Chinese Take-outs

Ironically, but perhaps unsurprisingly, when I saw these tres cute Chinese take-out boxes, it reminded me more of America than of China. The first time I saw these was on an American television programme, thanks to globalisation, where a fair-skinned, pale-haired couple was eating noodles clumsily with a pair of wooden chopsticks.

Ever since I spotted them at 'Baguette' at Raffles City Shopping Centre (they use it for their salad takeaways), I have been hunting them down. Lo and behold, where else would I spot it but at Spotlight, the one-stop place for arts and craft that also stocks random home-ware.

It was also extremely timely and felicitous that I spotted them just a day before a scheduled American-Diner-themed potluck party with a couple of friends who studied or have visited America at some point or another. They had no problems coming up with items to bring, we had gherkins, burgers, tater tots, crinkle-cut fries, coleslaw, pancakes, milkshakes... the works.

And because I don't like sending people home empty-handed, I decided to get the take-out boxes to use as a simple packaging for some cookies. Or more specifically, homemade Butter Shortbread Cookies made with love and vanilla beans that imparted delicious scent and flavour. I spiked half of the batch with lemon essence and a touch of cinnamon, while I added dried cranberries and raisins to the other half batch.

I used to have to take a whole day just to fill up my cookie jar. Well I bet you would too if you were using a tiny convection oven, that doubled up as a microwave oven, too small to bake more than 6 muffins or a batch of 9 cookies at one time. Agonising would be too mild a word to use and everytime I baked cookies they were truly a labour of love. More labour than love though. Thankfully a built-in convection oven solved all that. I can now bake 2 sheets of cookies at one go, each holding up to 40 cookies each.

And so within just two hours, after placing the big bowl of coleslaw in the chiller and putting a lid on the saucepan of freshly made barbeque sauce, I had about 100 shortbread cookies filling the home with the irresistible aroma of butter and cinnamon.

Ever since my alma mater - SCGS - introduced me to the wonderful world of baking with cheese twists and scones, I have baked countless cookies using countless recipes. And only a handful of these cookies have stood out, for their amazing crumbly texture, their oat-ful chewiness (even if they don't look appetising at all), their incredibly nutty flavour, or simply for how cute they look.

What this cookie stands out for is in its slight touch of saltiness, that while may sound odd, definitely tastes unique. But not unique the way one would usually say, 'Hmmm, this Fennel Cheesecake certainly tastes... *gag*... unique.' On the contrary, the mildly perceptible saltiness of the cookies seemed to help accentuate the lemon essence and the amazing vanilla.

Admittedly, the cookies are more crunchy than melt-in-your-mouth crumbly, the way I expect shortbread cookies to be. I would lower the temperature a little in future and bake them only until the very moment their edges turn sun-kissed. But I'm sure that even if the cookies had turned out rock hard, my friends would have appreciated the gesture. Who can resist such cute Chinese take-out boxes?!

Click here for Ming Tsai's recipe on Epicurious, for the Butter Shortbread Cookies.