Best Sugar Cookies EVER.
It should be noticed that, in 90% of the time, when I'm baking something it is because I saw pictures of it on the internet, in a book, on tv, or anywhere (it doesn't really matter actually). I develop a lot of cravings on a daily basis, and sometimes I just get so obsessed by it at some point I'll spent hours (even days) finding the perfect recipe to bake. It happened again this week.
I watched a vlog on YouTube in which adorable pug-shaped sugar cookies were baked. Needless to say watching this before going to bed wasn't a great idea because 1) It made me very hungry, 2) I couldn't fall asleep because I was thinking of how I could make my own.
When I woke up the next morning, I went straight away to one of my favorite books (that my best friend bought me for christmas, my christmas list only consisted of cookbooks... surprising?), The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, and found the holy recipe. Me being me, I remanied the recipe a little bit, because to be honest, the people at The Hummingbird Bakery love sugar a little bit too much for my taste. Besides my mom has been diagnosed with diabetes years ago and since then I'm always trying to put less and less sugar in what I bake so she can enjoy it too! (And besides, less sugar is everything but bad for your health!!!)
After I found the recipe for the cookies and for the icing, the biggest task
was to decide what shape to make them. I don't know if it's the fact that I've studied art, but I always complicate my life when I reach the point of deciding the design of my pastries. I searched in the kitchen cupboards, but I found 4 cookie cutters, and let me tell you, they were probably as old as me, and not very pretty. As I always do in times of crisis (at least culinary crisis), I turned to my good ol' friend Pinterest. I found hundreds and hundreds of shapes and design. Since I didn't had any cookie cutters, I did the next best thing. I sketched some shapes (here, being a flower and a candy, the button being a round shape that you can easily cut with a glass) on a piece of paper, cut them, and used them as a pattern to cut my cookies (with a tiny sharp knife, but still, not the same as the cookie cutter... oh well, I think they turned out right, right?!)
The recipe was fairly easy, and knowing myself, I'll probably make a few tiny tiny changes the next time I do them again. (But I need to work on my cutting/decorating skills first.... Icing isn't the same as paint...) It should also be noticed that I made them on monday and they are still soft on the inside and a bit crispy on the outside, the perfect way to be for a sugar cookie. Now that I've rambled for ages and that I made you read all that, it's time for me to give you the recipe right? Let's do this!
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Sugar Cookies
200g of unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g caster sugar
Half of a vanilla pod
1 egg
400g of plain flour
A pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 egg white
2 tablespoon of lemon juice (preferably freshly squeezed)
250g of sifted icing sugar
First, you need to preheat your oven at 170°C (or 325°F).
Cut your butter in pieces, scrape the vanilla pod and add it to the sugar. (At this point you can replace that with already vanilla-flavored sugar, or add instead half a teaspoon of vanilla extract... I just like seeing the tiny black speckles of vanilla in the dough it makes me happy, and it tastes incredible.)
Put all that in a freestanding electric mixer (or you can do it my hand, it'll be just a bit harder, especially for the next few steps...) with the paddle thingy, and mix until the mix is getting fluffy and creamy. Beat the egg in a bowl and add it to the mix. Scrape well the side of the bowl to be sure all of the ingredients have been mixed well with a spatula. Add the salt and the baking powder to the flour, combine them, and add it to the bowl. Mix well, but be careful to not overmix. If it doesn't make a ball of dough, don't worry, you just need to incorporate the flour mixture well. (Just like in that picture above.) Once you mixed that dough, take it out of the bowl and put in on a lightly flour dusted clean surface and combine all that dough quickly in a neat ball. Then use a rolling pin and roll it till it's approximatively 5mm thick. Now comes the fun part... Use a cookie cutter or a pattern with a sharp knife, and let's get cutting! Once you made the best use of the dough surface, take the little spare bits, combine them together in a ball and do it all again! Place the cookies in a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake them in the preheated oven for 12-15min. They should be lightly golden on the edges and a bit paler in the middle. (Take them out when they seem good enough for you. The longer you cook them, the crispier and harder they'll be. I made two batches and cooked the 1st one for about 15min, and the other for about 20min, the 1st one was soft and chewy in the inside, the 2nd one was a bit crispier. The timing could also depend of your oven, so be sure to check them out from time to time to be sure they aren't too cooked for your taste!) When they are cooked, take them out of the oven, let them rest for a couple of minutes on the baking tray and then put them on a wire cooking rack to cool them completely. Then it's time to decorate!!! Mix the egg white (still with the same paddle attachment) with the lemon juice slowly for a little minute, then put the speed up and slowly add the sifted sugar spoon by spoon, mixing well between them, until you reach a thick consistence (but not that thick that you can't spread it, and you don't have to add all the sugar if you don't need to. Do it as you like it and feel like it.) You can still add a couple of drops of water in it to loosen it up a little, it doesn't change the taste. Then the fun part comes... Divide the icing in different bowls, add food coloring, and mix it up to get some nice colors! Grab a couple of disposable piping bags (I like the disposable ones because you don't have to wash them, and I bought a big roll of them in a special store a couple of years ago, I'm about halfway through!), cut a tiny little hole in the bottom and trace the contour of the area you want to fill on all of your cookies, and then fill them up with a thin layer of icing. Let them dry a little bit (otherwise, they'll stick to each other when you stack them...), and eat them.
I can say that if you put them in a metal box, or a closed cake stand like I did, a week after, they are still very very tasty! I hope you'll have as much fun as I did when you bake them, be sure to tweet me pictures or message me on Pinterest so I can see!!!!!
See you all soon with a new recipe, With all my love, XO Morgane.
PS. : Sorry for the crappy pictures, I misplaced my camera plugging cord, so I had to use something else to take pictures. They'll be better quality for the next post, I promise!
