Things you will need for the cookies:
1 ½ cup of confectioners sugar
1 cup of softened unsalted butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
½ teaspoon of almond extract
1 egg
1 ½ cup of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cream of tarter
Parchment paper, plastic wrap, rolling pin, cookie cutters, cookie sheets (preferably non stick) two large mixing bowls, measuring cups/spoons and a mixer (a fork works just fine, I actually prefer one to the electric mixer).
Making the batter
1. Get all the ingredients out. The butter should be room temperature; if it’s not then it will clump in the batter and won’t turn out right. In one bowl mix the powdered sugar, unsalted butter, vanilla extract, almond extract and the egg. In the second bowl mix the flour, baking powder and cream of tarter.
2. Pour about 1/3rd of the flour mixture into the first bowl and then mix until you don’t see much of the flour and then add the next third… and then the last third.
3. When it is all mixed, get out the plastic wrap. Rip out a sheet that is about a foot and a half long.
4. Coat your hands in flour, this helps lessen the stickiness, it will not prevent it.
5. Scrape the dough out of the bowl and try to make it into a ball like shape (but don’t spend too much time worrying about that). And then wrap it in the plastic wrap.
6. Set in the fridge for at least two hours, this helps the dough to harden a bit and makes it easier to handle when cutting out the shapes.
Baking
1. Set the oven to 375F.
2. Lay out a good sized sheet of parchment paper, about the same size as the plastic wrap you used earlier and sprinkle a palm full of flour on it. Spread the flour out to cover it.
3. Now for the dough. You can only use about a third of the dough at a time, leave the rest of it in the fridge so it stays cold. Be sure to have flour on your hands and before breaking off the section of dough you want cover it in flour. Things will get messy. Don’t be shy about the flour, it wont hurt anything. If you don’t use it the dough will stick to everything and… well, it wont work. Put the dough in the center of the parchment paper and start to roll it out with the rolling pin.
a. The dough should be about a centimeter thick when you finish rolling it out. About ever other roll you should add a little flour to the top so it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin. And putting some on the rolling pin itself, I find helps as well. (Having the dough stick to everything is frustrating.)
4. Once it’s rolled out, dip your cookie cutter into the bag of flour and start cutting away (do this about every third cookie). Once you run out of space, roll the dough into a ball again and then flatten it with the rolling pin, repeat.
5. They should go into the oven for 5 min. They should not brown at all. 6 min if they are thicker than a centimeter.
a. When you take them out of the over, place them on a paper bag to cool, not one of the cookie racks because these are very delicate cookies and they will probably melt and break through the wires.
6. Then work on the next third and so on until they are all cooked.
Making the frosting
What you will need
1/3rd cup of unsalted softened butter
3 cups of confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
½ teaspoon of almond extract
2 tablespoons of milk
In a large bowl mix the butter and confectioners’ sugar until blended completely. Then mix in the extracts and the milk. After that, divide it into containers and mix in the food color. Put it in the fridge to cool. When frosting the cookies, every 30-45 min put the frosting back in the fridge to cool off again or it will start to melt off the cookies before it has time to harden. The frosting isn’t very thick.
No comments:
Post a Comment