Shortbread Day Of The Dead Cookies Food

DAY OF THE DEAD COOKIES

Steps:

• In a large bowl, cream butter and confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy; add almond paste. Beat in the egg, milk and vanilla. Combine flour and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour., On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4-in. thickness. Cut out with a floured 5-in. skull-shaped cookie cutter. Place 1 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets., Bake at 375° for 7-9 minutes or until firm. Let stand for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely., In a large, shallow microwave-safe dish, melt white candy coating melts according to package directions. Dip top side of each cookie into coating, allowing excess to drip off; place on waxed paper., Add decorations as desired. Tint remaining white candy coating black; pipe on mouth. Let stand until set.

SHORTBREAD COOKIES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt, then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
• Roll the dough 1/2-inch thick and cut with a 3 by 1-inch finger-shaped cutter. Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.
• When the cookies are cool, place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put 3 ounces of the chocolate in a glass bowl and microwave on high power for 30 seconds. (Don't trust your microwave timer; time it with your watch.) Stir with a wooden spoon. Continue to heat and stir in 30-second increments until the chocolate is just melted. Add the remaining chocolate and allow it to sit at room temperature, stirring often, until it's completely smooth. Stir vigorously until the chocolate is smooth and slightly cooled; stirring makes it glossier.
• Drizzle 1/2 of each cookie with just enough chocolate to coat it.

SHORTBREAD COOKIES II

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
• Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in vanilla; add flour and mix well.
• Put through cookie press and form cookies onto baking sheets. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.

DAY OF THE DEAD BISCUITS

Steps:

• To make the dough, tip the butter, flour and a good pinch of salt into a food processor. Blend until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, and the butter is well mixed in. Add the icing sugar, egg yolk and 2 tsp cold water. Blend again until the mixture starts to clump together, add another 1 tsp water if the dough looks too dry, but try to avoid adding any more, as this will make the biscuits tough. Tip the crumbs out onto a work surface and squash everything together to make a ball of dough, you may have to knead it a few times for an even texture. Wrap in cling film, pat into a flat disk and chill for 30 mins.
• Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line 2 large baking sheets with baking parchment. If the dough is very firm, leave it at room temperature for 10 mins, or until softened a little. Dust your work surface with flour, then unwrap and roll out the dough to the thickness of a £1 coin. Stamp out as many skull shapes as you can, then squash the scraps of dough back together, reroll and stamp out a few more. Arrange the skull shapes over the trays, bake for 18-20 mins, until just golden, swapping the trays over halfway through if your oven cooks unevenly. Leave to cool on the trays for 10 mins, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
• Whilst the biscuits cool, prepare the icing. In a large bowl, mix the royal icing sugar with enough water to make a thick icing. Divide the icing into as many bowls as the number of colours you'd like to use (you'll need to colour 1 batch black for the mouth) then use the food colouring to colour each a vivid shade - a tiny drop of the food colouring paste goes a long way, so start with a little, then add more if you like. If the icing is too thick to pipe, add a drop more water. Transfer each colour to a separate disposable piping bag and secure the ends (clothes pegs do a good job of keeping the ends closed.)
• Break off 50g of the sugarpaste and set the rest aside, wrapped in clingfilm (This will prevent it from drying out and cracking.) Use the red food colouring to dye the small lump of sugarpaste red, kneading until evenly coloured. To make the roses, take hazelnut-sized balls of the red sugarpaste, and press them into long slim oval shapes on the work surface (roughly 1cm x 4 cm, use a little icing sugar on the surface if it gets too sticky.) Roll up the sugarpaste from one end to create a rose. Whilst still on its side, cut off the bottom to give you a flat base. Continue with the rest of the red sugarpaste until you have about 20 roses (enough for 4 biscuits.)
• Clean down the surface, and dust with a little extra icing sugar. Roll out the remaining sugarpaste to the thickness of a 50p piece, then cut out as many skull shapes as you have biscuits. Use a little of one of the coloured icings to stick the sugarpaste skulls to the biscuits.
• Scrunch any sugarpaste scraps back together and dye the ball of sugarpaste black with the black food colouring, kneading until you have an even colour. Roll out the black sugarpaste and stamp out circles for the eyes (use a round cutter, or the end of a piping nozzle.) Stick the eyes and roses to the biscuits with a little of the coloured royal icing. Snip off the corner of all the piping bags to make a tiny opening and decorate the biscuits as you wish - flowers, hearts and dotty designs all look good. Leave the biscuits to dry for 1 hr before serving. The decorated biscuits will keep for 3 days in a sealed container.

COCOA SHORTBREAD DIAMONDS

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Pulse flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a food processor to combine. Add butter and vanilla, and process until mixture comes together. Shape the dough into a ball.
• Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch thick; cut out shapes with a 3 1/2-by-2 1/2-inch diamond-shape cookie cutter. Space 1 1/2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake cookies until firm to the touch, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cookies cool completely on wire racks.
• Melt white chocolate, stirring, in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Drizzle chocolate over tops of cookies. Let set before serving, about 30 minutes.