Cookie Overload ? (is there such a thing?!)

So, this week we decided to give Sam a breather from the blog so she can focus on creating new original recipes for the shop ? and the care packages of bread and other baked goods she’s been creating for local families in need. (Seriously, this woman is a machine, she just started doing this late last week and has already managed to help over 125 local families! I guess that’s just what happens when you leave an introverted baker at home. ?

   

When your source for recipes is busy, what do we do?! We take to the internet! If you’re bored at home (or stress-baking!) and in the mood for about 200 cookies, this is the recipe for you!

This week we tried Emma’s Goodies recipe for making cookie boxes and the results were delicious. You can get the recipe we followed here. The recipe makes one basic dough, and has instructions for how to adapt that dough into 5 different cookie recipes!

? Butter Cookie Super Recipe ?

• – 750 gr soft room-temp Butter ( 6 2/3 sticks )
• – 300 gr Powdered Sugar ( 2 1/2 cups)
• – 3 room temp X-Large Egg Whites
• – 900 gr All purpose Flour ( 6 cups + 1/2 cup)
• – 3 tsp Vanilla
• – 1/4 tsp Salt

Divide the dough into 5 equal portions. For each of the 5 doughs, follow one of the instructions below:

■ Vanilla Butter Cookies

Leave the first dough as is.
You’ll need a piping bag and a tip of your choice.

■ Linzer Cookies

to the second cookie dough, add:

• – 60 gr Almond Flour (1/2 cup)
• – 40 gr All Purpose Flour ( 4 tbsp)
• – 1/2 tsp Almond Extract

■ Gingerbread Style Cookies

to the third cookie dough, add:

• – 2 3/4 tsp Ginger
• – 3 tsp Cinnamon
• – 2 or 3 tsp Cocoa Powder
• – 40 gr Flour ( 4 tbsp)

For stronger gingerbread flavor add more ginger.

■ Sugar Cookies

to the fourth cookie dough, add:

• – 50 gr All Purpose Flour ( 5 tbsp)
• – 1/2 tsp Vanilla

■ Chocolate Sugar Cookies

to the fifth cookie dough, add:

• – 60 gr Sweetened Cocoa Powder (7 1/2 tbsp) (‘Bloom’ the cocoa with 5 tbsp hot Milk) If you’re using UNsweetened cocoa powder you may have to add 1 tbsp more icing sugar.
• – 20 gr All Purpose Flour (2 tbsp)

Rolling, Cutting, Baking

Once all your doughs are mixed, roll them out to about ¼” thick and cut out your cookies with your cookie cutters of choice. Pop them in the oven preheated at 340F for about 15 minutes (although if your cookie shapes are very small, they won’t need quite as long). Once they are out, let them cool completely before decorating. Here’s the before and after: basic butter cookie dough to vanilla (we added some red food colouring to make the vanilla cookies pink!), chocolate, ginger, linzer, and piped cookie doughs! This makes for a lot of cookies to roll and cut out, so enlist helpers if you can! We used a combination of some basic cookie cutters to get cute cut-out cookies, and also a few fun shapes like Cookie Cat from the Cartoon Network show Steven Universe.

Don’t have cookie cutters? No problem! Cookie cutters are fun to have but if you don’t have them, you can still make yourself some delicious cookies. Just use a thin-rimmed glass as a makeshift cookie cutter instead! If you’re handy with a knife and very dedicated, you can also make yourself a paper template of the shape you want, and use a sharp knife or even a craft knife to cut out your cookies one by one. Or hey… be extra crazy creative and freehand cut your own shapes! Once the baking is done, the hardest part is waiting for them to cool down completely before decorating them. Good news is, this recipe makes so many cookies that it’s unlikely you’ll snack on them all while you wait to decorate.

Decorate

We used some homemade Red Clover Blossom Jelly that we made and preserved last summer. The jelly is sweet and floral and refreshing, and made for really cute cut-out cookies! If you don’t have jam or jelly on hand, that’s okay too! Other good options for cookie decorating include:

• – Royal Icing (homemade or store bought)
• – Buttercream (homemade or store bought)
• – Melted chocolate
• – Peanut Butter/Nut Butter

The rest of the cookies were left plain because by the time we got to this point it was also time to start making dinner!
Since this dough can last up to 10 days in the fridge, we recommend making batches of cookies this big over a couple days. You can prepare the dough on one day, then roll out and bake another. Leave them to cool overnight and decorate on the third day! Either way you choose to do it, you’re in for a treat. These cookies are delicious and perfect for all kinds of different events and occasions. There’s a lot of cookies, so brace yourself for a lot of yum!

What cookie shapes did you create? Show us your creations! Tag us at either @thegoodsweetsto or #goodsweetsfamily

This weekend we’re diving in to Jurassic World ? for our Netflix Watch Party! Stay tuned to our socials for the movie link ? posted on Sunday and hopefully we will see you in the chat!

Stay safe, and may the fork be with you. Always
– The GOoDS