Chinese Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

    1 1/2 C cake flour
    9 1/2 T melted butter
    3 T bakers sugar
    1/2 C powdered sugar
    1 egg, whisked
    1/4 tsp vanilla

Method:

• Preheat oven to 190C (375F).
• Cut butter into cubes and allow to soften at room temperature. If time is limited, here is a quickest way to soften butter. Melt butter in microwave at high-medium power for 10 seconds or so, then transfer to freezer for a few minutes. When the butter begins to be frozen again and thickens, it’s ready to use. If not, put it back to freezer for more minutes.
• Cream butter with an electric mixer over medium speed until smooth. Add bakers sugar and powdered sugar, continue to cream until fluffy.
• Add one-third of the whisked egg into the butter mixture at a time. Stir and combine well between adding egg each time, the volume increases and color lightens.
• Stir in vanilla and combine well.
• Sift flour into the egg mixture. Use a spatula to combine all ingredients. Don’t over stir, just incorporate the flour into the mixture. Transfer the batter into an icing bag. Pipe the batter on a lined baking tray with baking paper, in 1.5-inch circles, that’s about 1 tablespoon each of batter, evenly spaced 1.5-inch apart. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 13 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool on a wire rack completely. Store in an air-tight container.

Tips:

• The magic ingredients in this recipe are both caster sugar and icing sugar. Two kinds of sugar will work together, producing the perfect balance of delicate, crispy texture, and keeping the pattern well in shape after baking. If you only use icing sugar, the cookies won’t be crispy as you expect. Without using the icing sugar, the original pattern of cookies that you pipe out wouldn’t be kept so clear and beautiful. (Note: icing sugar is a super fine, powdered form of sugar.)
• The baking time of cookies is quite short at high temperature. Don’t leave them unattended, especially for the last few minutes because you don’t want them burnt.
• When the color turns to the point a bit lighter than you prefer, then you can remove the cookies from oven. The cookies will get a bit darker after a while. Well, practice makes things perfect. After some trials, you’ll bake cookies with perfect color to your liking.