Low Sugar Egg-less Melt-in-the-mouth Black Sesame Butter Cookies - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

I love these black sesame cookies!!!

Why? First of all, they look really so cool! They look like they are in black-and-white photos and they are not!

Plus, these low sugar butter cookies are so easy to bake and simply delicious! Every one of these that we popped into our mouths just melted... with a comforting crumbly sandy texture and a rich buttery nutty taste. Mmm... So nice!

What can I say? Must try! Must bake! LOL!

Must try! Must bake... these melt-in-the-mouth Black Sesame Butter Cookies.

Berri-licious Raspberry Muffins - made with less sugar and lots of raspberries! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Happy 2020!

I'm back from my nice and relaxed Christmas break, hoping to bake and share more in 2020!!!

Looking back... I recalled that 2019 had been an intense year for me... with my new job and a minor health issue. Thankfully, I survived! I'm well-adjusted with these changes. And I'm happy that I'm still running, baking and blogging...

What's next for 2010? I realised that my life can be more than just working, running, baking and blogging and so I'm going to...

1) eat less meat, use less plastic and do more recycle.

Having said that, I'm not going to be extreme being totally plastic-free. To be honest, my family and I are neither tree huggers nor vegans. We just want to do our part to minimise waste and maintain environment sustainability. I will still cook meat for my family but we will consume LESS meat. We will respect the farm animals and prefer to consume the free range eggs and meat or at least RSPCA-approved products.

2) consume less processed food.

These days, we have been consciously filling our shopping trolleys with fresh foods like fruits and vegetables and avoid processed food like frozen pizza, microwave food, snacks and biscuits. We still love our chips and bikkies but we will remind ourselves to eat less process food eventually.

Alternatively, I have been creating our own DIY "processed" food by adding more fresh ingredients and reducing less sugar in our treats... just like how I have over-loaded these lovely muffins with raspberries, not sugar!

Berri-licious Raspberry Muffins
So good that the raspberry-loving me will bake these again and again...

Fruit Pastry Cake - baked with less sugar and still delicious! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Are you the person who want to bake fruit tarts but afraid of handling pastry?

Do you know that there is an easy way of baking an impressive fruit-loaded pastry without going through the pain of handling and rolling melting pastry?

Years ago, there was this fruit pastry cake baking craze in the Asian-blogsphere. It is an easy and sturdy sour cream or yogurt cake recipe (one of the recipes can be found at here) that can support a massive amount of baked fruits on top of it. It's a nice recipe but I find that cake pastry base tastes more like a giant muffin-like cake base rather than a pastry.

For me, I want my pastry cake to be thinner, more pastry-like and can hold the same massive amount of fruits!

Plus, I don't want my pastry cake to be sugar-loaded. Instead of adding the usual 150-180g sugar into the pastry cake base, I have added 75g sugar which less than than half of this original amount.

Furthermore, I like to strongly emphasise that I prefer to use fresh or frozen fruits, not canned fruits because they can contain additional sugar hidden in the preserving syrup. And it is really not necessary to consume these excess sugar!

Ahem! So you see... My fruit pastry cake is made with a pastry-like buttery base that is also baked with the same generous amount of fruits. It is not sugar-loaded and still tastes really good! Sorry if I sound like a brag... but I have to say my pastry-like fruit pastry cake recipe is way better than others! Or simply the best!!!

This is my Fruit Pastry Cake.
Impressive?

Thick Soft Chewy Very-Chocolaty Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

It's late mid-November now. And I can't believe that Christmas is arriving soon. I love Christmas baking and enjoy planning my Christmas baking.

As usual, I will bake lotsa cookies. And in the midst of baking, I will explore many recipes and will share the good recipes that I found.

I can't say that I'm a cookie expert but I can say that I know my truly tried-and-tested cookies.

So far, our most favourite dark chocolate chocolate chip cookies recipe has to be the Like Subway Dark Chocolate White Chocolate Chips Cookies at here.

And I still asking myself... Is there a better recipe?

What is considered a better recipe? Stronger tasting chocolate cookies? Chewier or softer chocolate cookies? Less sugar chocolate cookies?

I remember... Years ago, I baked a batch of 32 dark chocolate chip cookies cookies with 2 tbsp (20g) cocoa powder at here and my son's friends at the childcare were loving them! Looking at the recipe closely, I realised that each of these cookies is made with 0.6g cocoa powder only! Don't you think that these cookies are not chocolaty enough? Why do the children love these not-so-chocolaty cookies? Hmmm... Is it true that what is better for me is not exactly better for others?

As usual, the inquisitive me love Googling for recipes and hoping to find a better dark chocolate chocolate chip cookies recipes? No doubt that I found heaps! Some well-reviewed-and-rated recipes contain less butter and sugar at here, here and here but I reckon that the adjustment of sugar and butter will reduce the amount of dough made, resulting each cookie to contain the same amount of butter and sugar eventually!

Hence, I would like to focus to bake a MORE CHOCOLATY dark chocolate chocolate chip cookie that is equally chewy and nice like our favourite Like Subway Dark Chocolate White Chocolate Chips Cookies at here!

So I went testing testing and baked these...

YUMMY Thick Soft Chewy Very-Chocolaty Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies