Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! It's already the last day of 2010 which also means my winter break is going to end soon. :( This year zoomed by for me. So many things happened: applying to colleges, finishing my SATs, making my own blog, becoming more interested in baking, having my grandparents from Taiwan come and visit, and much, much more. I could mention more, but it would take too much time. I don't exactly have any resolutions for this new year because I end up not following them. Enough of my rambling, I hope everyone has a great year ahead of them.

I made these cookies once before, back when I didn't have a blog. I brought them to a church gathering and I remember this guy being very disappointed when the cookies ran out. I made these again for my youth group Christmas gathering. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com and slightly adapted it to my own tastes.

Actually, here's my review from a year ago:
This cookie is literally the best chocolate chip cookie i have ever made. It looked like it was store bought. all the cc cookies i ever made turned out kind of pale or cakey. these cookies taste nice and chewy. My brother even rated them a 9.6 out of 10 (that is a pretty high rating based on his tastes) You should definitely use this recipe. What I did was use a little lesser white sugar (so that it wouldn't be too sweet), use a little less butter (so it wouldn't be too fatty),and use the same amount of everything else other than the chocolate chips. For the chocolate chips i used about at most a half cup. DO NOT use the full amount of chocolate chips unless you like your cookies being full of chocolate chips. I then used a tablespoon to spoon out the dough onto the baking sheets. Afterward, you should kind of "smush" them so that they are flatter and not round. Otherwise, they will stay round. This cookie was the best cc cookie recipe i ever tried!

I love the easiness of making this cookie. All you have to do is get all the ingredients and quickly mix it together. I didn't feel like using a hand mixer so I just hand mixed the ingredients together to make these cc cookies.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
From allrecipes.com, adaptations are noted in parentheses

2nd Time Cinnamon Rolls

Packaged and ready to be given away to my teachers as their Christmas gift

I originally wanted to give them to my friends too, but I ran out.


I made Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls again. The last time I made them, they were sliced into 1 1/2 inch pieces. This time they were sliced into 1 inch rolls, so I was able to make many more rolls. I had extra rolls that I didn't know where to put, so I put them into cupcake liners.

Snickerdoodles

I made these snickerdoodles on a school day before winter break for my brother's English class Christmas party. It took me 2 hours to prepare, bake and clean up. I think these cookies are pretty time consuming, but they are worth it. The hardest part is rolling the dough into balls and dipping it into the cinnamon sugar mixture because it's a hassle to keep your hands clean and unsticky.

Snickerdoodles
Slightly Adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Baking Book

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! May everyone have a great Christmas and New Years. I hope you all enjoyed Christmas dinner, spending time with your family/friends/loved ones. Another year has passed so quickly, soon it will be 2011!

Warning: The rest of this post is long and may be boring...it's a recap of my day. Also, the rest of this post is jumpy because I wrote my paragraphs in random order. haha

This Christmas I didn't do anything special because my relatives were all too busy to come celebrate. However, I enjoyed Christmas day by baking the Japanese Coconut Custard and Matcha Shortbread. This day was busy, busy, busy! The phone rang more than usual, and several people came over to my house at different times. My aunt visited with her fiance and my grandpa's business partner's son and his family came over too to see my grandpa and grandma. Looking back, I realize that even if I didn't have a huge family gathering, today was still pretty eventful.


For my family, Christmas is also a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. On Christmas Eve we went to a church service. They had a skit this year that was wonderfully executed. Me and my brother certainly enjoyed watching it very much. Some parts were a bit cheesy, but that added to the enjoyment. :) To add to an already good day, my grandpa and grandma from Taiwan also came along with us. They're currently staying at my house and it's very nice to have them here with me and my family because we haven't seen them for years.

My Birthday Feast

This is one long overdue post. It's already close to the end of December and I still haven't written about all the nice things my mom, dad, uncle and aunt did for me on my birthday last month. I'm really thankful for all the thoughtful gestures that they did for me on my birthday. I was really touched and happy. My mom made my favorite dishes for dinner and my dad helped out. My aunt made some egg tarts and my uncle/aunt/cousins made a really sweet card. Here are a few pictures of the dinner...

Soda Crackers with Smoked Salmon, Cranberries, and Cream Cheese

They were really yummy. These were my mom's idea.

Sour Cream Chocolate Muffin

When I first saw these on Dodol&Mochi, I was intrigued. Her muffins looked moist and chocolaty; they also used sour cream! I think the sour cream was main reason why I made these muffins. Whenever I get sour cream, I always end up with a tiny bit left over that I don't know how to use up. So this post came out at the right time.

I would say the muffin is good. I thought that it was a bit oily though. The texture was nice and it reminded me of the chocolate muffins I made previously with the recipe from Cookie Madness. I just didn't like how oily it was because when I held the muffin and took my fingers away, I could see my fingers glistening with oil. What a contradiction right? I like to bake, but I don't like oily things. I have nothing against this recipe though. Something to take note of, my muffins look very different from Pei-Lin's muffins, so maybe it's something that I did?

Sour Cream Chocolate Muffin
Recipe from Dodol & Mochi
I made 8 muffins.


This one has a nicer dome. I don't know why, but my muffins don't look as moist as Pei-Lin's? :(

Red Bean Mochi

On Thanksgiving, I learned how to make mochi with red bean filling. Actually, I learned how to make mochi a few years ago, but I really wanted to learn from my aunt because I love eating her mochi. Guess what, her mochi does not use any oil at all, other than that used for preparing the container.

Mochi with Red Bean Filling

Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

I saw this recipe on Wendy's blog all the way back in July. I was really interested in making it for my mom's birthday, but then I changed my mind and made a sponge cake instead because my mom prefers sponge cakes over cheesecakes. I still haven't blogged about the sponge cake I made because apparently sponge cakes are not my thing.... I tried out one sponge cake recipe 2 times and it was successful on the second time. I tried another recipe once, and it majorly deflated. The texture of that cake was nice, but the cake was around 1.5 inches tall.

I decided to make this cheesecake for my own birthday instead. I was very, very worried because after my bad experience with sponge cakes, I surmised that cakes are not my thing. Especially cakes that require egg whites and egg yolks in order to make it all light and fluffy.

I made it through though!! After 2 hours spent in the kitchen mixing the batter and stuff, I accomplished mixing what seemed like a successful cake.

I ran into several problems along the way, which I will go into detail later in this post.

The cheesecake was tasty. My aunt, uncle and parents remarked that it tasted just like the one's from the Chinese bakeries. I have to agree. :) Thank you Wendy for this great recipe.

I found out that I don't really like this type of cake though. The day I made it, and I tasted it, I found out it was a bit too dense for my liking. But when I tasted it the next day, it became more delicious! So I would recommend that you refrigerate it first before serving. A warm cheesecake does not taste good, no matter how fresh from the oven it is. (That's just my opinion.) Also, my brother said that the bottom was a bit soggy, but that was because of the moisture that it got from cooling down in the pan on a really cold day. (around 57 degrees) The cake didn't taste soggy when I ate it the next day though, so I don't know.

Japanese Cotton Cheesecake
Recipe from Wendy (Table for 2...or more)