Valentine's day butter cookies

Happy Valentine's day, people!! Much love and hugs first.

Anyways, on to the baking stuff. These are my thoughts about V-day baking and confections:
1. I think chocolate and valentine's day combination is slightly overrated. Don't get me wrong, I love chocolate, but just not in the mood of having chocolate today.
2. Valentine's day cookies do not need to come in heart shape. But just for the sake of it, I put some red heart-shaped sugar ornaments (leftover from the cupcake project).

So, I made these simple butter cookies (you seriously only need few ingredients). Took a plate of these babies to the blue house (thought Hula and Nanna might need some cookies), there rest will go to my tummy! Haha kidding, Kim's tummy too.

Simple butter cookies (make 36 small cookies)

200 gr butter
150 gr sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
275 gr all-purpose flour

1) Preheat oven to 350F. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg until mixed. With wooden spoon, mix in dry ingredients slowly until well combined.
2) I used cookie gun (sometimes is also called cookie press). Extrude dough through the cookie gun into greased cookie sheets, and decorate the top with heart-shaped sugar decoration (you can use any cookie sprinkles). Bake at 350F for 15-20 min, until edge is browned.

Cat's Tongue Cookies

French folks claim these cookies as, uhm.... French. And Spanish folks claim these as theirs. But growing up, I learned this recipe from my mom, and she's neither French nor Spanish. She's Indonesian (of course), and we do believe that these cookies are ours, and we're pretty much far far away Europe. God knows what other countries claim these little cookies as theirs! They refer these little guys as 'Langues de Chat' in France, 'Lenguas de Gato' in Spain, and 'Lidah Kucing' in Indonesia- all can be translated into 'Cat's Tongue'. You might guessed it already, if you Google image search them, these all refer to the same cookies!


Below is a recipe for basic version of these cookies, just like how mom makes them (sorry folks, recipe is in metrics so you'll need to get the scale out). Oo, it's so unbelievably easy to make and you'll need very few pantry ingredients! You can make simple modifications, such as adding citrus zest (orange, lemon, etc.) into the batter, or dip them (baked, of course) in melted chocolate and let the chocolate set. They are great to be eaten as is, or eat them with couple scoops of your favorite ice cream. I prefer the former.


"Lidah Kucing" aka Langues de Chat, Lenguas de Gato

250 grams margarine or butter (* see note below)
200 grams powdered sugar
250 grams flour
5 egg whites
1 tsp good quality vanilla extract

• Heat oven to 375F.
• Beat sugar and margarine or butter until pale, add vanilla and egg whites one at a time, and continue beating (do your best to combine the egg whites, the batter may look like cottage cheese but it'll do it). Add flour and stir with spoon until thoroughly combined.
• Put batter into ziplock bag and snip one of the corner (~1cm). Pipe batter into cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, about 5cm in length. Space 2cm between cookies, they will flatten as they're baked.
• Bake in preheated oven until GBD (I honestly didn't keep track how long it took them to bake, the edge will be browned).

*) I'm learning tricks here and there as I bake. Here's what I've learned for this recipe: butter creates softer cookies (a bit chewy in the middle), and margarine creates crisp cookies. I like them crispy and not chewy whatsoever, like how they're suppose to be. Here, I used 1/2 butter and 1/2 margarine, just because I felt like it.