Tag Archives: royal icing

Shortbread Cookies

December 24, 2012 – 11:02 AM

Happy Christmas Eve and happy holidays! I should be scrambling around my house making canapes and getting ready for the flood of relatives coming through the door this afternoon, but I tarry. Instead, I’m thinking about whether I need to bake more of these cookies for tonight, and about things I would like but will not get for Christmas, such as:

A mechanism in my bed that allows a hole to be cut out so that I sleep on my stomach and still be able to breathe, massage-table style
An secret FDA-approved supply of injectible glucocorticoid that is only supposed to be administered by doctors but that I could administer myself whenever my skin breaks out

Back to things that I can make a reality: the kids and I baked these cookies for me to bring to the office for the holidays. They’re so easy that even I can make them, and the girls decorated liberally with sprinkles. I only had to make two colors of frosting (red and green) which makes me happy.

I believe that Martha Stewart is the original source for this recipe, which I got years ago in a cookie exchange. Here it is:

CHRISTMAS SHORTBREAD COOKIES (Martha Stewart)

This buttery cookie gets better with age: it can be stored up to a month, and over time the flavor deepens.

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups (2 sticks + 6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour

Preparation

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add salt and vanilla, and beat to combine. Add flour, 1 cup at a time, beating on low speed until just combined.

On a very floured surface using a floured rolling pin, roll out dough to about 1/4″. (I used floured wax or parchment paper, below and above the dough — less sticky I find.) Use cookie cutters to cut into shapes. Bake until evenly pale golden but not browned, 13-15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 36 cookies.

For the icing, I used Marian at Sweetopia’s recipe here. If you need to know anything about cookie decorating, look around her site — she knows everything!

Hope this fills your emergency cookie needs. Now — to clean. Have a delicious Christmas and holiday season!

Tags Christmas, cookies, royal icing, shortbread | Permalink | Comments (5)

Angry Birds Cookies

February 26, 2012 – 3:49 PM

I’ve been making lots of wintery stews lately, and have even taken pictures, but I’ve been engulfed by Downton Abbey and have only just finished Season 1, so I have to keep my priorities straight, but look for those recipes in the near future. I’m thinking about having a Downton Abbey party. This idea hasn’t really materialized fully in my head yet, except that it would be really nice to have a staff of servants (which my children are proving out not to be), even if some of them can be quite damaging (though from what I’ve seen so far, mostly toward each other). I’m sure the party will need to involved these paper dolls, Edwardian desserts, and a whole new wardrobe for me. My husband’s English, and so are my neighbors, so maybe I can just have them milling around Englishing everything for effect.

Between Downton Abbey episodes, the kids and I did some cookie decorating. Our friends have a son who is really into Angry Birds. I mean, really into Angry Birds — not only does he play the game, he has the board game, pillow cushions, plush toys — you get the picture. I took a Downton Abbey quiz and discovered that my Downton Abbey character is the Earl of Grantham, so you will not be surprised to know that I’ve actually never played. We wanted to thank this family for something, so we made these cookies. I used the shortbread recipe I usually use, this time without subbing the coconut oil for butter (in truth, I haven’t found anything that tastes quite as much like butter as butter). The kids started out by doing some sketches:

Cookie sketches — The daughter in this family isn't as into Angry Birds so we did a penguin and a bunny too.

I prepared the frosting, using for the first time the plastic wrap method from Karen’s Cookies, which worked GREAT and made for very little mess. Then I outlined the cookies in black.

Cookies outlined — See the little frosting packets in the back? What a great idea (not mine)!

Next, flooded them:

Flooded cookies

(If you’re looking for a great tutorial on working with royal icing, visit Sweetopia, but on the condition that you do not compare her cookies to mine.)

We had to allow for drying time between layers, but it was easy enough to add eyes and fill in the beaks.

This was a first run, so I’d do some things differently. For one, you’ve probably noticed I didn’t follow the sketches. But I laid out this page to make it seem like I did. Next time, I’ll follow the sketches. I also started out outlining the eyeballs in black, but it made the birds look myopic and possibly Silicon Valley hipster geek-ish, and not quite as angry as I hoped. You’ll notice the bird just underneath the penguin in the photo above looks more like Concerned Bird than Angry Bird…and the beaks on the yellow birds makes them look like Twilight fans with goth lipstick. Should not have done them in black. For the pigs, I should have flooded the whole circle first and then drawn in the detail, instead of having done the eyes and nose as part of the initial outline. And those things that were supposed to be ears? I should have skipped them.

Here are our other cookies. Here you’ll see Deranged Pig, Deeply Disturbed Pig, butterflies, a happy face and a bunny that must be related somehow to Charlie Chaplin.

It was a good way to spend a Saturday. Actually, I had totally forgotten that my husband had invited a friend over at 1, so at 12:50 I was still in pajamas, a hideous hair clip and had gel paste food coloring all over my hands. I ran upstairs to get dressed and the gel paste coloring was getting everywhere — like when I put moisturizer on my face, it was green. See, I do need servants.

Have any ideas for a Downton Abbey party? Please share!

Tags Angry birds, cookie decorating, cookies, royal icing, shortbread, Sweetopia | Permalink | Comments (3)

Baking Cooking Food

Homemade Granola

February 13, 2012 – 5:40 PM

Happy Valentine’s Day! To celebrate, I’ll share a picture of the one decent Valentine’s Day cookie that I did with royal icing. Will post about that another time, after I’ve recovered from the royal icing initiation. I’ll just have to eat the rest of the evidence.

Today one of my girls was home sick, so we spent a lazy day completely indoors and mostly in the kitchen. Which means we had plenty of time to make stuff. So I decided to try out Ina Garten’s Homemade Granola recipe that my friend Heidi shared with me. She said that it was delicious, and I proved it by having three bowls of it after I made it. Here’s a closeup so you can get a sense of its sweet and nutty delectableness (look it up! It’s actually a word):

Homemade granola closeup

And it’s so easy to make that even I, who did this last time I tried to make something with rolled oats, was able to make it:

Burnt oats — This happened the last time I roasted oats. I followed the instructions and put them into the oven, took a shower, and came out with the whole house smelling burnt. Please do not shower when you are roasting oats.

Basically, all you do is coat oats, coconut and almonds in an oil-and-honey mixture, roast (you’ll want to turn them every 8-10 minutes to ensure even browning and to prevent the above from happening), and take them out when they’re a nice caramel brown all over. Let it cool, and add in the dried fruit and cashews. I bought some particularly plump dried cranberries and they made the cran-bites especially tasty.

Cooled granola with dried fruit and nuts — I used a rimmed baking tray for this and mixed the dried fruit in while the granola was on the tray for even distribution.

This was the first time I’ve made granola so I didn’t really mess with the recipe, but I’m seeing a lot of room for experimentation here (Raisins? Sunflower seeds? Tiny doll accessories embedded in my carpet?). After it all cooled (ok, and after I ate about a quarter of it) I put it into an airtight container, and am storing it next to my other cereals. It’s the prettiest of the bunch!

Here’s the recipe, courtesy of Ina Garten via my friend Heidi:

HOMEMADE GRANOLA

Ingredients

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups sweetened shredded coconut
2 cups sliced almonds
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup good honey
1 1/2 cups small diced dried apricots
1 cup small diced dried figs
1 cup dried cherries
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup roasted, unsalted cashews

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Toss the oats, coconut, and almonds together in a large bowl. Whisk together the oil and honey in a small bowl. Pour the liquids over the oat mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until all the oats and nuts are coated. Pour onto a 13 by 18 by 1-inch sheet pan. Bake, stirring occasionally with a spatula, until the mixture turns a nice, even, golden brown, about 45 minutes.

Remove the granola from the oven and allow to cool, stirring occasionally. Add the apricots, figs, cherries, cranberries, and cashews. Store the cooled granola in an airtight container.