Flower Butter Cookies For Teacher's Day

So this is pretty much a last minute decision. Always happens. :P Kids come home and reminded me that Teacher's Day is just around the corner. Yeah I rely on them nowadays for these dates because MOE decided that it is best to held these occasions on a Friday, be it Children's Day or Teacher's Day. :P It's all good because it means having a long weekend, woohoo! So back to the kids reminding me about Teacher's day coming soon. Nope, mummy ain't the kind to splurge on presents and what not. I usually just bake. Cookies, cakes and even mooncakes (last year) since it is so close to mooncake festival as well haha. Anyway, I decided to bake a batch of butter cookies in flower shapes...something I did perhaps 3 years back. The idea came when FB did that memory flash back thing a couple days ago. I did not get a chance to post that time though. So here it is!

The formula for the cookies are relatively easy to make, just needs a little patience because of the steps involved in handling the cookie dough and assembling them. But nice right? I bet anyone, not just the teachers will enjoy these. #SureWin

Ingredients for Flower Butter Cookies (makes about 16-20)

Vanilla Dough

200 g salted butter room temp

150 g caster sugar ( I grind it till powdery, easier to melt)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 large egg + 1 egg yolk

410 g all purpose flour

Chocolate dough

10g sifted unsweetened cocoa powder

Chill 20-30 minutes

6 cm diameter Flower and 1.5 cm round cutter

1 egg white

Popsicle / Ice cream sticks

Colourful ribbons

• In a large mixing bowl, add in the butter and sugar. Beat the mixture till light in colour and fluffy. Making sure the sugar is all melted in. Do a little taste test to make sure (I love this part heehee)
• Next add in the vanilla extract, egg and egg yolk. Continue beating till smooth. 

• Lastly, sift in all of the flour. Remember to start the mixer at a slowest speed. You don't want flour flying all over the kitchen. Use the spatular to scrap down the sides.
• Note that the dough will be pull away from the side of the bowl and yet still soft and pliable.

• Divide the dough in to two equal portions. I kinda eyeballed it, too lazy to weigh it out. But please do so if you need to ya. ;)
• Sift in the 10 g of cocoa powder into one of the portion, while you wrap the other in plastic wraps.

• Beat the cocoa powder into the dough for a good 2 to 3 minutes till it is well combined. Then wrap the chocolate dough in plastic wrap as well. Chill them for at least 45 minutes to an hour.

• In the meantime, prepare a clean work surface, some flour to dust it, the cutters and also the ice cream sticks.

• Take out one of the chilled dough from the fridge while leaving the other inside. Take half a portion and roll out the dough into 1/2 cm thickness. Remember you need to work fast as the dough tends to soften and it will be quite hard to handle.

• Cut out as many flower shaped dough as possible with the rolled out dough. Gather the trimmings and roll out again, cut and repeat. Then use the other half of the dough and repeat the same process until all the dough is used. You then use the circle cutter and cut out the center of the flower dough. 

Note: If you choose not to make so many, you can always keep half of the dough portion in the freezer and use it when you feel like having some cookies.

• Chill the cut out flower and circle dough in the fridge. Take out the chocolate cookie dough and do the same thing as before. Cut out the flower dough and then the circle ones. Chill the dough as well.
• After chilling the cut out dough for about an hour, go preheat the oven to 175C. 
• Remove the cut out dough from the fridge. Fit the chocolate circle doughs into the vanilla flower doughs. Then fit the vanilla circle doughs into the chocolate flower doughs.

• Then brush the surface with egg white. Press an ice cream stick in the center as shown below.

• Cover the top with the opposite coloured cookie as shown below. So for this reason, you should always make the same number of vanilla dough cut outs as the number of chocolate dough cut outs. To match up in exact number.

• Repeat the same process until all the dough are assembled and used. Chill in the fridge for 30  minutes before baking.
• Preheat the oven to 175C. Remove the cookies from the fridge and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. You can rotate the tray at mid point around 7 to 8 minutes.

• Once baked, remove from the oven and let cool completely on the baking tray before handling them.
• Decorate with ribbons or mini messages written on the ice cream sticks. ;) Enjoy!

If you plan to make these, you can also omit the ice cream sticks. The flower dough itself is pretty nice. Alternatively, you can use both round cutters and thus making it look like a lollipop instead. Another modification is you may use the same flavour on both sides of the dough, but I kinda prefer the mix which I can get a taste of vanilla and chocolate together. :9 Best part about this? Is to eat a cookie from a stick! :D

Don't limit your creativity and have a blast. Hope the teachers will enjoy these of course. :)

Happy baking folks!