Recipe | Cacti Cookies for Cinco de Mayo


If you follow us on Snapchat (poppytalkcom), you may have seen us making some cacti cookies over the weekend (even burning some)! Psssst! The dark ones are not chocolate, they're burnt! But hey, we'll make the best of it! Next time though we will make chocolate ones! Sometimes the best ideas come from mistakes.

So, Cinco de Mayo is just around the corner, and we thought these cacti cookies would be fitting to celebrate.  We used the recipe Janis Nicolay shared on our blog from Butter Baked Goods (posted here - circa 2013). But to make things easier, we copied the recipe to this post below (check it out after the jump)!







Butter's Shaped Cookies 
(from Butter Baked Goods, published by Random House)
makes about 24 cookies, using a 3 1/2-inch cutter
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups butter, room temperature
3/4 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons pure vanilla
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside. 
2. Onto a large piece of parchment paper, sift together the flour and baking powder. Set aside. 
3. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars on medium to high speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla and mix to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again. 
4. Turn the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients and mix until fully combined.
5. Shape the dough into a large disk, about 1 inch thick,  and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
6. Divide the disk in two, and place half the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick. 
7. Use the cookie cutter of your choice to cut out about 12 cookies. Carefully transfer to the prepared cookie sheets and place about 1/2 inch apart. You may have to combine the dough scraps and re-roll the dough to cut out enough cookies. Avoid doing this too many times, as the cookies will become tough with over-handling. 
8. Use a rolling pin to roll out the second disk of dough to about 1/4 inch think and repeat step 7. 
9. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned around the edges.
10. Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool for about 10 minutes on the sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. 

Royal Icing 
(Makes 4 cups, enough to coat about 24 cookies)
4 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup meringue powder
6 to 8 tablespoons water
1. In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, combine the icing sugar and meringue powder. Mix on medium speed until the meringue powder is evenly distributed throughout the icing sugar. 
2. Turn the mixer to low and slowly add the water, little by little, until the icing reaches the desired consistency. 
3. Once the water is incorporated, beat the mixture on high to create some volume and lightness in the icing. 


A clip from our snapchat:





If you wish to add candied flowers to them, our recipe for those are from our Instagram cake recipe HERE.

Flower Candy Melts
(Make the flower candies ahead of time)
silicone candy flower molds
1 package of pink Wilton Candy Melts
1 package of white Wilton Candy Melts
A set of Wilton Candy food colouring (note: regular food colouring won't work)
microwave

Melt around 10 melts in the microwave for 30 seconds.  Stir, and microwave in 10 second intervals until well melted.

To make different colours. We made a few variations.  To make a peach colour, we added a bit of orange food colouring (1 drop) to about 10 pink candy melts.  We made two different shades of yellow, for the pale yellow add yellow food colouring (1 drop) to 10 white melts.  For the darker, we added about 3 drops to the white melts. For the blue we added 1 drop of blue to about 5 white candy melts.  For green mix 1 drop of blue and 1 drop of yellow.  You can make them a bit darker by adding more drops of each colour.

Pour into the flower molds and let sit until cooled (approximately 5 minutes if you put them in the fridge).  Pop out and make more!  And that's it!


Enjoy! Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Jan Halvarson

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Love cacti! These cookies look great
http://soldenochedecocrochet.blogspot.com.ar/

Unknown said...

It's so beautiful !

Jan Halvarson said...

Sol de Noche deco crochet - Thank you!

Jan Halvarson said...

Blanche cbn - Thanks!

Pennyblossoms said...

Saw the picture on Instagram @simplestylishmakes and tracked it to you. Love it.
Love it so much I have copied it to my blog, (credited you, mind you!!).
I hope this is OK?
If not I will remove your content.
Zxx