Nastar - Indonesian Spiced-Pineapple Cookies

This one is a must! My sister-in-law loves them as each year I put these cookies in my tiny Christmas' parcel for her family (since I'm married to my hubby - so far I never forget to give these to family:)). Perhaps the spices in the pineapple mix that makes it so yummy, mixed with the soft-buttery cookie dough... hmm. You won't stop if you don't warn yourself or you stop when it's out.

There are two recipes here: the dough and the filling.

1. The dough is actually similar to the "Basic Butter Cookie Dough" however, the best to make it tastes more delicious is adding 2 more egg yolks to the mix. If it gets too crumbly, add some flower (little bit at a time).

2. Beat 2 eggs in a small bowl and a cookie brush, for glaze. Set aside.

3. Filling:

INGREDIENTS:

- 1 Fresh medium size pineapple; skin thoroughly, wash and cut into pieces. We are going to use the meat only (core not included). Blend coarsely.

- 3 to 4 blocks of dark palm sugar or 1/3 lbs brown sugar (or as you wish for sweetness).

- 3 long sticks of cinnamon, 4 to 5 pieces of whole cloves and freshly grated ½ nutmeg.

- Salt to taste.

DIRECTIONS:

- Heat the stove to medium-high.

- Using non-stick (teflon) pot, pour the grated/ground pineapple, sugar, spices and salt.

- Cook covered for about 5 minutes or until it boils.

- Low the heat ,open the cover, keep stirring until liquid from the mix dissolve (turn into pastey form).

- Remove from the heat, cool it and it will be ready to be used.

MAKING THE COOKIES

- Heat the oven to 350 degree.

- Make balls from the dough, as a size you like (mine was about lollipop size - geez, sorry, I don't know what to compare and it wasn't using weigh as measurement either:)ooopps..!). But anyway, I love to make it as tiny as possible, coz they look cute in such size rather than the size of football:).

- Flat the dough-ball, about ¼ inch thick or thinner to make it even enough for cover the whole cookie. Fill with pineapple mix about 1/3 of the size of the ball and cover it round.

- Arrange the filled cookies in a cookie sheet and bake until it's half cooked. Butter cookies usually get puffy because of the butter. So, past this phase, when the cookies start drying but before they turn to brown (before cooked), take out the sheet, using cookie brush, glaze the top of the cookies and immediately return the sheet back to the oven. Bake until the color turns golden-brown.

- Remove from the oven and cool them on the rack.

- Can be kept for up to 3 months if store in air-tight container.

Stained Glass Ornament Butter Cookies

For the basic butter cookies dough recipe, follow the link by clicking on the title or here. This one was way cool! I love to see how they turned out. Now, on the Goodhousekeeping's recipe, it asks for hard candy as the filling, but I hate to eat crunchy-crackling-hard candy with a soft-chewy cookie, so I picked gummy bear! The trick is quite different if you're going to use gummy bear;
- Divide the basic butter cookies dough into 3 pieces. Flatten each piece into a disk; wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight, until firm enough to roll.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line large cookie sheet with foil. Between 2 sheets of waxed paper, roll 1 disk of dough 1/8 inch thick. Remove top sheet of waxed paper. With 3 to 4 inch star-shaped cookie cutters, cut out as many cookies as possible. Place 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheet. Cut out centers of cookies with 1 ½ to 2 inch cookie cutters. Remove and refrigerate trimmings and cutout centers.

- Bake cookies until almost cooked. Remove cookie sheet from oven; fill each cookie's center with 2 pieces gummy bear. Return to oven and bake 3 to 4 minutes longer (or until gummy bear is melted). Cool cookies on cookie sheet on wire rack. With metal spatula, remove cookies. Repeat with the rest of the cookies.
- Store cookies in tightly sealed container at room temperature up to 2 weeks or in freezer up to 3 months.

TIPS: if you want to make blended colors, do 2 or 3 different colors gummy bear in one cookie and they'll blend so pretty.

Basic Dough for Assorted Christmas Cookies

Because of my native tradition, we always have to have BUTTER COOKIES for Christmas/New Year and each year I always make dozens of butter cookies with different flavor and filling.
Lasty lear, inspired by Goodhousekeeping magazine, I tried this batch to make several favorite christmas cookies and it turned out great. I think I'll make some more of this beside other stuff.

INGREDIENTS
- 2 ¾ cup(s) all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon(s) baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon(s) salt
- 1 cup(s) (2 sticks) butter (no substitutions), softened
- ¾ cup(s) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon(s) vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
- On waxed paper, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
- In large bowl, with mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugar 1 minute or until creamy,
occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Add egg and vanilla; beat until well mixed.
- Reduce speed to low; gradually beat in flour mixture just until blended, occasionally scraping
bowl.
- Follow directions for your choice of cookie.