Hello my lovelies! Ever since Pancake Tuesday came and went, I seem to have been bitten by the baking bug as I find myself spending my spare time in the kitchen cooking up a storm and making a mess of the place. Having posted a few cake and cupcake tutorials in the past (see them here and here!) I wanted to try my hand at something new and decided to tread into uncharted territory and bake some biscuits! Not overly confidant on the whole biscuit making business, I decided to cheat a little bit and purchase some panda-shaped cookie cutters from eBay. Having already seen a few Miffy and Disney sugar cookie tutorials floating around on the Blogosphere, I thought it’d be fun to mix chocolate with vanilla and make something that’s cute enough to eat!
You will need:
2 tablespoons of unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 and a half cups of all purpose flour
A pinch of salt
1 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
Three quarter cup of granulated white sugar
1 large egg
1 and a half teaspoons of vanilla extract
Panda-shaped cookie cutters
1/ Cream together the butter and the sugar until fluffy
2/ Crack the egg open in a separate jug or cup and mix well. Once done, add in the egg and vanilla extract into the mixture and blend well
3/ Slowly pour in the salt and the flour, mixing until a light but thick consistency is achieved – don’t worry if dough appears sticky, because we’ll be adding pinches of flour later when using the cookie cutters!
4/ Cut the dough in half, mixing 2 tablespoons of the Cocoa Powder into one half and mixing well
5/ Cover both the light dough and the dark dough in plastic (separately) and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour
6/ Using a rolling pin, roll out your cookie dough on a lightly floured surface
7/ Using the cookie cutters provided, cut out the shapes and outlines of your pandas, using the dark cookie cutters for the dark parts of dough and the white cookie cutters for the light parts and layer the pieces on top of each other
8/ Preheat your over to 350°F / 180°C / Gas Mark 4
9/ Once assembled, bake your cookies for approximately 10 – 12 minutes, always keeping an eye on them so they don’t burn – you want the white dough to stay light!
10/ Once baked, allow them to cool for up to 20 minutes, and enjoy!
