christmas chocolate cookies 圣诞巧克力曲奇饼 ˓˓(ृ　 ु ॑꒳’)ु(ृ’꒳ ॑ ृ　)ु˒˒˒

i call these elaborated decorated cookies… but christmas is all about colours, lightings, sweets, and music right? ヾ（*⌒ヮ⌒*）ゞ what i love about this is that the royal icing, does not use egg white (though some people say this is more of a glaze) and it is glossy o(^^o) …. give this a go

Cookie recipe adapted from LilaLoa

Ingredients

1 cup butter
1/4 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup cocoa
3 or 3 1/2 cups flour

Royal icing recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients (makes 2 1/2 cups)

1/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
3 cups confectioners’ sugar, or more as needed

Directions

– prepare cookies by creaming butter, shortening and sugar together
– Add eggs and vanilla. mix well
– Add baking powder and salt and mix again
– Stir in the cocoa until well blended
– Add flour 1 cup at a time. IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE COOKIES RIGHT AWAY, ADD 3 1/2 cups flour
– If you are going to “chill” the dough, or just wait for another day to make your cookies, STOP AT 3 cups. It will be totally soft and look all wrong, and you will want to ignore me completely and add more flour, but I’m telling you — DON’T DO IT. Practice self-restraint
– Roll out on lightly floured surface. Bake at 375 F for 6 1/2 minutes. (I roll my cookies 3/16″ thick.)
– prepare icing whilst cookies are cooling
– Stir warm water, corn syrup, and almond extract together in a small bowl until corn syrup and extract have dissolved
– Place confectioners’ sugar into a separate bowl and add liquid ingredients. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed until royal icing is smooth
– Store in a lidded container for up to a week; stir thoroughly before using

Personal notes:

– i used only 3 cups of flour though i baked the cookies straight away
– i added 1 tsp of Starbucks Extra Bold VIA coffee powder to the cocoa powder and reduced sugar to slightly less than a cup (i didn’t want too sweet a cookie as i was icing the cookies)
– my cookies are 1/4 inch think, and measures 6.5 x 10cm. my first batch of cookies were baked for 6.5 mins, and second batch for nearly 10 mins (as the bottom of the cookies were still wet by 6.5 mins)
– i used 1/2 tsp of coconut essence for the royal icing instead of almond extract. the taste was very mild. i will consider using 1tsp in the future
– i had to add 2 more teaspoon of water to the icing before getting them to the right piping consistency
– i cut out some gingerbread man shaped cookies and attached them to the rectangle cookie just before the layer of icing dried up
– it took me 3 hours to pipe just 9 cookies （＠´＿｀＠）

christmas time… christmas time is here ♪(๑ᴖ◡ᴖ๑)♪

Pollution index: 16 (excellent)