Unfortunately I didn't think to start taking pictures until today...so sorry, no pics of how I put it together. The dough was really simple, and very easy to work with. I didn't feel like dragging the food processor out, and our Kitchen Aid is having fits if we try to go any higher than low speed, so I did this the old fashioned way, a bowl and a wooden spoon, and my hands.
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 egg yolk (reserve the white)
- Vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup all purpose flour
I creamed the butter and sugar together until it was all an even consistency, then added in the egg yolk (set the white aside for later!) and vanilla, mixing until all even again. Then I added the salt, and sifted the flour in, working at first with the spoon to mix, then my hands. Once the dough was all mixed, it was still a bit crumbly. I separated the dough into halves, and added some red Wilton Gel food coloring, and about 3 drops of strawberry flavoring to one half.
NOTE** Strawberry flavoring tastes like NASTY cough syrup if you try it straight!!! It MUST MUST MUST be very well diluted. Blech, my tongue is still curling from the thought of that flavor. I'm sure my face of revulsion must have been priceless :)
I kept working in the red coloring a little at a time until I got the color I was hoping for, and it turned out great, it's the perfect pink that reminds me of all sorts of strawberry treats as a kid. I noticed that the pink dough was much more pliable than the white dough, I picked up the white and started kneading it a bit to warm up the butter and soften the dough. Now on to the hard part, rolling out the dough!
My recent foray into rolled sugar cookies gave me some ideas for doing this next part. I pulled out the waxed paper and squashed the white dough between two sheets, rolling it out as thin as I could, probably about 1/8 inch, maybe less. I guess thickness really wouldn't matter too much, just evenness of all the dough. Of course, trying to roll this into a rectangle was proving impossible, so I kept folding over the rounded ends and flattening again until I had some semblance of a rectangle. Pull off the top sheet of wax paper, flip it over so the dough side is up, and plop the pink dough on that, grab another sheet of waxed paper and repeat.
Ok, so now I have two sheets of dough, roughly the same size and shape (I was actually really amazed at how close I got it) that needed to end up looking like a spiral. I wanted the pink on the inside, so lay out white dough, and lay pink dough on top.
Rolling the dough.... not for the impatient!
Starting along one wide edge I grabbed the wax paper on the bottom and used that the flip over a little of the dough to start my roll. I kept pulling the paper up and over the dough, while tucking and pressing so that I was able to roll a fairly tight cylinder of dough, wrapped it all up, and popped it in the fridge over night.
When I took it out this morning and cut it open, a pretty pink swirl waited for me! So excited!!
Now remember that egg white that was set aside? Brush the log of dough with egg white, and sprinkle with, well sprinkles, until it's as coated as you want. I LOVE sprinkles, so as you can see....
Now, slice into cookies! This reminded me so much of all the tubes of cookie dough at the store that I always scoffed at, because to me, that's cheating...totally making my own cookie dough logs from now on. Yeah, so anyways aren't they pretty?
Arrange on a cookie sheet (I strongly urge lining the pan with parchment paper, melted sprinkles are a PAIN to clean off) about 1 - 1 1/2 inches apart, they don't spread too much, but better safe right? Unless you want a giant, baked together cookie that you're not going to share...but I have to behave, these are going to be given away.
Pop them in an 350ºF oven for about 10 minutes. Once they cool, you'll have very light, and airy cookies, that are mildly sweet for those odd people that don't have much of a sweet tooth. I most definitely am not one of those people, as my husband will attest.
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| All baked and ready to eat |
Next up, Cinnamon Bun Cookies!! I listened to the movie "White Christmas" while I was baking these noms.
I found these on ProjectFoodie.com and happily made some of the most amazing cookies. I followed their recipe in the link above, and loved them. They smelled just like cinnamon buns, and taste very very much like them. Did I mention that I'm in love with these cookies?? I'm thinking of trying to make these as thumbprint cookies, and put the smear in the middle, then top with icing. Anywho, here's a picture of the finished cookies, sorry for the poor quality, only have a camera on my phone right now.
Sadly, between laundry, dishes, and other general housework I've put off all week because of a headache, and then exhaustion from said headache (not to mention a REALLY late night bowling) I only managed to get these two batches of cookies done today. But tomorrow is another day, and another chance to bake, knit, sew, something!
