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Kastengel aka Cheese Stick Cookies

As mentioned on previous post of Putri Salju Cookies, kastengel is also another very popular cookie among many delicacies served during those festive seasons in Indonesia (or by Indonesians live overseas even). Whilst putri salju is mainly a sweet cookie, kastengel is the opposite that it is a savory cookie with strong cheese flavor. I always hesitate to attempt making kastengel cookies due to the lengthy process of cutting the dough, lay them one by one on the baking pan, brush each cookie with egg yolk and sprinkle more grated cheese on each one of them. But trust me this recipe is truly worth all that time and hard work 🙂

Again there are so many variations of this kastengel recipe, ranging from egg less to with egg yolk only, and different types of cheese used. Because cheese is the main ingredient for kastengel, I think it is best to use aged hard cheese as they have stronger flavor, such as Edam, aged cheddar, Gouda, or Parmesan cheese. Try to get the better quality cheese to showcase the taste once they are baked.

The recipe I used is copied from here. This results of this version is melt in your mouth texture due to the use of egg yolks, not the crunchy types of cookies. Here are the ingredients and methods:

  • 300 grams butter at room temperature
  • 200 grams aged cheese, grated (I used Edam cheese)
  • 400 grams flour
  • 2 tablespoons of milk powder
  • 2 egg yolks
  • For egg wash: 1 whisked egg yolk and grated cheddar cheese
kastengel edam2
I only made half of the recipe and got 1 full tray plus few extras 🙂

Mix the butter and egg yolk until all combined.

Add in grated Edam cheese and shifted flour with milk powder, combine them well with a spatula.

I rest my dough in the fridge, wrapped in cling wrap for about 30 minutes.

Flatten the dough to about 2 mm thickness and cut in the shapes of rectangular. Lay them on baking pan, lined with non stick baking paper. Brush the top with whisked egg yolk and sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese.

Baked on preheated oven at 130 C (I used 150 C) until golden brown.

Let the cookies cool to room temperature before transferring to cookie jar.

Some tips:

  • Do not over mix the butter and egg yolk mixture
  • The cookies will expand a little while baking, so do not put them too close to one another on baking pan
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Kue Putri Salju aka Snow White Cookies

This type of cookies is one the most popular delicacy during the festive seasons in Indonesia, be it Christmas, Eid Mubarak, or Chinese New Year. Towards those festive seasons, people will bake or buy various cookies and cakes to serve their guests, putri salju is usually one that always make appearance in many households during these times.

It is called putri salju or snow white because it is generously dusted with icing sugar. The texture is similar to butter shortbread, which it melts in your mouth. However, it has that distinct nutty flavor, which comes from the ground toasted cashew. There are so many variations of this crescent-shaped cookies recipes, ranging from the traditional using cashew to other nuts substitutes and even without any nuts at all. This version is the one we love most.

The recipe is copied from a fellow blogger’s (click here for the original recipe):

  • 200 grams of butter at room temperature (I use unsalted butter with a tiny pinch of salt)
  • 100 grams of castor sugar
  • 250 grams of lightly toasted cashew, then finely ground
  • 200 grams of flour
  • 1 tablespoon of milk powder (I used two heaped tablespoons and reduced the amount of flour used)
  • Icing sugar for dusting

Mix the butter and sugar with a whisk until all combined then add in the ground cashew. Combine well with a spatula before adding the flour and milk powder. Mix until everything is well combined then wrap the cookie dough in a piece of cling wrap and let it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes rest, the dough should be easy to be rolled and cut with cookie cutter. Traditionally, a crescent-shaped cookie cutter is used, but I used a heart-shaped instead as that is all I can find at home.

Bake in a preheated oven at 140 C for approximately 20 minutes. (I baked mine at 150 C for 20-25 minutes).

Once they are out of oven, let them rest for about 5 minutes then dust them generously with icing sugar. Let the cookies to be completely cool on the pan before transferring to cookie jar.

putri salju mede2

Some tips:

  • The cashew needs to be lightly toasted to prolong the cookies life and prevent them turn rancid too quick
  • Do not over mix the butter and sugar
  • Do not over bake the cookies until golden brown. Once they are easily moved when the baking pan is tapped, they are ready. They may feel too soft to touch, just let them cool in the pan before moving them and they will harden
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Breakfast at Ikea Rhodes

We went to Ikea yesterday morning to look for a sofa cover for our 2-seater couch. Ikea is such a fun place to spend time, don’t you agree? I am sure it is such a playground for many people, men, women and even kids; or at least, to many people I know of, it is. There are always something to admire, to wish for every single time I go to Ikea store.

And of course, a visit to Ikea is not complete without eating something from its cafeteria hehehe. Since we were there in the morning and they were still serving breakfast, we ended up choosing the big breakfast with extra side mushroom. They are not only cheap and cheerful, but also taste not bad at all. With the big breakfast you get one scoop of scrambled egg, 1 sausage, 2 hash browns, 1 big piece of bacon, 5 pieces of their famous meatballs, and half-baked tomato. And all that comes to a bill of $5.99 – that would probably be the cheapest big breakfast meal you could find in Sydney, don’t you think?

 

ikea breakfast menu
The breakfast menu

 

Big breakfast with extra mushroom side
Big breakfast with extra mushroom side (please pardon the little drop of ketchup on the tray) 😛

 

In the spirit of the coming of Chinese New Year 2016 which happens to be Monkey Year, they have even decorated their dining area with “monkeys” and chinese lanterns. Check out their cute decoration on the picture below.

 

How cute are those monkeys? :)
How cute are those monkeys? 🙂

You could probably see there were many people in the dining area, a lot of families with little kids. Told you, it is a playground for everyone (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞

By the way if you curious, we didn’t get the sofa cover we were looking for, instead we came home with new pillows and duvet covers – such a cliche story of Ikea visit eh? ◔̯◔

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Indonesian Cheesecake aka Bolu Keju

This Indonesian cheesecake is one of many dishes that always reminds me of mom and my childhood. Mom makes this cake ,although not necessarily with grated cheddar topping, for our (the kids’) birthdays and she does now for my nieces’ birthdays 🙂 As with many Indonesian cakes, this cake recipe use many egg yolks. It may not as crazy as Lapis Legit or Lapis Surabaya that use up to 30 egg yolks per recipe, but a dozen is fairly significant amount for me 🙂 I always steer away from recipes where more than 8 eggs are involved, just the thought that there are chances the cake will not turn up good or even edible than those ingredients will just be waste and that is horrifying to me. Due to numerous amount of eggs used, this cake may not be the healthiest cake around, so please enjoy responsibly 🙂

The texture of this cake is of course very soft, however not airy like sponge cake where we used a lot of egg whites as well. It is a little dense and yet still very soft and moist. So after putting this aside for a very long time, I finally braved myself to give it a try. The way mom bakes this cake is she did three recipes to make three layers of the cake on round pan (I think they are 30 cm in diameter). I just made one recipe for a smaller pan (18 cm x 18 cm) and I even split the batter into two pans for different color/flavor 😛

Here is the recipe as per mom’s cook book:

  • 9 egg yolks
  • 3 whole eggs
  • 120 grams of sugar
  • 100 grams of flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 200 grams of butter, melted

 

Preheat your oven to 180 C.

Beat the eggs until pale, fluffy, and the beater leaves track on the batter then gradually add the sugar a little at a time. After all the sugar are mixed completely with the egg batter, add the melted butter gradually again while mixing until all incorporated. Make sure the scrape the bottom and side of your mixing bowl to make sure no melted butter sitting unincorporated with the batter. Then add the the shifted flour with baking powder a little at a time and mix well – do not over mix the batter.

Pour the batter into a baking pan that has already greased/lined with baking sheets. Bake until the cake is cooked, use toothpick test to determine if the cake is fully cooked.

** I split my batter into two pans, into one of them I added some mocha paste and the other I left as is. Because of the splitting into two pans, mine didn’t take long at all, from memory it was approximately 20 – 25 minutes.

** I used strawberry jam as “glue” for the two cake layers then spread buttercream on the top surface and generous amount of grated cheddar. Many people also cover the four sides of the cake with buttercream and grated cheddar, which I thought would be too much since my cake is tiny.

** I also added a splash of rum into the buttercream for a nice kick ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪

indonesian cheesecake

 

 

 

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Adult Coloring

Adult coloring was such a popular trend last year (I think…) and there have seen so many posts on this topic. Honestly, I never bought the idea that coloring for adult will really help with relaxing, calming and what not it claims to be. As much as I admire how some of my friends’ coloring are beautiful, I always think of them as work of arts and hobby than a way of de-stress. Just recently I was given a page of coloring for adult picture and I decided to give it a go. Bought a pack of coloring pencil from local supermarket and started the project on weekend.

So did it really do what it claims to? YES, indeed! When I colored mine, there are a lot of details on the picture and I really got into it that I forgot everything temporarily for sure, namely time, my worries, and what I was supposed to do (aka house chores and cooking 😀 ). So I guess if you can spare few minutes a day to work on it, it will probably help calm you down in a long run. Even for someone like me who don’t have any art talents whatsoever could enjoy doing it, I find it is amazing 🙂

After this experience once, I think I would enjoy coloring every now and then. It is fun to play with colors after all, to try different pictures and see how it turns out (could be super wicked colored jungle or plain black and white mandalas maybe?). For anyone who like me, haven’t or just starting on coloring for adults experience, you should try to give it a go, too. There are many free downloadable pictures available online to start with, just see for yourself how effective it is in calming you down and if you want something more advanced aka more detailed pictures, you might be interested in investing a coloring book 🙂 *Disclaimer: I am not a creator/seller of any adult coloring book!

 

adult coloring2

 

adult coloring