Recipe: Totoro Black Sesame Cookies!

After a much-dragged laziness, I am back! Now don't get me wrong, I have not been lazy in making the delicious treats, just writing it down takes a little more motivation than I have anticipated (guilty as charged).

Now on with the Totoro cookies! Just the other day when I was deciding what should my next project be, I came across Bento Monsters adorable Totoro Black Sesame German Cookies ( thank you Melody for tagging me on instagram), and BAM! Inspiration struck-ed. It just so happened that I had everything I needed to make the cookie, and hey everyday is a cookie day, am I right?

So adorable!

Instead of following Bento Monsters' recipe for the cookie dough, I have decided to use my own recipe, purely because I am more familiar with it and it has worked perfectly for cookies that needed shaping. Feel free to follow whichever you are more comfortable with, I am sure both will taste wonderful.

Overall, this was a really fun and easy cookie to make, my family loved it and I'll be more than happy to make more in the future. As usual, check out the recipe after photos, and happy baking!!

Fresh out from the oven!

Lining up to the plate!

Which is your favorite?

More shots of it!

Totoro Black Sesame Cookies

Recipe adapted from Bento Monsters, modified by Ashley Ooi

Super adorable Totoro Cookies!

Prep time: 1 hour
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total time: 2 hours (including cooling and sculpting time)

Ingredients

• 120g Butter (softened)
• 100g Icing sugar
• 1 Egg
• 270g Soft Flour/ Cake flour
• 3 Tbsp Toasted and grounded black sesame powder
• 1 tsp Charcoal Powder

Cooking Directions

1. Whisk the butter in a bowl until soft.
2. Add in the sifted icing sugar, whisk until creamy
3. Add in the egg and whisk again.
4. Add in sifted flour, use a spatula to fold the flour into the mixture. Keep folding until the mixture turns doughy.
5. Divide dough into 3 portions, around 300g, 50g and 20g. Colour 300g of it using black sesame. Colour 20g of it using charcoal powder. Leave the 50g plain.
6. Wrap the dough with a plastic wrap, let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
7. After 30 minutes, take out the dough and start sculpting your Totoro. (Follow Bento Monsters' detailed step-by step instruction, it works wonders)
8. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
9. Place the sculpted dough on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
10. Once done, set the cookies aside and let it cool completely.

Enjoy!

Love, 

Ashley

Recipes: Gudetama (ぐでたま) Lemon Cookies

Good news! I am now officially a person with an oven! All the bakers say "heiyo" *heiyo*. Woots woots.

In case you can't tell, I am already up in the air thinking about all of the cakes and cookies I am going to be baking in the future. There are tons, and I do mean TONS of recipes that I have been dying to try, and words can't even describe how exciting I am right now. 

So, as a 'grand opening' of my lovely oven (ps: thanks mommy and daddy who probably got me the oven purely because I was getting too annoying with my whining *wink*), I have decided to make these adorable Gudetama lemon cookies!

Before we move on to the recipe itself, here's a brief introduction on this adorable egg. Gudetama (ぐでたま) , literally translated as Lazy Egg, is a Sanrio character introduced in 2013. It is lazy, has no energy, non motivated, and thinks that there is no point of having a positive attitude as he believes that someday he is going to be eaten. I find it ultra adorable, and super snugly (we are still talking about an egg, believe me). Here's a short clip of it in action. 

Isn't he the cutest?!

Okay, without further ado, check out the recipe after the photos!

Egg yolk in the making.

Hot in the oven.

"We just want to sleep" ah ~~~

Cutest cookies ever

"Just eat us already, why bother?" ~~

Here is a short clip of us cutting the poor thing in half:

Gudetama Lemon Cookies

Recipe adapted from the ever so talented 스윗더미 . Sweet The MI (with a few personal twist)

Learn how to make the cutest and laziest cookies alive!

Prep time: 1 hour
Cook time: 15 minutes
Total time: 3 hours (plus cooling and decorating time)

Ingredients:

Egg Yolk Cookies

• 120g Butter (softened)
• 100g Icing sugar
• Zest of 1 whole lemon
• 1 tablespoon Lemon juice
• 1 Egg
• 1 drop Almond extract
• 300g Cake flour (soft flour)
• A few drops Yellow colouring (optional)

Egg whites and decoration

• 3 squares Dark/milk chocolate
• 1 cup White chocolate

Cooking Directions:

1. Whisk the butter in a bowl until soft.
2. Add in the sifted icing sugar, whisk until creamy
3. Add in the egg and whisk again. (save egg shell if want to make a white chocolate egg shell)
4. Add in lemon zest, lemon juice, and almond extract, mix until all well combined.
5. Add in sifted flour, use a spatula to fold the flour into the mixture. Keep folding until the mixture turns doughy.
6. Add in the yellow colouring (you can opt this step out but I used it to make the egg yolk looking extra yellow). Fold again until the colouring is well incorporated to the dough.
7. Wrap the dough with a plastic wrap, let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
8. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
9. After 30 minutes, take out the dough and start sculpting your Gudetama.
10. Place the sculpted dough on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
11. Once done, set the cookies aside and let it cool completely.
12. Meanwhile, melt the dark chocolate with a double boiler and pour the melted chocolate into a small piping bag.
13. Once the cookies are cooled, draw the face feature with the melted dark chocolate. Set aside for 10 minutes to dry.
14. Melt the white chocolate with a double boiler, and use a spoon to spread the white chocolate on a non-stick baking sheet to form the egg whites. (one egg white would need approximately 1 1/2 tablespoon of chocolate).
15. Place the egg yolk cookie on top of the white chocolate before it dries.
16. Once done, keep the cookies in the freezer for half an hour until the white chocolate hardens.
17. Take tons of photos and enjoy!

Extra:

If you would like to take things up a notch by making a hollow white chocolate egg shell, simply crack the top of the egg carefully, pour its content out and clean its inside, pour in melted white chocolate and swirl the chocolate around until it completely covers the surface and let it cool in the freezer for half an hour, if you want thicker shells, coat the inside again and let it cool. Once cooled, peel the egg shell carefully, and voila! you have a white chocolate egg shell!

Love, 

Ashley