Presents for the nieces “go without asking” – most times, I only get to see them once a year so I do spoil them with gifts. Between the two of them, they probably already have all the Disney princess costumes. This time, my sister-in-law literally said “No more dresses please.” So what did I get my nieces instead? I got them some cookie cutters. Heh.
Lately, my sister-in-law has been sending photos of the girls showing off their cookies so I thought that they must be into baking nowadays. Little did I know that there was no baking involved! They simply used shop bought cookies and decorated them with frosting and sprinkles – boy, was I fooled!
Their “no-baked” cookies was not due to the lack of wanting to bake though. Their mommy is a good cook but baking is just not her thing. Their daddy bakes with them sometimes, although they have not gotten around to making cookies yet.
Segregation of duties.
So you can imagine how excited the girls were when they saw their new baking tools.
Nadine: “Auntie Sur, can we bake some cookies tonight?”
Me: “Only if you don’t have any homework to finish up and if we have all the ingredients.”
Both girls together: “No, I don’t have any homework to do.”
They ran to the bookshelf to find a recipe book and after flipping through the pages and looking at the photos they settled for the one they wanted to bake. “This one auntie, please.” the girls said pointing to a photo of sugar cookies with sprinkles on top. Typical.
After all the excitement, we could not proceed though.
Nuha: “Mommy!!! Don’t we have any plain FLOUR??? Oh, we’ve ran out of flour. We can’t bake tonight…
The girls looked dissapointment but turned to me and said “We’ll get the needed ingredients tomorrow, okay auntie? We can bake tomorrow night.” Nadine even went as far as to make a shopping list for me – the girls can be very persistent!
So the following night, after dinner, I could not hold it off any longer. The day after would be a public holiday too, so the girls were allowed to stay up later than normal. The girls were so excited to be baking cookies that earlier, they had invaded their mother’s kitchen and taken out all the required ingredients and placed them on the countertop, ready for the baking session.
Girls, it’s unsafe!!! Why does cookie dough taste so good?
We couldn’t find a rolling pin so we improvised.
I honestly don’t remember the recipe book that we used but here are the ingredients:
- 150g unsalted butter, soften to room temperature
- 150g castor sugar
- 1 egg
- 250g plain flour + more for dusting
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 drops of food coloring (red, of course)
- 150g icing sugar
- 2 tbsp water (about)
- sprinkles of your choice
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, then beat in the egg. Add the vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until it becomes a dough. Add a few drops of the food coloring and knead until well incorporated. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least one hour.
Pre-heat the oven to 170ºc.
Take out the cookie dough from the refrigerator, dust the countertop with flour and roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch. Cut using your desired cookie cutter. Place the cut-out dough onto a baking sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Once baked, take them out of the oven and let them cool completely on a wire rack before decorating.
Time to decorate – making the icing.
Steady hands…
To decorate, mix the icing sugar with water to a thick consistency and pour it into a pipping bag. Pipe the icing out and decorate with sprinkles.
I was really happy to hear Nadine say ” Baking with Auntie Sur is so fun!!!” Yes girls, whilst sugar cookies may never be a favourite of mine, I definitely had fun baking with you too. And I hope that this will be the first of many more bakes to come.
Cookie cutters: £25. The happy faces of the girls baking with me: priceless.