CHAI COOKIE DOUGH Ingredients:
- 60g (1/4 Cup) Caster Sugar
- 40g Loose Leaf Chai
- 225g (1 Cup) Unsalted Butter, Room Temp
- 160g (2/3 Cup) Chai Infused Unsalted Butter, Room Temp
- 65g (5 TBSP) Unsalted Butter, Room Temp
- 2 + 1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
- 312g (2 + 1/2 Cups) Cups Plain/All-Purpose or Almond/Hazelnut Meal
- 2 Tablespoons Milk
METHOD:
- For chai infused butter, take the 225g butter, gently melt on low heat in a pot.
- Add the loose leaf chai and steep on barely simmering heat for 5 minutes.
- Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then immediately strain into a cling wrap lined container or bowl, pressing out as much butter as you can from the leaves.
- Leave to chill or set at room temperature.
- Once set, weigh the butter and add more butter to have total amount of 225g butter.
- Combine butter and sugar in a bowl and beat till very pale and fluffy, creamy and smooth.
- Beat in the vanilla, salt, flour or meal, then the milk.
- Switch to high speed and beat for about 2 minutes till the mix is fluffy.
- Line a 30 x 22cm (11 x 8.5″) tray with baking paper and spread the cookie dough mixture as smoothly and evenly all over the tray.
- Freeze or chill the dough until solid before assembling.
MARBLED SUGAR COOKIE Ingredients:
- 113g (1/2 Cup) Unsalted Butter, Room Temp
- 113g (1/2 Cup) Caster Sugar
- 1 Large Egg
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
- 250g (2 Cups) Plain/All-Purpose Flour
- Blue Gel Food Colouring
METHOD:
- Beat together butter and sugar till pale and fluffy.
- Beat in egg, vanilla and salt with baking powder just till combined.
- Scrape down the sides and base.
- Gradually beat in flour on low speed until a dough is made with no streaks.
- Set aside 2/3 of the dough, and stir blue colouring into the remaining 1/3 till uniform in colour.
- Portion and roll into golf ball sized balls, leaving a tennis ball sized portion of the white dough for profile cookies. Lay on working surface lined with cling wrap, alternate colours of regular dough and blue tinted dough forming a rectangle or triangle shape to your like (doesn’t matter much) then knead it lightly to swirl the colour, do not over mix it.
- Flatten into a disc shape and cling wrap, chill for 30-60 minutes. Do the same with the remaining white dough.
- Preheat oven to 180C (350F), line a large tray.
- On a lightly floured surface, place the dough & lightly flour the top.
- Roll out dough to 3mm thick or so, turning often to prevent sticking and ensure even rolling.
- Use a straight edged chopping board or something similar to guide the knife and slice 5cm wide (2″) bars.
- Cut into irregular triangle time slit shapes, but remember to pair each triangle for the top and bottom of each sandwich cookie. You can use the first one to lay on top and trace over as a guide, or as many varied sizes or shapes as you like with a similar method.
- Transfer triangles onto a large baking tray lined with baking paper. They don’t need to be too far apart, they do not spread much. Keep chilled till needed.
- Remove chilled white dough and in the same manner roll out till the same thickness.
- Lay character cut-outs over the dough to cut out oxenfree character outlines. Use a sharp knife and trace them out – the colder and firmer your dough the easier this is. Soft dough will tear easily.
- *** I have included down below my illustrations for you to use for the profile outlines, you can adjust the size and print them out for your own use.
- Trick is to cut away as many chunks around the character so you can get into the smaller sections. Use the sides of the knife to smooth the side of each profile.
- Brush triangle with water and lay the character cut-outs on one of each triangle pairing gently.
- You can make polar bear cookies by keeping them white and use cookie cutter to cut them.
- Freeze for 20 minutes.
- Remaining dough can be re-rolled then chilled for more cookie cutting.
- In a preheated oven at 180C (350F), the mini bear cookies I had took 12-14 minutes, whilst profile cookies take 15-17. Try not to brown them or they’ll lose the aesthetics.
- Cool completely before assembling.
- To assemble, take the bottom pair of the cookies and place on top of the chilled cookie dough and simply trace with a sharp knife. Gently ease with knife the dough off the paper and flip it upright. Place the profile cookie on top to match each pair, then let it sit till room temperature so the butter sticks the cookie together.
- For bears, just use same cookie cutter for filling. If you have a cookie stamp for the bear, it can be used after baking for better definition as this cookie is very soft but doesn’t break so easily.
- Keep cookies airtight and chilled for storage, serve cold for best texture or cookie dough goes soft very quickly.
- HAVE FUN! 😀 OLLY OLLY OXENFREE!
Sugary Lab 