Thursday, February 12, 2015

羊年吉祥(一)Sheep design melt-in-mouth German cookies

It's 1 week away from CNY. And I finally start baking cookies for CNY. After having charity bake sale for two consecutive years, I decide to take a break this year. Too tedious! But I am still baking for family. So starting later for freshly baked cookies.

First cookies today - the very popular sheep cookies using melt-in-mouth German cookies recipe. Have been baking this every year since 2011 because it's easy and delicious. Though it's the year of goat, sheep seems to be more popular. Cute what! I learnt this sheep design from FB.


Meh Meh before baking.


Meh Meh after baking. The sheep expand a bit and become rounder and smoother.



Cookies completed! Too cute! So fun to bake when u are not stressed to complete for orders. Love these cookies very much, except the dough is very soft and needs to chill in and out of fridge for better shaping in this terribly hot weather. It is advised to chill the dough in 2 portions and work on 1 portion first, then the other, as the dough will soften very fast *.

You can use this design for closed type pineapple tarts too. But hmm I'm not making any this year. Scared already. Some more I don't like to eat pineapple tarts one, remember? ;)


Recipe again which is same as the original post. Add in some modified parts.

Sheep design melt-in-mouth German cookies

Ingredients (I make 39 pieces)

125g butter, softened
40g icing sugar, sifted
125g potato starch, sifted
80g plain flour, sifted

Method

1. Beat butter and icing sugar till fluffy and lighter in colour.

2. Sift in potato starch and plain flour, mix to form a soft dough. Divide the dough into 2 portions, wrap and chill for at least 15 minutes (read above *).

3. Roll the body of the sheep 8g each. Roll 2 smaller balls and place on the head (just estimate roughly same size or bigger than the chocolate chips). Press a line on each ball (I use back of knife). Place 2 chocolate chips as ears. Place 2 black sesame seeds as eyes. You can also add a smile for the sheep using a piping tip.

4. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 15 mins, upper rack (need not bake till cookies turn brown).