Melting moments and doggie cookies

I tried out Ovenhaven’s melting moment’s recipe a few days ago and I think the super hot weather must have softened the butter too much because the dough did not become stiff enought to roll into balls. So I decided to pipe the cookies dough into tiny swirls and top them with colored gumpaste bits.

I loved the taste of these buttery cookies, they are amazingly crisp and crumble so quickly in your mouth. I like them really tiny (mine were less than 1/2 an inch across) but I guess you can pipe them out bigger, or make them into drop cookies and still get great results. Here is my version of the recipe for deepvali:

Melting moments

(makes about 150 tiny cookies)

100g salted butter, softened

75g unsalted butter, softened

heaped 1/4 cup icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup + 2tbsp flour

1/4 cup cornflour

1 tsp lime/ lemon zest (finely grated)

gel or powder food coloring, if desired

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Cream butter for 20 seconds with electric beaters. Add sugar and vanilla and cream with butter for a minute, until smooth and light. Beat in lemon/lime zest.

3. Sift flour and cornflour. Stir flour mixture into creamed mixture until combined. 

4. If desired, seperate the cookie dough into portions and color with gel or powder food coloring (don’t use liquid coloring because that will thin the dough too much).

4. Spoon dough into piping bag fitted with nozzle and pipe out rossettes or stars onto cookie sheets. Top with mini m&ms, candied fruits, cherries, chopped nuts or gumpaste toppers. 

 5. Bake at 180C for 9 mins (for small cookies), 12-15 mins (for larger cookies). The cookies will still be pale when they are done. I find checking the underside of them a good way to tell when they are done. Using a spatula, carefully flip one of the cookies over, if the bottom looks porous and firm, it’s time to take the batch out of the oven.    

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Since the melting moments’ dough was too soft to be shaped into balls, I couldn’t stick with my plans to use half the dough to make doggie cookies. So I decided to try another butter cookie recipe which holds its shape much better. I liked how this turned out… I definitely will make some of these for the festivities. But I’ve also decided to use the original recipe for these cookies, with Milo instead of Horlicks ‘cos nobody in my family likes the strong malt taste of Horlicks. That means the Milo doggies will be brown and the normal ones wil be beige, which I think will be a nice contrast…

Butter dough for Doggie Cookies

(makes enough for about 35 cookies)

200g plain flour

50g pure icing sugar or powdered caster sugar

125g butter, chopped and softened

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tbsp very cold water

1. Sift together flour and sugar. Add chopped soft butter and rub in with fingers. Once the dough forms large clumps, sprinkle cold water and vanilla over the dough and knead lightly until a soft dough forms. Do not overwork the dough or it will be tough.

2. Let the dough rest at room temperature for about 10 mins.

3. Preheat oven to 325F.

To assemble cookies:

Semisweet mini chocolate chips

Regular size milk chocolate chips

Chocolate rice

Koko Kruch cereal 

1. Pinch off about 2 teaspoonfuls of dough for each cookie. Embed 2 milk chocolate chips in the center of the dough.

2. Place the ball of dough on the baking tray. Use 2 Koko Kruch cereal pieces to form the ears, chocolate rice for the eyes and a mini chocolate chip for the nose.

3. Bake at 325F for 20 mins until the cookies are light golden brown.