Delicious, full of flavour a little bit on the crunchy side that’s the way I like my cookies. What about you, soft or crunchy? Which Flavours do you prefer?  Traditional vainilla, spices, peppermint…. so many to choose from.

Time to get ready…. Let’s grab our flour with a protein/gluten content of 7.5% up to 9.5%, powder sugar – I use the same for baking and decorating, therefore, the starch content doesn’t go higher the 3% –   Medium size eggs, vainilla extract, or orange rind even juice, unsalted butter… all the ingredients that the recipes call for.

This is one of my COOKIE DOUGH recipes that I’m willing to share with you.

Mix in the mixer just until crumbled, move to the counter and finish by hand. Cookie dough should be pliable, not sticky.

Wrap it then in cling film and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. We need the butter to cool down and the gluten to rest.

After resting and using a rolling pin with guides  – my ideal  1/4″ – 0.6 cm thick – ( better to obtain the same thickness overall), roll your cookie dough. The ideal is to refrigerate again for another 30 minutes, but you also can cut your cookie shapes and refrigerate in the same mat. Don’t move the cookies to another tray or mat, that might damage their shape.

Now that you have your beautiful cookies cut and ready to bake, keep them refrigerated while you set your oven to the right temperature... note: during this time and while waiting to bake, I do like to put the uncovered tray full of cut cookies inside the freezer

Oven ready….. let’s bake from freezer to oven. The butter it’s cold and this will prevent your cookies from spreading, you will get as well sharp edges.

Tips on Baking:  What to do with the rest of the cookie dough that we get after cutting the cookies. Just grab those pieces together and bit them down with the rolling pin.  They will became like new dough. Roll again and cut more beautiful cookies.

Try to bake equal cookie sizes and shapes for an even baking;   The temperature mentioned is approximated since every oven varies a bit;

I like to roll my cookies on a “Silpat” mat and bake them on a “Silpain” perforated mat.  The results are fabulous using these matts. Using a Silpat for rolling prevents the use of additional flour for rolling, avoiding to dry significantly the cookie dough and dried appearance when baked.

When Baking I use two trays, one for the cookies and an empty one which we can place either on the upper part of our oven or lower one, as long as it don’t interfere with the heat flow. Once the cookies are baked, remove the tray from the oven and if by chance you have bumps or uneven cookies, just place the hot and empty tray on the top of your cookies, press slightly down to make them uniform and remove those bumps….. with this tray method you can flat them down at once, you no longer need to press them with a Spatula.

Beautiful cookies are about to show up and surprise you!