As usual, I'm always enthusiastic to bake and so let's talking about baking first!
I must confess that I have not taste the real Jenny Bakery cookies before. And all that I know about Jenny Bakery cookies is what I have heard from my blogging friends...
According to Jenny Bakery, their home-grown butter cookies has been a phenomenon in Hong Kong. Opened in Stanley in 2005, Jenny Bakery has been selling their highly successful cookies for years. So successful that they had to say this in their website...
"We're not trying to be cool but store may close earlier if goods are sold out."
Geez! In actual fact, the bakery is truly successful as I have seen many generic Jenny cookies selling everywhere in Hong Kong. So successful that Jenny Bakery has opened a branch in Singapore and is equally popular too. Knowing that it's going to consume a lot of our traveling time queuing for the real Jenny Bakery cookies at both Hong Kong and Singapore, it never crossed my mind that I will queue hours and hours for Jenny Bakery Cookies. Well, you can say that I'm Ya Ya papaya (meaning arrogant in Singlish)... LOL! as I believe it won't be that difficult to bake cookies that are as good as Jenny's.
Surely, there must a copycat recipe!!! And I'm totally right. My Google search for "Jenny cookies recipe" has lead me to heaps of recipes like this, this, this, this, this, this, this and many more... Geez! Can someone tell me which recipe is the best? Or which recipe is the most Jenny's like?
Looking at the recipes closely, I found something!!!
Although this, this, this, this and this copycat Jenny's cookie recipe look kind of different, they are actually the same!!! I have noticed that these recipes are typically made of 1:1 butter:flour ratio like this:
200g butter and it has to be Golden Churn canned butter
50g icing sugar
150g wheat flour
50g non-wheat flour like cornflour and rice flour, can be partially replaced with wheat flour to increase the gluten content of the cookies
Then I noticed that even my favorite melt-in-your-mouth Viennese Biscuits recipe at here is also the same being 1:1 in its butter:flour ratio. From this observation, I can tell that all of these butter cookies have been optimally packed with butter but the different flour and non-wheat flour used will ultimately create a difference in the cookie texture. So this is why some recipes claim that they are the best or more or less Jenny-like than others. So which is really the best??? Let's find out...
Can someone tell me which is the Best Copycat Jenny Bakery Butter Cookies?
One, The most important Jenny-like Cookies ingredient: The Flour
I strongly believe that the type of flour used can affect the overall texture of the cookies a lot!!! And I would suggest you to consider these factors before choosing the right flour to bake your most favorite Jenny's like cookies:
1. What is the gluten (protein) content of the flour?
2. Are the flour finely milled?
3. Is the addition of non-wheat flour with low protein content make a nicer cookie? What is the optimal amount to add? Should I use cornflour or rice flour?
Obviously, the use of flour with higher protein content will create a cookie with more mouthful structure... meaning more to munch and easier to handle. On the other hand, the cookies made with less protein content will melt more in your mouth but will be difficult to handle.
What is the idea amount or combination to use?
All recipes except The Yummy Journey have not mention the percentage of protein in the flour that they used as all they mention are all purpose, plain, top, wheat, strong, bread flour and etc.
All recipes except The Yummy Journey use 3:1 ratio of wheat:non-wheat flour. Instead of using a typical ratio, Gingy (from The Yummy Journey) calculates the amount of cornflour that she needs to use based on the protein content of the flour that she used which I think it is a brilliant idea!
What should I do???
Instead of "blindly" testing many different combinations of flour, I like to compare just two flour combinations:
(1) all purpose finely milled unbleached "OO" flour with 9.5% protein with extra fine cornflour mixed in a typical 3:1 wheat:non-wheat flour ratio.
(2) a combination based on what The Yummy Journey has mentioned. She used 147g flour with 11% protein out of the total 150g flour that she used has to be 11% protein to mix with 150g butter. Based on this recipe, I have worked out a recipe that contains the same amount protein in her recipe and see if the significantly higher amount of gluten can make better cookies.
This is the finely milled all purpose Italian OO flour (with 9.5% protein) that I used.
And I have mixed the all purpose flour with this cornflour in 3:1 ratio.
Two, The next most important Jenny-like Cookies ingredient: The Butter
I was told that I MUST USE Golden Churn Tin Butter.
Why can't I use regular unsalted butter?
It is almost impossible to buy golden churn butter in Australia and I had to buy mine via online from New Zealand. Just a small can (340g) of butter costs me about AUD$20 with shipping!!! So expensive! And so I called the distributor and found that Golden Churn butter is actually available as Red Feather butter in Australia. Eventually, I managed to buy each can (454g) for AUD$8 but they are available in a very few fine food shops in Melbourne suburbs! Can you imagine there is no shops in the Melbourne city that want to sell this butter?!!!
Why is the canned butter so special? I examine both butter very closely and see that both the canned butter and all the regular butter that we buy in the supermarkets are almost the SAME!!! The only difference is that the canned butter is heavily preserved with added salt and this is why golden churn / red father butter are very salty!
What should I do???
Yes that I'm going to use golden churn / red father butter to bake the cookies but will like to know if I can use regular unsalted butter to bake these cookies too. Hence, I'm testing another combination (3) which contains all purpose finely milled unbleached "OO" flour with 9.5% protein with extra fine cornflour mixed in a typical 3:1 wheat:non-wheat flour ratio, all mixed with the regular unsalted butter plus salt.
These Golden Churn / Red Feather New Zealand canned butter are from the same supplier (see the red arrow).
Both are exactly the same in their nutritional contents.
They are almost the same like the regular butter!
The only difference is that the canned butter contains 720mg sodium in every 100g and the unsalted butter has 0g in every 100g!!!
To summarise, I'm testing 3 recipes:
(1) all purpose finely milled unbleached "OO" flour with 9.5% protein + extra fine cornflour in a typical 3:1 wheat:non-wheat flour ratio + Golden Churn canned butter
(2) a combination based on what The Yummy Journey has mentioned - flour with the same amount of protein in 147g flour with 11% protein out of the total 150g flour used + Golden Churn canned butter
(3) same as (1) but use regular unsalted butter, soften at room temperature plus the addition of salt
First I did this.
Do not beat the butter excessively! Over mixing can make the cookies spread too much during baking.
Mix until the flour is just combined.
Do not over mix as over-mixing will toughen the cookies.
Baking the cookies with recipe (1): all purpose finely milled unbleached "OO" flour with 9.5% protein + extra fine cornflour in a typical 3:1 wheat:non-wheat flour ratio + Golden Churn canned butter...
They look good!
Baking the cookies with recipe (2): a combination based on what The Yummy Journey has mentioned - flour with the same amount of protein in 147g flour with 11% protein out of the total 150g flour used + Golden Churn canned butter...
These cookies are more stable in their structures and shapes.
Despite that they contain slightly lesser icing sugar, they brown so much better.
Baking the cookies with recipe (3): same as (1) but use regular unsalted butter, soften at room temperature...
OMG! The cookies look ghastly!!!
Now clearly...
Don't ask me why... but clearly, the use of canned Golden Churn butter to bake this recipe is totally essential especially if you are baking the cookies with all purpose flour (with 9.5% protein) + cornflour in a typical 3:1 wheat:non-wheat flour ratio. If you are not adding cornflour into your recipe, it is totally ok to use regular unsalted butter, softened at room temperature - See this recipe!
So which is better? The cookies with low protein content or high protein content? I asked my husband and son the same question by feeding them these cookies..."Why are the cookies so salty??? Can't taste any differences leh!!!" My husband didn't like the excessive salty taste in these cookies. He felt that the salty taste is too overpowering and has made both cookies taste equally bad!
"This is like eating flour mix with butter..." My son said the cookies made with low protein flour is too melty for his taste. "Mum, confirm that this one is better!" said my confident son, pointing to the cookies with high protein content.You know what? I agree with them too.
Due to the fact that I have not taste the real Jenny Bakery cookies before, I can't say which recipe can make cookies that taste more or less like Jenny Bakery cookies. All I can conclude is I would strongly recommend baking butter cookies with this recipe (a well tried and tested butter cookies recipe that you can use all purpose flour and regular unsalted butter for baking) or the recipe that The Yummy Journey has recommended.
Our winner: The cookies with higher amount of protein content.
Or if you like something that is extra melty, you would prefer the other low protein flour recipe.
Nevertheless, I would strongly recommend baking butter cookies with this recipe!!!
Whether Jenny's like or not, I believe that everyone can bake nice butter cookies at home. Yeah... definitely no queuing for me :p
Before proceeding to the recipes, I would like to mention a few things...First, I like to thank Joyce from Joy `N' Escapade and all the participants for taking part the Little Thumb Up (Honey) event. We have a total of 104 entries linking with us. Thanks Joyce! You are an awesome hostess!!! Next, I like to broadcast that I'm going to be on TV!!! So Exciting!!!
This is Vivian Lai, me and Ben Yeo (from left to right) at Mediacorp studio filming an episode of channel 8 TV cooking show, 弹指间的料理 screening on every Wednesday, 8 to 8.30pm.
Touch-Screen Cuisine 弹指间的料理 is a brand new variety show, started on 6 April, every Wednesday on Singapore main stream TV Channel 8! On every episode, one Mediacorp celebrity will be invited to cook with one featured cooking blogger to see if the celebrity can cook the same food using the recipe that is published by the blogger.
Vivian Lai, me and Ben (left to right) at Mediacorp studio
This is me again doing a profile filming for the same show, 弹指间的料理 at my brother's place.
Hope to have your support and please stay tune for my appearance in this show.
Here's the recipes that are mostly adapted from Miss Tam Chiak and The Yummy Journey
Makes 25-30, depending on the shapes that you pipe the cookies
One: The low protein flour recipe
200g butter, preferably the canned kind(Please DO NOT USE our everyday butter! It won't work!)
50g icing sugar
150g all purpose flour, finely milled unbleached Italian OO with 9.5% protein
50g corn flour
Two: The high protein flour and less sugar recipe
200g butter, preferably the canned kind30g icing sugar
170g bread flour, unbleached with 12.5% protein
30g corn flour
This combination yields about the same % protein used in The Yummy Journey
If you don't want to use canned butter for your baking, you can try this recipe:200g unsalted butter, very softened - very important!!!
40g icing sugar
1/6 tsp baking powder
200g all purpose flour, with 9.5% protein
1/3 tsp vanilla paste or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, optionalI can tell you... this recipe can make butter cookies that are so much nicer!!!
Preheat oven to 180°C / 350°F. Line baking trays with baking paper.Using a wooden spoon or an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter and icing sugar until smooth and just combined. Note: Creaming mixture excessively can make the cookies spread even more during baking.
Combine flour and corn flour and sift mixture twice.
Add flour mixture into the butter mixture and use a spatula or a wooden spoon to mix until all are well incorporated. Do not use an electric mixer to mix at this stage as over mixing will make the cookies to be tough.
Transfer dough into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle. Pipe the cookies onto the prepared tray with about 1 cm in between cookies for them to expand during baking.
Bake for 12-15 mins or until the cookies are light golden brown. Please note that the cookies made with recipe two will brown better than the cookies made with recipe one. Leave them to cool slightly on the baking tray for about 10 mins and transfer them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Store in airtight container in room temperature for about 1 week.
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