Author: Simonette

A year and a half ago my husband and I moved to Korea. I wanted to write about my life and experiences in Korea along with my current interests. Initially we came to Korea to use it as a stepping stone to immigrate to another country. But now since we’re here we are thinking of making it our new home even if it is just for the next few year as no one knows what the future holds. If you told me ten years ago I will be living in Korea now I would have called you out for bullshitting me. My brother always quotes Robbie Williams by saying “I sit and talk to God and he just laughs at my plans”. This is absolutely true. We have made so many plans with our lives but in the end its not up to us, no matter how much you try to take it into your own hands. So… here we are in Korea, living it up

On the 13th day of Christmas -Candy Cane Cookies.

December 13, 2016February 20, 2017Leave a comment

Ever since I saw the candy cane cookies on Pinterest I just had to try them. It has a distinct Christmas theme and they look colorful and easy. To my surprise they weren’t as easy as I thought they would be. Overall my whole weekend of baking was a disaster. Nothing came out as I wanted it to. First my inside out chocolate chip cookies came out flat. My dough for the candy canes were too dry and every time I rolled it, it broke into pieces. So I went with an easy recipe that I know would work. Admittedly rolling this dough was also not as easy as I thought but it eventually came out the right way.

For the Candy Cane cookies I used the same shortbread recipe that I used for the Raspberry Thumbprint cookies.

Ingredients

1 cup (230g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
2/3 cup (134g) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon rum extract/almond extract ( depending on your choice)
2 cups (264g) all-purpose flour

Directions

First cream the butter until soft then add the sugar and extracts and mix further until creamy and light in color. I don’t have a hand mixer so I just used a spoon and mixed it together.
Then mix the flour with the wet mixture until the dough is soft and flaky.
Chill in the fridge for 3 hours.
After 3 hours take the dough out of the fridge and let it stand outside for 20-30 minutes. ( If the dough is too flaky just knead small amounts in your hand until it form a solid ball.)
Take half of the dough and knead red food coloring into it. Its pretty messy with your hand but for me it was the best way to mix the color into the dough
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
Take 2 teaspoons of dough of each color and roll each one out separately
Then roll them together. Lay them out in the shape of a candy cane on a baking sheet
Bake for 14 minutes.
Take them out of the oven and let them cool for a few minutes before moving them to a wire rack

Recipe Rating 7/10

On the 12th day of Christmas – Chewy Oatmeal M&M Cookies

December 12, 2016December 6, 20162 Comments

When I was a kid I use to love Oatmeal cookies. We use to make it with butter and syrup so after coming home from school I would melt some butter with syrup on the stove, mix oatmeal with it and eat it, as is… at one stage I even stopped melting the butter and just creamed everything together. I didn’t even bake it.

A while ago I found an oatmeal cookie recipe and baked some cookies but then I found this recipe from Sallysbakingaddiction and I just had to try it. It looked so festive with all the colours and I figured the kids will just love it.

The cookies are chewy and kind of buttery. The M&M’s inside also adds a but more chocolate creaminess to the cookie.

The only thing I didn’t like about the recipe is that the M&M’s cracked open and I had to put some fresh M&M’s on the cookies before I took the pictures to make it look better, but other than that we ate all the cookies I baked and they kept very well in the fridge for up to a week. I’m sure you could store them for longer but mine was only covered with a piece of plastic and not kept in a proper container.

Recipe Rating 8/10

On the 9th Day of Christmas -Double Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

December 9, 2016December 6, 20161 Comment

I love brownies and the best part of the brownie, for me, is always the sides …. where the crispy exterior meets the moist interior. This cookies is exactly that. Crispy on the outside and soft and fudgy on the inside. I made these cookies twice this weekend the first time I baked them for about 15 minutes… I forgot them in the oven, oops! They didn’t dry out completely, however they spread further making BIG round cookies. The second batch I only baked for 9 minutes, they were moist and not as flat as the first lot.

I loved this recipe the cookies were very chocolatey, my husband had three in one sitting. I think they’re really nice but I’m not a huge fan of chocolate so after 2 cookies it became too sweet for me, but that’s just me.

You can find this amazing recipe on sallysbakingaddiction as part of her Christmas Cookie Palooza where you can find a lot of other great cookie recipe’s

Recipe Rating 9/10

On the 8th day of Christmas – Thumbprint cookies

December 8, 2016December 8, 20165 Comments

For today’s cookie I chose the Raspberry Almond thumbprint cookie from sallysbakingaddiction. This recipe is a shortbread recipe with a little bit of jam in the middle of the cookie. I used blueberry!

On Saturday afternoon I started with this as it needs to chill in the fridge for 4 hours so I decided I’ll leave it in the fridge overnight and then bake them on Sunday morning. That way I can also take some pictures when the sun is out.

I made the dough and it seemed a little flaky, I tried to roll it in a ball but it was too flaky so I decided to chill it and see how it works out the next day. It bugged me a little that the dough didn’t look the way I expected and I looked for some advice online. Most people suggest using some melted butter or to knead the dough a little. I was afraid I’d mess up the dough even further and I’m not really a fan of wastage so I decided to take a small piece of dough and knead it in my hand a little. That seemed to work and I was able to roll the dough into balls. So I did that with every cookie, scooping about a tablespoon of dough in my hand and then pressing it a little until it becomes firm. I went back to the website and saw on the comments that some people had the same problem but by kneading the dough in my hand a little I solved the problem. Keep this in mind when making these cookies.

I baked the cookies for 14-15 minutes and they came out wonderfully.

These cookies absolutely just melt in your mouth and is wonderful with some coffee. My cookies didn’t look as good as Sally’s but its my first time and practice makes perfect 🙂

Recipe Rating 7/10

Christmas Gift Ideas for the Geek in you.

December 7, 2016December 8, 2016Leave a comment

My brother, his wife, my husband and I are all a bunch of geeks. We love movies, TV shows, PC and console games and all books not excluding comic books. We love all kinds of merchandise, some more than others and we often buy these things for each other over Christmas or Birthday, so here are some gift ideas from some of our favorite franchises.

Dr Who

My brother absolutely loves Dr Who. His favorite Doctor is the 10th so last year I got him the Dr Who Screw driver but I also liked the Tardis clock and USB drives and then I always like the idea of the cups who change color or pictures when they are hot or cold.

Pokemon.

For those of you who don’t know it yet, Tony Moly, a Korean beauty company has collaborated with Pokemon to create some really cute makeup products that include blusher, tint, skin cover, face packs and even body lotions and creams

You can currently find it at amazon at more or less the same price we get it here in Korea. Most of the stuff are Pikachu but you can choose some of the other Pokemon too when you buy cleansers and creams

In addition there are some cute Pokemon plush toys available at Amazon. I’m particularly mentioning this because they’re prices are around $7 each whereas we are charged $100 here in Korea for the same thing 😦

Star Wars

My brother is a huge fan of Star Wars and I think he would just love these, OK the toaster might be excessive but the idea of it looked good.

Gaurdians of the Galaxy

Thinkgeek has the very cute Rocket the Raccoon bag, which will make an amazing Christmas present or a little Groot Funko especially with the second installation of this movie coming out next year.

Harry Potter

I’ve recently discovered the most wonderful website with all kinds of Harry Potter Merchandise its called Harrypottershop but unfortunately for me they don’t ship outside the US and if they do its only to military addresses.Some of my favorite stuff includes the wands,from all your favorite characters, the Griffindor and Slytherin bedding and the robes, go and have a look