The sun is shining brighter, the birds have begun their chorus at dawn and are beginning to build their nests, the flowers are blooming, butterflies and bumblebees are starting to venture out, little lambs are frolicking about in the meadows and there’s a spring in everyone’s footsteps.
Spring has officially arrived! Mother Nature is celebrating and so are we. We had the Indian festival of colours, Ranga Panchami or popularly known as Holi followed by Easter. So I thought, in the spirit of the arrival of the new season, Holi and Easter, what better than baking some spring cookies.
Ingredients
For cookies:
- 1 cup 1 cup, about 226 grams of unsalted butter (substitute with vegan butter if needed)
- 3 cups 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup 1 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons of milk, plant based works perfectly fine
- 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste
- 1/2 teaspoon teaspoon salt
To decorate the cookies:
- Powdered sugar
- Water or milk, dairy or plant based
- Gel food colors
- Piping bags or can be made from at home using thicker plastic food storage bags
Instructions
To make the cookies:
- Preheat the oven to 170 degrees centigrade.
- Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy for about 5 minutes using an electric mixer.
- Add in the vanilla extract and milk and beat until they all come together.
- In a separate bowl, sieve the flour, salt, baking powder and mix to combine.
- Now add the flour mix to the butter mix in 3 parts and mix until it comes together like a dough.
- Do not knead. Wrap the dough in a cling film or store in an airtight container and chill for a minimum of an hour.
- Before you start to roll the dough, leave the dough on the counter for about 10 -15 minutes.
- Prepare your rolling surface and rolling pin by dusting with some dry flour. Use more flour as needed to roll the dough to about 1/4th inch thickness.
- Now cut the dough using spring themed cookie cutters and place on the baking tray lined with parchment paper.
- If you’re new to baking cookies, I recommend you roll the dough directly on the parchment paper and cut out cookies. Now lift the dough scraps carefully and put the cookies in to bake.
- Bake for about 8-10 minutes at 170 degrees centigrade. Transfer on to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely before decorating.
- One can enjoy these yummy crisp cookies as is or choose to decorate them. The quick and easy way would be to put some sprinkles on each cookie and lightly press them onto the cookies before they go into the oven. Else, you can decorate them separately.
Instructions to decorate the cookies:
- To about 1/4th cup of powdered sugar, add 1 teaspoon of water or milk and mix well. Dip a clean toothpick into the gel color and dip it into the powdered sugar glaze to get a colored glaze of your choice. Once mixed, store in a piping bag (sealed tight) and store for when it’s ready to use. Prepare as many colours as you’d like to have and transfer them to piping bags, seal tight.
- The glaze can be made thick (given proportion) to use for edges or thin (add 1/2 teaspoon water at a time) icing/ glaze used to fill within the borders. If the glaze gets too runny, there isn’t any reason to panic. Instead, add in a little powdered sugar and mix well till you have the consistency as desired.
- Once you have made the glaze in all the colours desired, then get ready to decorate. (Please remember that cookie decorating is a bit of a time consuming process and needs patience. It’s not really an activity for toddlers. But slightly older children will enjoy it.)
- Pipe the thicker glaze for the borders and fill it in with the thin glaze. Use a toothpick to help smooth out the gaps.
Enjoy these cookies plain, with sprinkles or decorations. Happy Spring!
Disclaimer: Opinions and methods expressed are solely of the writer. Namaste Switzerland does not undertake any obligation or liability which may arise from the content.
