Paula over at Mummy vs Work is doing a weekly cooking challenge. On a Friday she will post a recipe and then on the following Thursday she opens a Linky up for you to share your own posts.
Last week she posted a recipe for Shortbread Biscuits
Ingredients:
- 500g butter, softened
- 200g caster sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 500g plain flour
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 180 C / Gas mark 4.
- Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in vanilla; add flour and mix well.
- Put through biscuit press and form biscuits onto baking trays. Alternatively, roll out to 1cm thickness and cut out desired shaped with biscuit cutters. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
Upon Jenny from Mummy Mishaps recommendation earlier in the week on Twitter I opted to halve the mixture as it does make rather a lot of biscuits. We also added a teaspoon of Cinnamon to the recipe but it could've perhaps done with a little bit more. We also added a bit more flour as it was a bit sticky to roll out.
We then used different sized star cutters to cut out the biscuits and laid them onto a greased baking tray to cook. When they were done I left them on the baking tray to firm up for a few minutes before allowing them to cool completely on a wire rack.
The biscuits turned out really well, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Jack had great fun making the biscuits until just after the first batch had gone in the oven when he started crying uncontrollably and asked to go to bed so I ended up finishing them and doing the washing up on my own!
We were provided with the Star Cookie Cutters by Procook free of charge. There are 5 cutters in the set ranging from 4cm up to 8cm in size and are very strong, not like other similar but flimsy metal cutters that I've come across. Perfect for baking Christmas Cookies. You can find the Star Cutters along with some other great cutters: hands, gingerbread men, flowers and numbers here. The cutters were really easy to use and come in a lovely storage tin.
Ideas for Christmas
Cellophane bags available here