Little Joy Factory

If you like shortbread, this recipe is the one!  Compared to  Scottish shortbread I made last year for Christmas, I had doubts these would be any good with only four ingredients. However, these cookies are just incredible. They taste like Chessmen cookies from Pepperidge Farm. You've got to use really good quality ingredients, like SCS unsalted butter and real vanilla extract. Otherwise, the flavor maybe ruined.  I’d say these shortbread cookies are fantastic, but I have a confession to make. I inadvertently made a major change to the recipe. The recipe calls for 1 cup of butter. That means two sticks  (227g) of butter. For some reason, though, I was thinking it was one stick of butter. So I only used ~120g of butter. The cookies were still very, very good and were well received.  If you want a reduced fat version, try making it with just one stick of butter.  The dough is dry and crumbly, which made it easy to cut out with...

  核桃酥是我儿时的最爱。自从开始烘焙以来，只要手边有核桃，不是做 核桃蛋糕 ，就是做核桃酥。每次做出来的核桃酥，虽然好吃，可是总觉得差点什么。

Yesterday, my daughter and I were shopping at a supermarket. Before checked out, as usual, I went to the magazine corner to see anything new. My girl passed me a magazine,  "Mom, can I buy it?"

Told a friend of mine that I baked copycat Famous Amos cookies , she says she loves Subway chocolate cookies more. I remember I tried  Subway cookies once. They are big, flat , sweet, soft and chewy, quite different from Famous Amos cookies. Out of curiosity, I searched for the recipe, and saved one that looks good. No time to try until today.    The recipe calls for bread flour instead of plain flour. It says bread flour makes the cookies firmer. Brown sugar contributes to the chewy texture. As usual, I reduced sugar by almost 80gm so that the sweetness is within my acceptable level. I baked them in late afternoon, and ate a few pieces of these big, chewy chocolate chip cookies with a glass of milk. End up, that became my dinner. No room for other food. As for the similarity of this homemade cookies and Subway cookies, based on the recipe source, it should be at least 70%. Maybe I should buy one piece of Subway cookies someday, taste a...