are added for making this wonderful  treat.    Roll out the dough in between 2 plastic sheet to avoid sticking


4.  Semolina Cookies/ Biskut Suji

One of the popular cookies of  yesteryears. . It is still made during festive seasons.    These contain semolina but I have one without it in this collection, it is called Suji Cookies.


5.    Cornflakes Cookies

They are quite addictive, crunchy outside but chewy inside.   Crushed cornflakes added a great texture
                                           
6.  Honey Cornflakes Cups Recipe 

Only 4 ingredients to whip up these cups.  Melted honey, butter and sugar are added to cornflakes then spoon onto cake cases for baking


7.    Daisy Cookies / Biskut Dahlia                                                      

Basically these are buttery, melt in the mouth butter cookies.  It was pretty laid on a plate due to its lovely shape made with special mold or use  a cookie press.  It is a bit tricky to make the dough,  too soft turns the cookies flat

8.  Date Tart.                                          

One of seasonal favorites,   commonly stuffed with pineapple,  but I have made slight changes by filling it with pitted date.  The beauty of these tart was pinching the sides with tart pinchers

9.   Crisp Chocolate Cookies Recipe  

Made with oil. these cookies require 1-2 hours chilling time.  Place them 2 in apart as they really spread during baking.  Turned out crisp but soft inside

10,   Biskut Makmur

A traditional biscuit made with ghee.  It was melt in the mouth usually shape like a leaf, stuffed with crushed peanut and icing sugar.  Nowadays, it is shaped into a small ball coated with icing sugar

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EGGLESS LIGHT FRUIT CAKE RECIPE

A pleasing and easy Eggless Light  Fruit Cake  that was lighter and  can be enjoyed anytime of the year.

I used only half a cup  of  ready packed  dry fruits  but you may mix your own  consisting of  dried apricot, raisin, cranberries, fig, date  and many more   Increase the quantity of dry fruit up to  one cup.  for pretty presentation top it with  candied cherries.

Make sure you beat the yogurt, oil and sugar well until fluffy as to incorporate air as much as possible.

After adding flour.  use your spoon  to make quick circle  clockwise and cut in the center.  Do not over mix.  Tap pan a few times to release  air bubbles.

A friend of mine once  said ,  this Eggless Light Fruit Cake  was  as good as  their fruit cake  with eggs.  Give it a try!

Other cake recipes:

Easy Lemon Yogurt Cake Recipe
Honeycomb Cake 

Date Bundt Cake Eggless
Oreo Butter Cake

BROKEN GLASS COFFEE JELLY RECIPE

After many years, I have prepared this cold dessert but this time with different flavor. .

Using agar agar powder, this Broken  Glass Coffee Jelly was fun to make with proper planning.

It consists of 2 parts, coffee jelly that uses instant coffee in it.  This  coffee part must be prepared first as to allow it to cool and cut into 1/2 in cube.

Used a pack of agar agar powder, divide equally to make this Broken Jelly Coffee Jelly.  Once you have  coffee jelly ready. proceed to make milk mixture.

You can always opt for 2 or more flavors like orange, strawberry, pineapple instead of coffee

During the process, I have discovered a vital step to remove the jelly smoothly.   The secret was to apply a thin coating of vegetable oil before pouring over the cubed jelly.  The 10 x 6 in glass tray was perfect for this recipe.

Other dessert recipes you might be inyerested:

Vanilla Cake in Jar

Oreo Butter Cake

Cake Fruit Yogurt Parfait

AGAR AGAR GUDIR RECIPE

A popular dessert during  fasting month made with agar agar powder and  coconut milk.

This Agar Agar Gudir tastes even better with addition of  gula melaka (palm sugar),  If using this sugar you need not add any coloring at all.

Bought a red color agar2 powder so I use white sugar.  Make sure to purchase a colorless pack if you intend to add palm sugar.

The secret to a perfect Agar Agar  Gudir are:

1.  Sugar must be dissolved completely and it should be rolling boiling before you add coconut,

2,  After adding  egg mixture, it should be boiled until  the eggs curdle into  tiny bits.  This would make your Agar Agar  into 2 layers and looks very pretty.

Other cold dessert you should check:

Sweet Potato Jelly

Rice Flour Pudding

Chocolate Pudding Recipe

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MINI ONION SAMOSA RECIPE

A favorite in our household, these savory bites are filled with curried onion and shallow fried.

I have made this Mini Samosa  in the past and now craving to eat them now. This time. I choose red onion to be stuffed in my samosa.

Make my Mini Onion Samosa smaller than the regular ones, it was just nice for one bite.  Feel free to vary the size by dividing the dough into lesser balls for bigger samosa.  Also used a combination of plain flour and whole wheat flour  that yield a slightly darker shade than  the normal samosa.

The onion stuffing was seasoned with chili powder to add some punch  but you can decrease of increase according to your tolerance.

As you know. regular samosas are deep fried but I prefer to shallow fry them.  This does not effect the taste of this Mini Onion Samosa at all, they are still turned awesome.

Come, enjoy these bite sized beauties  with a cup of your favorite drink.

Other snack recipes you should try:

Egg Curry Puffs from scratch

Apple Oatmeal Bars

Prata Tuna Rolls

Fruit Cornflakes Bars

MUTTON BIRYANI RECIPE

Eid-ul-Fitr  is a day of forgiveness and joyous occasion  by strengthen  ties with people around you.   This is not complete without visiting and feasting.

It is a must for every household to offer a feast to their visitors.  The feast offered can be anything either main dish, sweets, flat bread or  even noodles.   It does not need to be elaborate,  any simple meal is most encouraged.   Always think about others who had nothing and avoid wastage.

This year I try this Mutton Biryani for my close relatives.   It involves a lot of work but I managed to do it all by myself.

The step require you to marinade the mutton with spices, yogurt, cilantro and fried onion for at least 12 hours.  The longer the better to allow all the flavor absorbed by the meat.

I have chosen slightly different method by cooking the meat until tender before layering the rice.   The mutton sold here is really tough hence this method is the best option.

Since the meat is already cooked and the rice is  1/2   cooked, need not to cook it much longer.  So glad my visitors enjoyed this Mutton Biryani  and some even asked for the recipe. .

EGG CURRY PUFFS FROM SCRATCH

It was a long time, I have make these curry puffs.  Presently, the store bought puffs are sky rocketing in price,  So it is time to make your own.

These Egg Curry Puffs from scratch are time consuming but worth to make.  They consist of two parts, the pastry and the filling.

Most popular filling was potato but I want to try something different that won't take much time to prepare.  I chose these Egg Curry Puffs, made with eggs, onion and spices,

Managed to shorten prep time for filling but important task are rolling, filing and frying them.  If you think this method was too much of hassle,  opt for a special mould that seal and crimp the edges well. But I still did it manually.

Be careful when adding ice water,   add little by little until it forms into a dough.  Find the pastry crispier than my earlier attempt where I did not add rice flour.

When frying these Egg Curry Puffs from scratch. make sure to use medium heat or else  they browned fast but inside still uncooked.  Do not crowd the pan, once it turns golden brown on both sides, remove and place on kitchen towel to drain.

BUTTERY LIGHT FRUIT CAKE

No festive season is complete without fruit cake.  There were so many different ways to make one. But I always prefer the one with less fruit like this  Light Fruit Cake.  This Buttery Light Fruit Cake will cut down the time you soak the dry fruit.  Soak the fruit in orange juice, microwave for a minute to plump them then leave to cool.

If you mix your own dry fruits, you need to add  candied red and green cherries to the batter.   It would look prettier with those.  I used store bought mixed fruit that include both cherries.

The sweetness was just right,  adding more sugar isn't necessary.   We get natural sugar from the dry fruits.

This Buttery Light Fruit Cake is so simple to make yet tastes awesome.  I used this recipe successfully to get a quick festive treat. If desired, decorate with additional candied fruits and nuts.

HONEY CORNFLAKES CUPS RECIPE

Had never baked Honey Cornflakes  Cups in ages.  Used to bake them during special occasions, this recipe evokes a fond memories I had when my kids were small.

Only 4 ingredients needed to whip up this sweet treats and super easy to make.  Melt the butter together with honey and sugar (adjust the amount to your liking) until sugar dissolved and bubbly. Add the mixture to the cornflakes and coat them well.

Spoon the cornflakes into cake cases (I used mini and regular one) or small patty tin.  Honey Cornflakes Cups would clump together and harden after cooling these are where the crunchiness come.

Baking Honey Cornflakes Cups is a chance for children to get involved in the kitchen  so have fun and share special moments that will be treasured forever.

Other most requested cookies  during festivals  are:

Black Sesame Seeds Cornflakes Cookies

Suji Cookies

Milk Cookies

SPICY CHICKEN PIZZA RECIPE

Pizza is the most popular food in the world, wherever you go you can find it.  You can even order them from your home. It  was a favorite for everyone since the topping it is easily adaptable to suit your personal preference but it vegetarian or non vegetarian type.

Last weekend, we have a guest visiting my place so  I thought why not making this SPICY CHICKEN PIZZA for them.  Play around with this basic pizza recipe and make your own selection of toppings. In case you don't  eat  chicken, you can check my Homemade Tuna Pizza, Potato Pizza or Sour Cream Pizza. 

The first step in the process is making the dough since it requires time to rise. Add some additional flavor to the crust like oregano, basil. garlic, black pepper if you like before mixing  the dough. While waiting for pizza, you can prepare the chicken by sauteing the garlic,  add in chicken, chili powder and cilantro.  You can omit the chili powder altogether if cooking for young children or adjust to suit your heat tolerance.

I used ready made tomato sauce but if you have time, you can make an awesome sauce at home. You can even use leftover spaghetti sauce , add little basil and garlic to spice it up or bbq  sauce as well.

This  SPICY CHICKEN PIZZA  recipe  is what  my family uses  and frequently modifies.   They easily fit 2  pan of 15 x 10 in. You can bake  it using a round  pizza pan if you have one.

EASY ROCKY ROAD CAKE

Am always attracted to rocky road desserts for their luscious topping of crunchy nuts, chunks of biscuits  and fluffy marshmallow coated in melted chocolate. ,   The topping varies from country to country,  you could learn more about this through Google.

This week, I try to include "rocky road" elements in my cake by adding chocolate chips, almonds and crushed biscuit in the batter.

What I love about this recipe was super easy to make, no creaming of butter or beating of egg required.  You need only one bowl to incorporate all the ingredients except the almond slices.  It uses as a garnish.  Most importantly, it was lighter when compared with other rocky road cake.  Easy Rocky Road Cake uses oil instead of butter  Added peanut oil but other vegetable oil works too.

Easy Rocky Road Cake  is great fun to make with all the family and the best part is you can  personalize your cake by mix and matching the ingredients with your favorite sweets and biscuits.

Made as a surprise for our guest and  it was a total hit!  Everyone loved it so much and going to try this again with different variations soon.

GINGER COFFEE CAKE

Nowadays a cake is a must for any occasion, such as for birthday, wedding or parties. This Ginger Coffee Cake is good for small gathering or just to satisfy your sweet tooth.   It is a typical cake recipe whereby you beat sugar and butter until light and thick.   In this recipe I have used only half a cup of butter,  additional coffee and  yogurt to moisten the batter.  In case you don't like coffee, you can add very strong tea instead.

We love the kick of heat the ginger brings to this Ginger Coffee Cake.  If ground ginger is not available  you can substitute it  with  3/4 in of  grated fresh ginger that would work too. In future, would  double up the ground ginger since the  ginger flavor was still quite subtle.   Love a fierce gingerly flavor in my cake so am not adding any spice, anything else is a mere distraction

Drizzle over your favorite icing on top of the cake  but I like to keep it simple.  Embrace the ginger. It can only make you feel better. And what are your other favorite ginger recipes at this time of the year?

PEAS & POTATO SAMOSA

After a long gap, I haven't eaten samosa and the last time I made was this  Mini Samosa .   Samosa  is made by two parts, the crust and the filling.  Traditionally shaped into triangle and deep fried,

I came across other interesting filling such as cheese, chocolate, fruit and nuts  instead of potato or meat.  Some make it  healthier by baking them. .

There are  ton of recipes for samosa with varied spice combo, some without onion, coriander, cumin or garam masala either way you choose it still turned out tasty, Done without mango powder but added  some lemon juice for this Peas & Potato Samosa.

The secret to perfect samosa was the way you fried them.  It needs time to get that golden brown and crisp exterior by using medium heat only so be patience.

You would like to pair these Peas & Potato Samosa with green chutney or ketchup but we enjoyed them without those.

CHICKEN BIRYANI

Festive season is incomplete without gathering to enjoy good food. This is the time to meet and mingle with our immediate family members as well as our close relatives.

One of the most popular choice to serve during special occasion was Chicken Biryani.  An aromatic dish combining rice and chicken in one single pot.

There are so many variety of biryani made with chicken, meat and poultry.  They differ from one another due to special spices used and the way it was made.

This Chicken Biryani requires marinating the chicken with yogurt, ginger, garlic and spices.  It is best if you can marinate it longer so this allows chicken  to absorb all the flavor.

As for chili powder and green chili, adjust to your preference.    Do fry the onion until it turns golden brown, this will take some time so be patient. .

CHICKEN KORMA WITHOUT COCONUT

There are various ways to cook Chicken Korma, it can  be richer with cream / coconut or lighter without those addition.  Make it even lighter by removing the skin and trim all fats from the chicken before cutting into 10-12 pieces..

Chicken Korma Without Coconut was  a family favorite.  We love to serve this dish over Dry Fruit Naan. or  Ghee Rice / Corn Peas Pulao.  Chicken Korma has a strong Persian influence.   Traditionally chicken is braised and the sauce thickened using ground nuts.

In restaurant, it is often full of fat (cream, butter and creamed coconut). Instead I have created  a creamy texture by using low fat evaporated milk and thickening the sauce using ground almonds.

This recipe is versatile, you can use most meat, fish or vegetables instead of chicken.  Have added 2 cups of water but this is entirely up to you, this depends on how thick you want you gravy to be.

LIGHT FRUIT CAKE

Fruit Cake made their appearance during festive celebrations such as Christmas, Hari Raya  and even Chinese New Year.  There are few types of fruit cake either steamed or baked and the dry fruit used varies in quantity, some soaked in brandy/orange juice or without soaking -  the fruit is coated with flour before adding to the  butter mixture.

I always love  Fruit Cake that uses less dry fruit in the recipe.  This Light Fruit Cake require you to soak the dry fruit in  orange juice or brandy overnight.   Next day you can proceed to bake the cake.

It took more than an hour to bake mine.   In case the top  of this Light Fruit Cake  becoming too brown, cover with aluminium foil  crimped around the edges of your baking pan.

On the occasion of this lovely festival of Eid, wishing you Eid Mubarak, may the blessings of Allah be with you always!

OREO BUTTER CAKE

I always love simple butter cake without  any frosting.  But will experiment with different flavors or add ins for a little "twist".   So here is my first attempt on making Oreo Butter Cake

Actually you can use any of your favorite butter cake  recipe.  Make it different by adding quartered oreo in the batter.  If you want, you can also  crush the cookies.   Have seen some bakers sandwiched whole oreo in between of the cake batter.  Either way, they still turned out delicious.

High in fat, Oreo Butter Cake will keep well for several days.  Un-iced,  a well wrapped baked cake will keep well in the freezer for 1-2 months.

BUTTER CAKE W/ CHOCOLATE SPRINKLES

This Butter Cake with Chocolate Sprinkles is not an overly sweet cake. Importantly it was super easy to make, This butter cake is for a moist, light cake that's wonderful as it is but can be used as the basic recipe for 3 other good cake - orange, walnut and chocolate cake with slight adjustments.

If you're not a fan of sprinkles, you can leave that out and still it turned out great.  Use a mixer to blend the batter well but  I  used my hand held beater to do the job.

Did you notice that this Butter Cake with Chocolate Sprinkles is baked using slow temperature (160 C) and baked at longer time (40-45 minutes),  When you used high heat it tends to crack on top

MARBLE CAKE

I baked this Marble Cake made from simple butter cake with a little twist.   Turned this into marble cake by adding two striking colors, red and green. The color combination is entirely up to you, use 2 or 4 colors if you want.

Accidentally add too much green color to the cake batter so it turns out darker deep tone luckily that doesn't alter its taste.

Cube the butter right after you have removed from the refrigerator.to speed up the creaming process.

In case you have self raising flour, use it  but omit the baking powder.

DRY FRUIT BUNDT CAKE

There are many variations of fruit cake,  including a version that require soaking of the fruit for days while another one  need you to boil the dry fruits and butter.

Am sharing with  you a  really quick and easy Dry Fruit Bundt Cake and  one of the ingredients was condensed milk.  Using condensed milk in a fruit cake is a new one for me but it always fun to try. Dry Fruit Bundt Cake  is also made without sugar.

If you need to avoid egg, you can substitute with plain yogurt or pureed fruit.

I find it easier to slice without it breaking so easily because the fruits remain soft and stick together. You can  easily increase the mixed fruit up to 1 cup if desired.