Really looking forward to a long weekend......

Just now I heard my colleague expressed her relief that tomorrow would  be Friday & that she survived this week. I share her sentiment about tomorrow but I did not quite survive the week. The first two weeks of school have been challenging for me, so much so, on Tuesday, I wasn't able to sleep until 4 am. I was just tossing & turning. By the time I woke up at 6 (I'm supposed to wake up at 5.30.), I was having an intense headache. I knew I wouldn't be able to function with just a two-hour sleep, so yesterday, I took a day off from work. I'm not going into details of my work challenges this year...at least, not now. Suffice to say, I'm not looking forward to them!

Good thing this weekend will be a long one here, in Singapore. Surely my Chinese friends & readers are all so busy with preparations to usher the auspicious Year of the Dragon. Wish you good luck in your preparations! For the rest of us, the additional 2 days off open up more options to our holiday plans! Some of you are probably busy packing to head off for a short getaway. So enjoy & have a safe one! As for my family, we are staying put in this sunny island of Singapore! We've planned to go for the Titanic Artifact Exhibition. My kids have been bugging us for weeks! My husband's family is also planning a barbeque gathering at the beach. So on Monday,  I'll be busy cooking & baking our contributions. I'm looking forward to that!

I know I've been complaining about work but I still try to find time to bake. For me, baking is a stress reliever. This time I chose to bake something very simple but still yummy. It's the chocolate version of the Mexican Wedding Cookies, also referred to as Snowballs or Snow Princess. I found the recipe in The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook. Made some changes  to the amount of  flour & cocoa powder. I'm not disappointed at all! This nutty-chocolaty-melt-in-the-mouth cookie is a winner! So if you are still thinking of a cookie recipe for the coming new year, try this!

Before I leave you with the recipe, let me wish all my Chinese readers Happy Lunar New Year! May you & family have a joyous celebration!

Chocolate Mexican Wedding Cookies

Adapted from The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook.

Dough:
125g butter
1 tsp vanilla
110g plain flour
50g ground almond
10g unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder

Coating:
1/4 cup icing/caster sugar

Method:

1. In a bowl, cream butter & sugar until light & fluffy. Add vanilla extract.
2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, ground almond, cocoa powder, cinnamon & salt. Mix well. Gradually add dry ingredients to creamed mixture. Wrap dough in plastic wrap & chill for 1 to 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven at 160 deg C. Shape dough into 1-cm balls (I weighed  8g each.). Place balls 2 cm apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 15 to 18 minutes or untill cookies are firm to touch. Cool for 1 minute on the baking sheet. Then transfer ot a wire rack.
4. Roll warm cookies in a shallow bowl of icing sugar.