My good friends birthday is next week. She loves certain things I make (pate, lasagne,…).I’ve decided to give her a basket of things she likes , some pear flavored cognac I think she’ll love from Sweden, and a cookie bouquet. Cookies are a natural extension for someone into cake decorating. I was nervous on how the cookies will turn out and decided to experiment tonight (without the lollipop sticks). I have also been reading about rolled butter cream and realized all the ingredients were right in my pantry. Rolled Butter cream is a great decoration for cookies, although I would hesitate to actually do a cake with it, only because its more fragile than fondant. But I love the taste and texture.
Rolled Butter Cream
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup shortening
1/2 tsp salt
2 lbs confectioners sugar
clear flavoring and coloring of your choice
Mix shortening and corn syrup together. Add flavoring.
Gradually add and knead in sifted confectioners sugar
until a ball forms and holds shape. Refrigerate in a airtight
container. You can add coloring to finished product. I divided
it into four balls and kneaded Ameri Color gels into
the butter cream.
I started worrying when I realized I was almost out of butter. All the recipes for non puffy solid cookies were similar. I had about 1/2 cup of butter and some ghee( another 1/2 cup). I had almost enough all purpose flour, but needed more. I did have white Spelt flour which I added( total 2 3/4 cups) . I decided to use a combo of butter and shortening( total 1 cup butter / ghee, 1 cup shortening), 1 egg, 1 tsp of baking powder, and 1/2 cup of corn starch.I was out of granulated sugar, so I substituted Turbinado Raw Sugar. My flavoring was Princess Cake and Cookie emulsion and some Butter extract( to compensate for the lack of) I chilled the dough. About 45 min later I rolled out the delicate dough and cut the shapes. I baked for approx 15 min at 350 degrees. Amazingly they retained their shape and baked nicely. I immediately transferred the rolled butter cream pre -cut in shapes to lay over the warm cookie coming from the oven. Baking is a always a crap shoot for me . This ingredient gamble worked. After detailing the cookies with Wilton Cookie Icing and allowing to cool some more,I tasted one. What I got a texture resembling shortbread. The rolled butter cream provided the sweet punch, as the actual cookie wasn’t too sweet.. I feel confident to go ahead and make the bouquet next week.
