The Daring Baker: September challenge Get Creative

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

Part of this challenge was to decorate the cookies as you seemed fitting for the month of September.  It was awesome seeing everyones approach to the particular theme.  Many of the Daring Bakers are from all over the world so while we Americans are in the autumn season, it has just turned spring for others! Some other bakers approached the theme by seeing September as a birthday, anniversary or even thank you month.  As you can see, for me its all about the leaves turning colors, apple picking and snuggling up with my husband while drinking hot chocolate and munching on candy corn.

I tried a new recipe for the royal icing and, sorry Martha, was not impressed.  The icing lacked the shine I get with my other recipe.  I'm not even going to bother sharing Martha Stewart's recipe but it is available on her website if you would like to have it.

We were able to use whatever royal icing we wanted but had to make the given recipe for the sugar cookies.  While time consuming, the cookies were incredibly easy to roll out and tasted great.

Basic Sugar Cookies:

Makes Approximately 36x 10cm / 4" Cookies

200g / 7oz / ½ cup + 6 Tbsp Unsalted Butter, at room temperature

400g / 14oz / 3 cups + 3 Tbsp All Purpose / Plain Flour

200g / 7oz / 1 cup Caster Sugar / Superfine Sugar

1 Large Egg, lightly beaten

5ml / 1 tsp Vanilla Extract / Or seeds from 1 vanilla bean

Directions

• Cream together the butter, sugar and any flavourings you’re using. Beat until just becoming

creamy in texture.

• Tip: Don’t over mix otherwise you’ll incorporate too much air and the cookies will spread during

baking, losing their shape.

• Beat in the egg until well combined, make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the sifted flour and mix on low until a non sticky dough forms.

• Tip: I don’t have a stand mixer so I find it easier to switch to dough hooks at this stage to avoid

flour flying everywhere.

• Knead into a ball and divide into 2 or 3 pieces.

• Roll out each portion between parchment paper to a thickness of about 5mm/1/5 inch (0.2 inch)

• Refrigerate for a minimum of 30mins.

• Tip: Recipes commonly just wrap the whole ball of dough in clingwrap and then refrigerate it for an

hour or overnight, but by rolling the dough between parchment, this shortens the chilling time and

then it’s also been rolled out while still soft making it easier and quicker.

• Once chilled, peel off parchment and place dough on a lightly floured surface.

• Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a sharp knife.

• Arrange shapes on parchment lined baking sheets and refrigerate for another 30mins to an hour.

• Tip: It’s very important you chill them again otherwise they’ll spread while baking.

• Re-roll scraps and follow the above process until all scraps are used up.

• Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C Fan Assisted) / 350°F / Gas Mark 4.

• Bake until golden around the edges, about 8-15mins depending on the size of the cookies.

• Tip: Bake same sized cookies together otherwise mixing smaller with larger cookies could result in

some cookies being baked before others are done.

• Tip: Rotate baking sheets half way through baking if your oven bakes unevenly.

• Leave to cool on cooling racks.

• Once completely cooled, decorate as desired.

• Tip: If wrapped in tinfoil/cling wrap or kept in airtight containers in a cool place, un-decorated

cookies can last up to a month.