#53 - Baileys Biscuit Brownies

Have you ever had that moment in the middle of the night when you are having a serious craving for something rich and chocolatey? Like a slice of decadent brownie for instance? 

Yes I just had that moment! 

And the result of me having this super duper strong craving, was me rushing to the kitchen and whipping up these basic and easy brownies bars with whatever limited ingredients I can find in my pantry. I was lucky that I happened to have all the basics that I need. And of course, how can i forget my secret ingredient! Baileys Irish Cream! Almost everything taste better with a couple tablespoon of this, don't you agree?

And the end product was... nothing short of being RICH! How I regretted not having some homemade Bailey Ice Cream to go with the brownies! I am sure that will elevate the taste to a whole new level. 

Please be warned that this brownie is really thick and rich and packed with all chocolate goodness. If you are not a MEGA chocolate fan, please stay away. Otherwise, do enjoy a little midnight indulgence. Enjoy :)

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Recipe: Adapted & modified from Brownies & Slices

Free printable version of recipe - Click here (Updated!)

Ingredients

Chocolate, chopped into pieces – 350g

Butter, softened – 110g

Cocoa Powder – 25g

Instant Coffee Powder – 10g

Caster Sugar – 125g

Egg – 3nos (approximately 140g)

All Purpose Flour, sifted – 50g

Chocolate Biscuit, crushed into pieces – 80g

Baileys Irish Cream – 3 Tbsp

Walnut – 70g

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C and line baking pan (I used 9” square pan) with baking paper. Set aside for later use.

2. Using double boiler over low heat, melt the chocolate with the butter. Stir constantly until all the chocolate is melted.

3. Stir in cocoa powder, coffee powder and sugar. Make sure the mixture is well mixed. Remove the mixture from heat and allows it to cool for at least 10 minutes.

4. Beat in the eggs to the mixture until it is well blended.

5. Fold in flour to the mixture and add in the crushed biscuit. Combined well. Make sure the combined mixture is well mixed, with no trace of flour.

6. Add in Baileys Irish Cream to the final mixture. Mix well.

7. Pour the combined mixture into the prepared baking pan. Sprinkle walnuts on top.

8. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until your tester come out clean when inserted in the center of the brownie.

#49 - Baileys' Chocolate Cookies with Macadamia Nuts

Off days are days when I can stay in the kitchen, tweaking recipes and trying ways to improve on their taste, texture and how they look. Project of the day - Baileys' Chocolate Cookies with Macadamia Nuts. 

Take a look at the recipe below and you will notice that I have done a huge reduction in the amount of sugar to include in the cookie dough. This is due to the reason that this particular bottle of Baileys' that I have with me happens to include a tint of caramel flavour to it. As such, the Baileys' itself was already kind of too sweet to me. To avoid having overly sweet cookies, I reduce the amount of sugar from 300g to 170g. 

These Baileys' Cookies has a slight crunch on the outside but definitely soft and chewy in the centre. You may even think that it kind of resembles a chewy, fudgy brownie. Not only so, it comes with a nutty twist with all the wonderful chopped macadamia nuts in it! 

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Recipe: Adapted and modified from Gimme Some Oven

Servings

Make approximately 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

All Purpose Flour (370g)

Cocoa Powder (40g)

Instant Coffee Powder (1tsp)

Baking Soda (1 1/4 tsp)

Salt (1/4 tsp)

Unsalted Butter, softened (230g)

Brown Sugar (170g) (Original recipe calls for 300g sugar)

Eggs (2 nos)

Vanilla Extract (1 tsp)

Baileys' Irish Cream (10 tbsp)

Macadamia Nuts, chopped (150g)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Prepare 2 baking sheets, lined with baking paper. Set aside for later use.

3. In a large bowl, sift and combine all the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, instant coffee powder, baking soda and salt). 

4. In a mixer bowl, cream together butter and sugar until mixture is creamy and fluffy.

5. Add in eggs and vanilla extract gradually and beat the mixture until it is smooth. 

6. Add in Baileys' Irish Cream to the mixture.

7. Fold in dry ingredients in Step (3) to the mixture in Step (6), one third portion at a time and mix well. Make sure mixture is well combined until all dry ingredients are well incorporated. but take note not to over mix.

8. Add in macadamia nuts to the batter. Combined well.

9. Wrap dough in cling wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes.

10. Using a small ice-cream scoop, scope and divide the dough into small portions (ball-shaped). Place them on the baking sheets. Ensure they are slightly apart from one another.

11. Bake for 15-18 minutes. After removing cookies from oven, allows the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely. Once the cookies are completely cooled, store them in an airtight container. 

#34 - Earl Grey Cookies

If you are one who adore hard, crunchy cookies or if you prefer cookies that are stronger and sweeter in their taste, this recipe is not for you. This recipe yields the perfect soft-baked yet crumbly cookies. In terms of flavour, it is not strong and not so sweet at all. It is very light in terms of taste and it simply melts in your mouth. 

Earl Grey tea has always been one of my favourite tea and I am constantly thinking of ways to incorporate it into my baking. I absolutely adore this recipe because of the use of real tea leaves in the dough which I felt gave the cookies a delicate and fragrant flavour to it.

For me, I like to enjoy these cookies over a cup of Earl Grey Tea and the combination is just perfect. The tea will bring out every flavour there is in the cookies. This is just the perfect melt-in-your-mouth cookie to go for for an afternoon tea party.

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Recipe: Adapted and modified from here

Servings

Make approximately 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

200 grams All Purpose Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

250 grams Unsalted Butter, softened

80 grams Castor Sugar

40 grams Brown Sugar

1 Egg

2 tbsp Milk

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 tbsp Lemon Juice

7 grams Earl Grey Tea Leaves, cut finely

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Prepare 2 baking sheets, lined with baking paper. Set aside for later use.

3. Sift and combine all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt). 

4. In a mixer bowl, cream together butter with both sugars until creamy and fluffy.

5. Add in egg, vanilla extract and lemon juice gradually and beat until smooth. 

6. Combine dry ingredients in Step (3) to the wet ingredients in Step (5), one third portion at a time and mix well.

7. Add in tea leaves to the batter. Mix well until a soft dough is achieved. Ensure that all the ingredients are well-incorporated.

8. Using a small ice-cream scoop, scope and divide the dough into small portions (ball-shaped). Place them on the baking sheets. Ensure that they are at least 3 cm apart from one another. 

9. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until the edges of the cookies start to turn light golden brown.

10. After removing cookies from oven, allows the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

(My hubby prefers cookies that are hard and crunchier in texture. Hence, I baked some of the cookies for an extra 3 minutes to achieve such a texture. Note that the colour of these cookies will be much darker.)

#29 - Butterscotch Orange Cookies

Are you having a craving for something sweet and crunchy and yet you are sick and tired of the regular chocolate chips cookies? If you are feeling just like I do, try these! 

Due  to my previous craze in baking any butterscotch related recipes (eg. Salted Oatmeal Scotchies with Chocolate Chips & Butterscotch Molten Lava Cake), I have bought these bags and bags of butterscotch morsels, all stocked up in my baking pantry. It has been a long time since I have paid any attention to them. At last, I decided that it was time! Time to turn these pretty little morsels into something crunchy and yummy!

I actually baked 2 batches of these cookies, one batch on Sunday night and the other on Monday morning. The first batch was baked for 10 minutes (with 2 eggs in the recipe) and it resulted in a soft and chewy texture in the cookies when cooled. As for the second batch, due to hubby's request for a crunchier version, I baked them for an extra 3 minutes (with only 1 egg in the recipe) and with that, the cookies was slightly firmer yet provide a really good crunch to it. So, depending on your preference, you may vary the baking time accordingly. Just make sure you check on them regularly and do not over baked the cookies. You wouldn't want them to be all bitter and hard, would you?

And oh yes, if you would like your cookies to be flat like the Subway version, just follow the recipe below but to use two eggs instead of one.  That should do the trick. It works for me! I was pretty pleased with the final texture and taste of the cookies and was definitely more than happy to share them with my friends and students. Am so glad that they enjoyed it as much as I do.

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Recipe: Adapted and modified from here

Servings

Make approximately 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 and 1/2 cup All Purpose Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1 cup Butterscotch Morsels

113 grams Unsalted Butter, softened

80 grams Granulated Sugar

80 grams Brown Sugar

1 Egg

2 tbsp Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tbsp Orange Juice

Zest of 1 Orange

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Prepare 2 baking sheets, lined with baking paper. Set aside for later use.

3. Sift and combine all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt). 

4. In a small bowl, toss 1/2 cup of butterscotch morsels with 2 tablespoon of flour mixture in Step (3). The will ensure that the butterscotch morsels will be evenly distributed throughout the batter. Leave aside the remaining butterscotch morsels to serve as toppings on the cookies later.

5. In a mixer bowl, cream together butter with both sugars until creamy.

6. Add in egg, milk, vanilla extract, orange zest and orange juice gradually and beat until smooth. 

7. Combine dry ingredients in Step (3) to the wet ingredients in Step (6), one third portion at a time and mix well.

8. Add in butterscotch morsels in Step (4) to the batter. Use a spatula to mix well. Ensure that all the ingredients are well-incorporated.

9. Using a small ice-cream scoop, scope and divide the dough into small portions (ball-shaped). Place them on the baking trays. Ensure that they are at least 3 cm apart from one another. Top each cookie dough portion with several butterscotch morsels.

10. For a soft and chewy texture in the cookies, bake for 10 minutes or until the edges of the cookies start to turn light golden brown. For a crunchier texture in the cookies, bake for an extra 3 minutes. 

11. After removing cookies from oven, allows the cookies to cool on the baking trays for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

#21 - Salted Oatmeal Scotchies with Chocolate Chips

Happy New Year to one and all!! It is the start of a brand new year for all of us and I'm pretty sure it is going to be a splendid year ahead. Other than growing a year older, I am pretty excited to get the year started! 

Personally, 2013 has been a really great year for me. I finally took a step towards my own vision of how I wanted my life to be like (personal as well as work wise) and with the support of my love ones, everything has turned out just right! 2013 has also allowed me to spend more time with my family and friends. This is so important to me now, especially when my brother is out of the country. In terms of work, I have found the stability I needed and I am loving every minute of my teaching time now. The past year has also allowed me to bond with these new students of mine on a different level and I'm so proud to say that I have done my very best to coach each and everyone of them at their differing learning levels and to add on to my pride, all my students did well for their examinations. Kudos to them for their hard work and perseverance. They have proven to me that I have made the right choice and it is all worth it. 

Carrying forward the positive energy from 2013, I hope 2014 is going to be filled with good health, sweet happiness and so much love from your love ones! Let us all count our blessings from 2013 and welcome the joy that 2014 will be bringing us. 

At Mrs Minty Cream, what better way is there than to start off our 2014 with a lovely post on my latest baked goodies, Salted Oatmeal Scotchies with Chocolate Chips. For those of you who are familiar with oatmeal cookies, you will know that many of the recipes involved the addition of raisins. While I agree that the texture of the oatmeal and raisins do complement each other very well, I did not want to do that as both my hubby and myself aren't great fans of raisins. Furthermore, since I have some butterscotch morsels left over from making my Butterscotch Molten Lava Cake with Chantilly Cream last week, I decided to make these Oatmeal Scotchies. I have also added in some chocolate chips to make the cookies more flavourful and at the same time, I added a touch of sea salt to the cookies which in my opinion, was the icing on the cake! The contracting flavour in the salt and the sweetness from the morsels/chips was a great combination. Hubby and I love these cookies so much! Trust me, you will have to make these to share with your family to show them some love today. You just have to do it! 

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Recipe: Adapted and modified from here

Servings

Make approximately 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 and 1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour

1 Tsp Baking Soda

3/4 Tsp Cinnamon

198g Unsalted Butter

1/2 Cup Fine Sugar

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Cups Oats

1 Cup Butterscotch morsels

1 Cup Chocolate Chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 190C.

2. Prepare 2 large baking trays and line them with baking paper. Set aside for later use.

3. Combined the flour, baking soda and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Sift this flour mixture and set it aside. 

4. In a bowl, cream together butter with both sugar until light and fluffy. Do this for at least 2 to 3 minutes to ensure a good mix.

5. Add egg and vanilla extract into the mixture and beat until smooth. 

6. Add in the flour mixture (in Step 3) 1/3 portion at a time and mix well to combine.

7. Add the oats, butterscotch morsels and chocolate chips to the batter and use a spatula to mix well. Ensure that all the ingredients are well-incorporated.

8. Use a small ice-cream scoop to divide the dough into small portions (ball-shaped) and place them on the baking trays. Ensure that they are at least 3 cm apart from one another. Flatten the top of each small cookie dough with the back of a teaspoon lightly. 

9. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the edges of the cookies start to turn light golden brown. Allows the cookies to cool on the baking trays for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely. Before serving, sprinkle the top of each cookie with a few flakes of salt.