Christmas cookies, III episode

I couldn’t make it: yesterday I had to show you a little teasing picture! I was so proud of the light, of my first stained glass cookies, of the wonderful sunny morning spent with my friend Simona and her sweetie daughter making biscuits and laughing. I’m not totally wrapped in Christmas spirit yet, so this will be just a recipe post… let’s keep in contact for Christmas whishes! 😉

For the moment, I’ve made my first Christmas gift, and I spent billions of money in dishes, glasses, forks and knives, all colourful, all in one single item, all for my foodblog! (don’t ask me why, but read this article on FBC site!)

Stained glass cookies

[Recipe from Christmas Food – The Australian Women’s Weekly, bought in London at Books for Cooks]:

Ingredients:

• softened butter, 250 gr
• caster sugar, 165 gr
• plain flour, 335 gr (I used 500 gr)
• egg, 1
• cold water, 1 tablespoon
• sugar free fruit drops, assorted colours, 90 gr

Split vanilla bean in half lenghthways, scrape seeds into medium bowl with butter, sugar, agg and water and beat with an electric mixer until combined. Stir in sifted flour in two batches. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth. I added more flour than requested, otherwise it was too soft and it was difficult to shape cookies. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Using a rolling pin, gently tap wrapped lollies to crush them slightly. Unwrap lollies, separate by colour into small bowls.

Roll dough between sheets of baking papet to 5mm thickness. I divided the dough into 4 parts, otherwise I would have had a one hectare pastry sheet! Cut shapes from dough using cookie cutter and use smaller cutters to cut out small windows into the cookies. Using a skewer, make a small hole in the top of each cookie for threading through ribbon.

Bake cookies 7 minutes in preheated oven to 180°C. Remove trays from oven and fill each window in cookies with a few of the same coloured lollies. Bake a further 5 minutes and cool cookies on trays.

These cookies are very nice to trim the tree and extremely good to eat, they swill wrap your tree in a cloud of sweet vanilla! With these ingredients I made four batches of cookies, enough to decorate Rockfeller Centre Christmas Tree!

Spiced Short Pastry cookies

This is the same recipe I posted here, without baking powder but with one full tablespoon of mixed spices: ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg… choose what you prefer, they will have a fragrance so strong to inebriate all Christmas crib characters.

Cover and refrigerate dough 30 minutes. Roll dough between sheets of baking papet to 5mm thickness. I divided the dough into 3 parts. Cut shapes from dough using cookie cutter and bake 20 minutes in preheated oven to 180°C. Let them cool and decorate with icing. This is my recipe for the icing:

Ingredients:

• egg white, 1
• lemon juice, few drops (4 – 5)
• icing sugar, about 250 gr

Beat the gg white with a fork until it gets frothy, then add the lemon juice.  Add gradually the icing sugar until the icing is smooth, white and silky. Add a few drops of food colours and use the icing to decorate the cookies. Use sparkling sugar to decorate, too.

Related posts:

Cinnamon little wheels Flowers in a shortbread! Cookies: Christmas reharsal Ricciarelli, Siena’s almond cookies