Your Best Ever Sugar Cookie Recipe

This simple sugar cookie recipe forms the base of pretty much every cookie I decorate, today, I am going to share the recipe and some tips on how to get even and consistent cookies. This recipe is simple to make and the results are consistent and reliable, the cookies have a softish texture and bake smooth on top, just right of decorating.

Equipment

A stand mixer 

A worktop for rolling out on

A large rolling pin (I like to use a traditional wooden one for cookies)

Marzipan spacers (Or one of those rolling pins with spacers on them)

Cookie cutters

Cookie sheet / Baking tray lined with baking parchment or a re-usable silicone sheet

Ingredients

200g / 7 oz unsalted butter or block margarine (I usually use a block of stork)

200g / 7 oz caster / superfine sugar

1 egg

400g / 14 oz plain / all purpose flour

1 tsp vanilla bean paste of other flavouring of your choice.

A little extra flour for dusting

Method

Recently I have been sharing some cupcake recipes with you, where you start by making a crumby mix, so just to show what a topsy turvy world we live in, these cookies are made using the creaming method, usually used for making cakes. 

Start by putting the 200g / 7oz of sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer with the 200g / 7oz of caster sugar and the teaspoon of flavouring. Using the "K" beater, mix on a slow speed, until just mixed together. You are not looking to incorporate air, just to mix the butter and sugar together.

Next, put the egg in and again mix on a slow speed until all just mixed together.

The mixture will be quite thick and stiff ...

... And will cling to the beater when you lift it. Can you see all those tiny black seeds from the vanilla bean paste?

Now for the flour. Add the 400g / 14oz and mix again. You may want to cover the mixer initially.

It is quite hard work, for the mixer here, I mix on slow speed and then turn the speed up a little when the mixer starts bouncing around. If the bouncing around mixer worries you, maybe try adding the flour in two batches instead.

You don't want to over work the flour, so stop mixing as soon as the mixture has come together. You can use your hands to press it together too.

The mix should be dry and feel soft to the touch

Ready to Roll

This beautiful ice cream cookie cutter is from Ecrandal, who have just the loveliest range of unusual and unique cutters.

I usually work a handful of cookie dough at a time, this reduces re-rolling which minimises cracks in your dough and provides a better texture for your cookies.

Sprinkle a little four over your work surface, position your marzipan spacers either side, plonk a good handful of cookie dough in the middle, sprinkle a little more flour over the top and roll, with your rolling pin over the marzipan spacers, until even and flat.

If you don't have, or don't want to use them, roll the cookie dough out until about 1 cm thick.

Use your cookie cutter to cut out the shapes, avoiding any cracks that may have formed in the cookie dough.

Lift the cookies on to your baking sheet. It can be helpful to use a palette knife if they are large. If you find it difficult to transfer the cookies to your baking sheet, perhaps because they are very soft, then try rolling them out of top of the baking sheet and then remove the excess cookie dough from around them.

Gather up the dough from around your cut outs and add a handful of fresh dough before rolling out and cutting again. If you want the very best results, you can put your cookies in the fridge or freezer here, which will discourage them from spreading as they cook.

Bake the cookies at 200 C / 400 F Gas Mark 6 for 8 to 12 minutes.

When the cookies are cooked, the centres will feel dry to the touch and they will be just beginning to brown around the edges.

The cookies will still be soft when just baked, so leave them to cool on their trays before lifting. Once cool they should keep, if stored in an air tight container for a month or so.

 That's all for today

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Lemon and Lace Cookies with Butterflies

These little lace cookies, decorated with a sugar butterfly are some more lemon and polenta cookies. You can find my recipe for the lemon and polenta cookies here or see them decorated with a rose and lily of the valley springerle mould here.

Sometimes a simple design can be very beautiful and a number of people have already said that these are their favourite of all the things that I have made. I am rather fond of their simple prettiness too.

I see some sugar crafters who make lovely sets of slightly different and co-ordinating cookies, sometimes I try to do this, but I find it hard as I always like one of the designs a lot more than the others and one of them a lot less. These cookies, for me then are a departure from my norm, because although similar, they are not quite completely identical.

When I set out to do these, I was originally intending to make something like the cookie below, lovely fondant lace with spring time daisies. When I put the combination together though, it just wasn't quite what I wanted.

This is my box of pretty little left over things. I don't know whether you have one of these at home, a little box where you store left over sugar flowers, bits and pieces, experiments, little practice pieces or things that you haven't quite had time to finish yet?  I delved into mine for inspiration of just what should decorate my cookie. In it I found some little white butterflies, tried them and found that they were just the look I wanted.

Much happier with the butterfly.

How to Decorate

The Fondant Lace

I came across this technique from the very amazing and lovely Carina Bentley. This is the first time I have put it into practice. Its actually easier than it looks. 

You must have come across the amazing Carina Bentley by now? If not go over to her Facebook page and also you'll find her picture tutorial on how to achieve what she refers to as The Magic White Lace effect.

It makes such a difference to the look of the fondant lace, plain is lovely

The silicone mat I have used here for embossing the fondant, is Bianca by Crystal Candy.

A little whiter and quite a lot lovelier

The Butterfly

The butterflies are made using a cut and press set from Blossom Sugarart. I made mine using gum paste / sugar florist paste which means that they will dry hard and keep their shape when applied to the cookie.

Start by greasing your work surface with a little vegetable fat (Trex / Criso).  The vegetable fat helps the paste stick to your work surface, making it easier to roll and then helps it not stick when you need to lift it off. Roll your gum paste or sugar florist paste out quite thinly. Not too thin otherwise the butterfly wings will be prone to breaking off. Cut out the butterfly shapes then gently lift the cut-outs on to the press. 

Press the two halves of the butterfly press together to emboss the lovely pattern of the butterfly. 

Lift the butterflies off the butterfly press and place them into a flower former or a piece of cardboard folded into a "V" shape to shape the butterflies. Allow them to dry and harden up. About 24 hours is usually long enough.

Sometimes white gum paste can look a little grey, especially when compared to the super white lace effect, so I took the opportunity to paint them with the left over white paint from the lace effect and then brushed them over with snowflake lustre for that lovely shimmery sparkle.














All that is left to do, is to place the Butterfly on to the cookie using a little edible glue to hold it in place.

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Lemon and Polenta Spring Cookies

These lemon and polenta sugar cookies, decorated with fondant using a springerle mould are to herald the arrival of spring.

Springerle moulds are a german tradition and intended to be used to bake biscuits with an embossed design, usually at Christmas time. I sometimes use them for embossed biscuits, but, usually prefer to use them like this.

Spring has been so long coming, this year and whilst we have had welcome sunshine today, temperatures are still hovering just above freezing, just the day before yesterday, returning from a spring break in Cumbria, we were driving through the Lake District, along the Kirkstone Pass between Ullswater and Windermere on a road cut through snow higher than the car. Back in January, when I booked the break, little did I imagine that during said break, snow would fall gently every day and the temperature would still be similar to January.

These cookies are simple to bake and decorate, requiring very few tools in addition to a springerle mould. The cookies themselves, are baked using the same recipe as these cookies. You can also use this recipe to mould the cookies with the springerle mould, have a look at this post to see how.

The cookie below is decorated with plain (unpainted) fondant. I think it looks really beautiful, like this, I was really in two minds whether to paint them or not, though now, I am glad that I did. I think?

Here is the painted version for a little comparing and contrasting.

Here's How

Equipment
Springerle Mould I used Lily of the Valley with Rose from House on the Hill
Small rolling pin
Marzipan spacers
Cookie Cutter that works with the cookie mould

Consumables
Batch of Lemon and Polenta Cookies cut out with cutter that matches the mould you are using
Sugarpaste / fondant coloured pale yellow. I used Bitter Lemon Lime gel colour from Sugarflair
A little vegetable fat or cornflour

As the rose part of the cookie mould is quite deep, you need to start by putting a pea-sized piece of fondant into the rose. Without this, I found that the fondant did not fill the rose part of the mould properly.

Don't you love the way that this mould has all the little indentations and knocks that you would expect to find on a really old cookie mould. These House on The Hill moulds are replicas made using resin, the original moulds were carved out of wood.

Prepare you work surface by smearing a little vegetable fat over to stop the fondant from sticking. (You can also use cornflour, but, I have heard that this can sometimes cause mould to grow if you are keeping the cookies for a while)

Roll out the yellow sugar paste, using marzipan spacers, until it is about half a centimetre thick

The spacers are not essential, they just help to get the fondant a nice even thickness.








Place the cookie mould face down onto the fondant.

Press firmly down.

I put one hand on top of the other and use a circular pressing movement to press down really well

If you have problems with the fondant sticking either rub a little vegetable fat on top before moulding, or leave the fondant in the open air to dry out a little. On a hot day, you may want to pop it in the fridge fro 20 minutes or so first.








Lift the cookie mould off by pushing upwards on the metal ring on the top of the mould C A R E F U L L Y!





















Check that the mould has come out well and that you are happy with it

Carefully position the cookie cutter over the moulded fondant, looking directly over it, to see what you are cutting and cut out the design.

Paint one of your baked cookies with edible glue, piping gel or a small amount of water and carefully lift the fondant on top. Press the fondant gently into place, being careful not to squash the embossed design










The finished cookies.

I painted the one on the left as follows (All dusts are Sugarflair)

Lily of the Valley flowers
White petal dust mixed to a thick paint with a little alcohol and then brushed over with snowflake lustre.

Lily of the Valley leaves
Moss colour petal dust mixed to a paint with a little alcohol and then brushed over with a thin layer of confectioners glaze.

Rose Leaves
Dusted with dry spring green petal dust

Yellow rose flower and buds
Dusted with lemon ice petal dust

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Red Velvet Valentine Springerles

One of the things I am aiming for this year is, that when I am making something for an occasion or Holiday, I want to publish what I have made before we get there. As I write this, I am on track to achieve this with my Red Velvet Valentine Springerles.

There seems to be bit of a trend lately for very red, red velvet cakes, I have to say that I am not fond of these. The red velvet cake is supposed to be chocolate and I don't think those bright red cakes have much chocolate in them? Traditionally, the red colour was revealed when the acids in the vinegar and buttermilk react with the cocoa powder so that a compound called anthocyanin, that is in the cocoa, becomes more red. Additional red colour seems to have been added since about the 1970s and now many modern bakers have seemingly dropped the chocolate for an entirely red cake

That said, I have cheated a bit here, as I don't have a cookie recipe using buttermilk, so I have used a colouring and flavouring by LorAnn which adds both a red colour and the buttermilk flavour of red velvet.

I love the look of a springerle cookie, but, rarely have time to make the proper recipe. I have found that if I adapt my sugar cookie recipe by using icing / confectioners sugar and freezing the cookies before I bake them that I get a pretty good impression on my cookie.

I also baked some plain hearts out of the red velvet mix and used the springerle to mould some fondant to decorate them with

Recipe

Ingredients

200g icing sugar / confectioners sugar

200g butter or block margarine

1 tablespoon Red Velvet Bakery Emulsion by LorAnn

1 egg

30g cocoa powder (sift the cocoa powder if it is lumpy)

370g plain flour

I make these in my stand mixer.

1. Beat the icing / confectioners sugar with the butter or margarine and the Red Velvet Emulsion till just blended, but the colour is well mixed through. (The smell is amazing)
2. Add the egg and beat again until just mixed
3. Mix the flour and cocoa powder together lightly
4. Beat the flour mix into the butter and sugar mix. Your mixer might rubble a bit, keep it on a low speed, the mixture will go bread crumby and then will start to come together. When the mix forms into larger balls, you are ready to begin.

Rolling and making the cookies

Equipment

Rolling pin (a wooden one is fine)

Marzipan spacers (optional)

Springerle mould (I used "Heart and Rose", "Amo Te" and "Cupid in Heart"

Cookie cutter that matches your mould or a good knife

Dry pastry brush

Prepare some baking trays / cookie sheets with a non stick liner.

Pre-heat your oven. I use a fan oven and bake them at 155C. For a conventional over you might need to experiment at about 165C or 170C

1. Take out a couple of good handfuls of the mixture and press / knead together until you have a smooth ball.
2. Roll out about 5mm thick (I use marzipan spacers to help)
3. Sprinkle and spread a very thin layer of flour over to stop the mould from sticking
4. Take your Springerle Mould press down really firmly on top of you dough. Carefully lift off using the little ring on top
5. Check the impression if happy, cut out with your cutter or knife, otherwise, knead together and re-roll
6. Place carefully on baking tray and use a dry pastry brush to gently brush off as much of the flour as you can
7. Place the tray in the freezer and leave for about 20 to 25 minutes.
8. Bake for around 10 to 15 minutes (check regularly)

The picture below is the cookie as baked above. I like this, but it was a little dark for what I wanted. Dark in mood that is, rather than colour, so I decided to add a little lustre and some experimentation ensued. (I picked the best cookies for lustre-ing, so this one is a little misshapen)

This first one (below) I tried was using a sparkly pink lustre. It gave the cookie a bit of a metallic look, which I quite like, but, it's not the sophisticated look I was after.

One of the things that I didn't like about this cookie was that the colour looks a bit grainy. I then remembered that I had a product called Gildesol which helps lustre adhere to surfaces and look better, as I fetched my gildesol I saw in the box, a pot of burnt copper lustre by Squires Kitchen and knew this was going to give just the colour I was looking for.

I brushed a thin layer of Gildesol all over the cookie with a flat brush and then brushed over a thin layer of lustre

To mould the fondant with the springerle mould, I use pretty much the same technique as for moulding the cookies, rolling the fondant out between spacers and then impressing it. As long as the fondant isn't warm and sticky, it doesn't usually stick to the mould, if it does, smear on a little vegetable fat (Trex / Crisco) after rolling. I rolled and pushed a pea sized piece of fondant into the rose part of the mould, before making an impression, to ensure I got a good impression as this part of the mould is so deep.

Really love this, hope you do to?

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Cameo Cookie Journey

My journey through the world of sugarcraft, began when I picked up this book by Peggy Porschen. I don't know what drew me to the book, perhaps the amazing pictures on the cover, or the equally amazing projects inside. Whatever it was, I was inspired to begin a new hobby.

Inspide the book are some sweet mini cakes with a cameo on top, wanting to recreate something like this, I purchased my first sugar craft mould, this cameo mould by first impressions.

Today's post is a bit different from normal, about how I developed the design above, from my first attempt below, I'm swallowing my pride and showing you some outtakes and some things that didn't go so well along the way. Not everything )maybe not anything?) comes out the way I want first time, I keep trying and practising until, hopefully, things look the way I want. This is why I reverse into my parking space at work every morning, but that is another story for another day.

April 2012

I am going to show you my first attempt at the Cameo Cookie, I'm quite nervous about it actually, but, here it is. I made these in April 2012. I don't think they look too bad. These were rose flavoured cookies so I wanted to make them pink, but overdid the pink in the cookie mix and also had not yet learnt the trick yet about using violet colouring to take the yellow out to get a true pink. The cookies are slightly misshapen and those piped royal icing dots need a bit more practise.

September 2012

So, a while after, in September, I decided to have another go, wanting to avoid the piping I decided to use fluted oval cutouts of fondant to try to create the effect. Here one is. I couldn't get the brand of silver paint that I wanted. The one I used looked OK when it was wet, but dried looking too matt and a bit grainy. Then, even worse, all of my photos came out really badly, so I didn't feel I could show you. This is actually quite a pretty cookie with a lovely domed effect

Dissapointed, I tried a few other paint and colour combinations. Two were dreadful, the paint was all grainy and yucky, but this one didn't look too bad and this is what I developed into the cookies you see at the top of the page and below

Today's Version

Equipment and Materials

Cameo Silicone Mould (First Impressions)

Small bow mould (Sunflower Sugarart)

A "pokey stick" (See below)

A batch of sugar cookies cur with a fluted oval cutter (My recipe here)

Sugar pearls 

Sugar Paste coloured with dusky pink gel colour (sugar flair)

White Sugar Florist Paste / Petal Paste / Gum Paste

Small paintbrush

Edible glue

Method

Take a small amount of Petal Paste / Gum Paste and knead until very soft and stretchy. Start to press this into the centre of the mould and use a "pokey stick" like the one shown in the picture  to work the past into all the parts of the Lady, her hair and clothes. This can be quite tricky as the petal paste / gum paste doesn't always want to stick and may keep springing back. You just have to  keep at it.

Next take a small amount of the dusky pink fondant and fill the rest of the mould with this to make the background. Pop the mould out.

That is the tricky part done. All you have to do now is assemble the cookie.

1. Roll out the dusky pink fondant about 5mm thick. Cut out ovals using the same cutter you used for the cookie and stick these on with edible glue or piping gel
2. Position your moulded cameo in the centre of the cookie.
3. Mould a bow in white petal paste / gum paste and position this at the base of the cameo.
4. Use a small paint brush to paint a ring of edible glue around the cameo for the sugar pearls.
5. Stick on the sugar pearls around the cameo. A pair of clean tweezers can help. The pearls look best with small gaps between them.

That's all for today

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