In a few days, it will be Halloween, and I'm already preparing my candy for the kids who come knocking on my door. There's nothing more fantastic than seeing the kids in their costumes scaring the neighborhood. That's why I'll be welcoming them with some delicious cookies.
Read on to see how easy it is to make just a few easy steps
I love decorating cookies. It's a way to give them an original and fun look. Halloween is the best opportunity to let your imagination run wild. If you have kids at home, you can have fun decorating cookies with them. They don't need to be perfect. They need to be colorful and appetizing.
When I make cookies for decorating, I use my basic shortbread cookie recipe as it gives me a crunchy and solid cookie that is resistant to icing.
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
In a bowl mix the flour and the powdered sugar. Add the butter, and with the help of a fork, mix well until a sandy texture is obtained.
Pour the mixture onto a non-stick surface and mix all the ingredients well until a homogeneous dough is obtained. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll out the dough into a thin sheet about half a centimeter thick. With the help of a cookie cutter, proceed to cut the dough into the shapes you like best. I used a teardrop-shaped cutter and a round cutter because I wanted to make a variety of designs both in shape and decoration.
Place the portions of dough on a metal plate and bake for 20 minutes at 180º C. Once this time has elapsed, remove them from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack.
Making the icing is one of the most important steps. It must be smooth and malleable to be able to decorate the cookies easily.
2 egg whites
1 cup of powdered sugar
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
a pinch of salt
Place the egg whites in a bowl. They should be at room temperature to achieve a good and abundant mousse. Before starting to whisk, you can add a pinch of salt as this will promote strong bonds between the proteins in the egg whites that will make a stable foam.
Whenever you prepare icing, sift the sugar a couple of times. It will help you obtain smooth and quality icing.
Beat the egg whites at high speed until stiff peaks form, then gradually add the sugar. When peaks form, add the vinegar. It will give a wonderful shine to your icing.
Separate the icing into several portions and color it with the colors you like. I want some cookies to decorate with a white background, and to achieve a perfect white that covers the cookies well, I add drops of white coloring to the icing.
There are many presentations of food colorants on the market. There are liquid, gel, and powder. I got the black color in powder form. To color the icing, you must add the colorant little by little until you obtain the desired intensity.
Before you start decorating, place all the icing colors in piping bags and have pastry sticks handy to help you distribute the icing on the cookies. Also have a rack nearby so that you can place the decorated cookies, and drying is easy.
Place a small portion of icing on the cookies. With the pastry stick, make small movements to evenly distribute the icing.
Let the base icing dry for 1 hour on the cookies. After this time, you can start decorating with another color. I wanted to make some masks so I started with a couple of drops of black color, and with the pastry stick, I started shaping the eyes, then the nose, and the mouth. It is a lot of fun!
Now, all that's left is to let them dry for a couple of hours and then store them in individual plastic bags, and if you can't resist the temptation, you can eat them in a fun family snack or with friends.
Thanks for reading. See you in next post!
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(Camera cell phone: POCO X3 Pro, Xiaomi)
