Butterfly Sugar Cookies.

Since I was a little girl, I have always loved to bake. It goes back to when I visited my Grandma on a Sunday. After dinner, when the pots had been washed, we used to roll up our sleeves, put on our aprons and bake up a storm for Sunday Afternoon Tea. We used to call these sessions... Farmhouse Kitchen. Grandma, pretended to be the host of 'Farmhouse Kitchen', whilst I was the trusty side-kick. We had so much fun and it ignited a love of baking, that to this day, still makes me very, very happy.

I try to re-create this 'Farmhouse Kitchen' scene with my Princess, and in the process we laugh and giggle our way through triumphs and disasters in the kitchen.

This is what we made a little while ago. Butterfly Sugar Cookies. We hope you enjoy......

Ingredients:

3 cups of plain flour.
1 teaspoon baking powder.
1 cup Stork margarine.
1 cup sugar.
1 large egg.
1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Baking parchment.
1 cup icing sugar.
Embellishments for the cookies.

Method.

Mix the flour and the baking powder in a separate bowl and place to one side.

Cream the margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy, in a separate bowl.

Add the egg and vanilla extract to the creamed mixture and beat well.

Slowly incorporate the flour a bit at a time and mix until the dough starts to come away from the sides of the bowl.

Next, I like to lay a piece of baking parchment onto a worktop and turn the dough mixture onto it. I then knead the dough a few times to make sure that all of the ingredients are well incorporated.

I then wrap the dough in clingfilm and place it in the fridge for two hours to chill. If you are a bit pressed for time you could pop it in the freezer for 20-30 mins.

At this point, pre-heat your oven to 180 degree Celsius.

Take the dough from the fridge and place it onto parchment paper with another piece on top. I find it easier this way. The reasons are two-fold; Firstly, it's saves the need to keep adding flour, which only dries out the mixture, when rolling. Also, if you roll the dough directly onto parchment, you only need to lift it straight onto a baking tray, without the need to try and move each individual cut out cookie. Therefore eliminating the worry of breaking and dismantling the cookie during transportation.

Once the dough is rolled to a half inch thickness, cut out the desired cookie shape with cutters. Remember to leave a gap between each cookie, as they expand slightly when they bake.

Place the baking parchment with the cookies, onto a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 8-10 mins, until nicely golden.

Allow to cool and then decorate as you would like.

 
Princess and I decided to make butterflies. We used white icing as a base. One cup of icing sugar, with a few teaspoon of water added, until the desired consistency is reached. We flooded each cookie with the icing and then added some coloured sugared almonds and some small strawberry chews, in the design of a butterfly.

We also imprinted a butterfly design onto rolled blue, ready-made fondant icing and placed it onto round, fluted cookies.

We hope you like these designs Xxx