By marian 9 Comments
I have yummy news! I’m ready to share another recipe with you… A recipe I like to use as a cookie decorating base… Sweet and buttery, soft with candy-coated chocolate surprises in every bite. SMARTIES sugar cookies.
And, ahem, I couldn’t help it… I made SMARTIES pants cookies…
The painter’s palette cookie and the SMARTIES pants cookies are my entries for a Canadian contest going on right now, where sharing a SMARTIES creation in a photo and tagging it with #HowDoYouSmarties? is any entry to win $10,000! As well, for Instagram and Facebook fans of SMARTIES, there will also be random Polaroid camera draws throughout the contest period.Full contest rules on the SMARTIES Facebook page here.
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SMARTIES Pants Cookie Tutorial
If you’d like to make the SMARTIES pants cookies here’s what you’ll need:
Cookie Pants Template
Enlarge or shrink the template as desired. It will depend on your printer, but with mine, I use the scale option and play around with the percent (size) until I’m happy with the size of the template. Other options you could use to resize are editing in a photo editing program or resizing on a photocopier.
You canfind the template here. Right click on the template to save it and then print.
Cut template out, place on dough and cut dough out using a paring knife or pizza wheel. (Dough recipe at the bottom of this post).
Royal Icing
You can find my favoriteroyal icing recipe here. The consistency of icing is key for easy decorating.Click hereto see a YouTube video on finding the right icing thickness.
Decorating Steps
What you’ll need:
- Piping Tips #2, 1.5
- Piping Bags
- Couplers
- Gel paste colors; royal blue and navy blue
Step One:
Outline the pant shape with royal icing. For detailed decorating tips,this tutorialmay be helpful for you.With the same icing, flood, or fill in your shape.Let the base dry for at least 6-12 hours.
Step Two:
Add the navy lined pant details, using tip #1.5. Let dry and serve or package in a cellophane bag.
Painter’s Palette Cookies
For a how-to on making the Painter’s Palette cookies, click here. Instead of using royal icing for the “paint”, substitute with SMARTIES. Even easier!
Notes on SMARTIES Sugar Cookie Recipe:
Butter – The butter needs to be soft, or room temperature. I leave mine out the night before I do my baking. If you’re baking in a humid climate, overnight is likely too long a time… The butter should be soft but not overly soft.
Baking powder – I hardly use any baking powder in my recipe because the dough will spread and rise more during baking, thereby making the shape of the cookie less crisp. The only time I use it now, is if I’m just making round shortbread cookies and I don’t care about the cookies spreading.
Chill your dough if it gets too soft work with. It’s a softer, sometimes sticky dough (depending on your environment as well), but in my humble opinion, makes up for it in taste.
Cut the SMARTIES into quite fine pieces. If you have larger pieces it makes the cookie shapes harder to cut evenly out.
Read these tips here on stopping dough from spreading.
Have fun baking!
xo,
Marian
Print Recipe
SMARTIES Sugar Cut Out Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 454 g unsalted butter, room temperature 2 cups
- 367 g granulated sugar 2 cups
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 697 g all-purpose flour 5 cups
- 1 tsp baking powder *take out it you don't want cookies to spread
- 1 tsp salt
- 182 g SMARTIES, finely chopped 1 cup
Instructions
Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed. (Use the paddle attachment). Mix until thoroughly incorporated – for about one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula and mix again for a few seconds more. Over mixing the butter and sugar in this step will cause too much air to be incorporated into the dough. If you’d like a light and fluffy cookie, that’s ideal, however the dough will spread more during baking; not ideal if you’d like the cookie to hold its shape.
Add eggs slowly and mix. Scrape down the bowl with your spatula at least once and mix again.
Add liquid vanilla extract. Stir briefly.
Sift your dry ingredients together. (Flour, baking powder and salt. Remember to omit the baking powder if you don't want your cookies to spread).
Add all of the flour mixture to the bowl. Place a large tea towel or two small tea towels between the edge of the bowl and the electric mixer so that the flour won’t escape. Mix on low speed for 3o seconds.
Remove the tea towels and add the finely chopped SMARTIES. Mix. Observe the dough mixing; when it clumps around the paddle attachment it’s ready. It’s also important at this stage not to over mix the dough (the glutens in the flour develop and the dough can become tough).
Roll the dough out between 2 large pieces of parchment paper. Place on a baking sheet and into the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.
Cut out cookie shapes using a template or cookie cutter of your choice. I used a sharp paring knife and pizza wheel to cut my SMARTIES pants out. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Re-roll scraps and repeat.
Put cookie dough shapes back into the fridge for 1 hour to chill again. They will then hold their shape better when baked.
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 176°C.
Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes or until the edges become golden brown. The baking time will depend on your oven and the size of your cookie.
Let cookies cool to room temperature and decorate!
Notes
Yield: Approx. 35 medium sized cookies
