Easter Spiced Cookies
We love a good cookie in this house! Maybe it's the British way and our love of a good cup of tea?! Or maybe it's that sweet tooth of mine haha! Who knows, it's probably both! But regardless I wanted to bring you this recipe for the cutest little Easter Spiced Cookies.
I put a poll on my Instagram stories this week regarding this recipe as I actually wrote two versions! I've been really intrigued with healthier versions of traditional bakes and so wanted to create a vegan version of this delicious cookie. My followers spoke though and overwhelmingly voted for the traditional recipe.
My little ones are at home with me at the moment due to the current Covid-19 lockdown and have been literally begging me to make gingerbread cookies with them. I absolutely love baking with them so it was a pleasure to create these Easter Spiced Cookies for them and you!
Feel free to use any cookie cutter you have at home. You can find adorable little bunny and egg cutters online though which will be perfect for these.
Using Fondant Icing On Your Easter Spiced Cookies
As the little ones were involved I also wanted to make these super easy to decorate. All you need is some ready to use fondant or sugar paste icing which you can easily find in all supermarkets. You'll also find little edible ink pens in the baking isle too! For these though I used edible food paint which I bought from Amazon here as I prefer to use a paintbrush when decorating. A little fine paintbrush (keep it especially for food use) is all you need to paint on their little sleepy eyes.
If you're lucky enough to get hold of the ready rolled fondant it will save you a job but if you have blocks, simply cut a large slice off (you'll need about half a block), dust your work surface with a little icing sugar to stop it sticking and knead the fondant to help it soften. Then roll out using a smooth rolling pin to your desired thickness (you can get excellent acrylic rolling pins made especially for fondant).
Feel free to use any colour fondant you prefer - pastel colours are gorgeous for spring! The 'Happy Easter' letter stamps are by Kitchen Craft, bought from Amazon and really easy to use.
Liquid Glucose
When you're shopping for your fondant icing, make sure to grab a tube of liquid glucose. It's basically a sugar syrup which will help you stick your fondant to your cookies. If you can't find any though golden syrup, honey and maple syrup will also work well for this.
As always don't forget to let me know if you make these cookies! Tag me on Instagram @ella.nurse or comment below!
INGREDIENTS
300g plain flour
100g caster sugar
200g butter
1 large egg
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp mixed spice
ready to use fondant
black edible food paint
Liquid glucose
INSTRUCTIONS
Using a food processor, blitz the flour, sugar and butter together until a breadcrumb texture is formed. If you don’t have a food processor use a large bowl and rub the ingredients together using your fingers
Add the egg, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice and blitz again until a dough is formed
Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for 15 minutes
After this time thoroughly flour your work surface and roll out the dough approximately 5mm thick
Line a couple of baking trays with non-stick grease proof paper
Using your selected cookie cutter, cut the desired biscuit shapes out and lay them on the baking trays. Keep rolling out the dough and cutting until all the dough is used
Chill the trays once again for 15 minutes
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C fan
After the final chill place the trays in the oven and bake for 10 minutes until the biscuits are a pale golden colour
Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack
Roll out your fondant icing to around 3mm thick and use the same cookie cutter you used to cut your cookies to cut your icing shapes
Using a paintbrush, gently brush a little liquid glucose or sugar syrup onto each cookie then place the fondant on top. This will stop your fondant from slipping off
Paint little sleepy eyes on your bunnies to finish
