Pages

Monday 10 February 2014

Shortbread Buttons


I have been waiting a long time to make these, and now I have. You can use any cut-out biscuit recipe or this simple shortbread recipe which is similar to the 1-2-3 Butter Cookies with a slight twist. What I would love to do next with this is to tint the dough in pastel shades to get a box full of colourful buttons!


SHORTBREAD BUTTONS

100g Icing Sugar, sifted
200g Salted Butter, cold and cubed small
300g Plain Flour
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Extra Icing Sugar
A little Vanilla Powder

Medium round biscuit cutter
Small round biscuit cutter
3 - 4 plastic straws

Preheat the oven at 130 Celsius. Line a baking tray or two with baking paper. Set aside.

Place Butter and Sugar in a large bowl. With an electric mixer, cream Butter and Sugar for 1 minute. You don't want to warm the Butter up too much.

Fold in the Flour gently by hand until just incorporated. You may need to use your hands to bring it together into a ball that leaves the sides of the bowl. Divide the dough in the bowl into two equal parts.

Sprinkle a little Flour on a flat work surface and lightly flour a rolling pin. Roll one half of the dough out gently until about 1/4 inch thick. Cut-out medium-sized rounds and place them on the baking tray. Do this until all the dough is used up.

With a smaller round biscuit cutter, make indents inside the cut-out rounds (like that of a button). Then take a straw and cut-out four little holes in the middle of the biscuits. You will have to cut-off the part of the straw which has dough pressed into it after every biscuit or it will get stuck and you will not be able to make more clean little holes. Do this until you have made every round look like buttons.

Bake at 150 Celsius for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the edges are very slightly golden. Remove from the oven and let the biscuits cool on the tray.

While the biscuits are cooling, mix sifted Icing Sugar and a little Vanilla Powder in a bowl. Once the biscuits are cool, dip and dust them in the Icing Sugar mixture. Place in an airtight container and eat at leisure.