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When i went to UK last week, i couldn't help but dropped by Jane Asher's cake shop in Chelsea. I was pleased to see they had coconut essence - and then bought two bottles - and found a set of lovely snowflakes cookie cutters.
I couldn't wait to go home and try them.
I wanted a recipe for cut-out cookies so that they don't spread out and ruin the beautiful snowflake look. I found this one, from Donna Hay's "Gourmandises". The cookies were called "biscuit de noël à la vanille" (ie vanilla xmas bicuits). They were heart shapped and covered with icing sugar and looked great.

Biscuits de Noël à la vanille

This makes far enough biscuits, i can tell you. Actually, i'm very disapointed with this recipe : the dough tasted so good, but the cooked biscuits were far to hard to bite and were to neutral in taste. I presume they must be made not to be eaten, but to be hold by the Christmas tree.
Anyway, i found that covering them with royal icing and reducing the oven down to 150°C made them more edible and found myself eating one of what i called , just a minute ago, an "awful biscuit".
I used 1/2 tsp coconut essence instead of the vanilla essence given below as i wanted to try using my fresh-buy.

185g soft butter
225g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
350g flour
1 egg + 1 egg yolk

1 egg white
250g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla essence. Add the flour, and the eggs and knead until you've got a smooth dough. Cover with cling film and refrigirate for at least 30 minutes.
Roll to a 5mm thickness and cut out shapes.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until just brown.

Labels: christmas, cookies, recipe inside

 Anonymous said something sweet:

These are very pretty! I envy your trip to Jane Asher's. My Mommy used to make wonderful Christmas cookies and she used a cookie press. She would color some of the dough green (for Christmas trees and wreath shapes) and some red for other shapes. Our job was to decorate. We had a lot of fun. The cookies did loose some shape but were delicious and pretty. Not as lovely and precise as yours.
Fran

19 November, 2005 16:43 

 Chanita Harel חני הראל said something sweet:

Wonderful !!
Thank you ;)

19 November, 2005 19:33 

 *fanny* said something sweet:

Hi Fran,
I'm sure that your mommy's cookies tasted much more better than mine. And that they looked pretty as well.

Hi Chanit,
thanx for your comment.

Love
Fanny

20 November, 2005 21:02 

 Aude said something sweet:

Hi Fanny,
A lovely picture of lovely cookies.
I also have a copy of DH's Gourmandises, it is one of my favorite cookbooks author... Anyway I am sure your little snowflakes were more than edible.

21 November, 2005 16:48 

 *fanny* said something sweet:

Hi Aude,
i think DH's gourmandises is a great cookbook : the pictures looks nice but actually the few recipes i've tried from it were a bit disappointing. If you've tried a nice recipe from this book let me know, i'll be happy to make it and see if it's just me.
Anyway, my mum found these biscuits delicious with royal icing and my little sister had a great time cuting out the shapes.

Hi Rachel, welcome to blogger (i saw you've just started a blog) and thank you for the recipe. Can't wait to try it.

Love
xoxo
Fanny

21 November, 2005 18:46 

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