Italian butter cookies are delicious, iced with dark chocolate and decorated with pistachio granules, candied cherries, jam and dried coconut. These Italian butter cookies are made using the classic ‘whipped shortbread’ technique. The butter is whipped until creamy and fluffy and then combined with the other ingredients. This type of shortcrust pastry makes the biscuits crumbly and they melt in your mouth with every bite! These biscuits are really delicious and will appeal to the whole family, and in a box they make a lovely gift idea. They can also be made with lactose-free butter or margarine in the same quantities as classic butter for those who are lactose intolerant.
RECIPE
INGREDIENTS :
1 ½cups all-purpose flour
½cup cornstarch
¾cup sugar
Pinch salt
2sticks chilled unsalted butter, cut into bits
1teaspoon vanilla extract
1egg
½cup milk, approximately
Ingredients For Decorations:
Dark Chocolate, Pistachios, Sprinkles, Candied CHerries, and Rasberry Jam
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt in a food processor, and pulse once or twice. Add butter, and pulse 10 or 20 times, until butter and flour are well combined. Add vanilla and egg and pulse 3 or 4 times.
Add about half the milk and pulse 2 or 3 times. Add the remaining milk a little at a time, pulsing once or twice after each addition, until the dough holds together in a sticky mass.
Remove the dough from the machine to one or more bowls. Make cookies as described in Step 3, or make any of the variations below.
To make cookies, drop rounded teaspoons of dough (you can make the cookies larger or smaller, if you like) onto a nonstick baking sheet, a sheet lined with parchment paper or a lightly buttered sheet.
If you want flat cookies, press the balls down a bit with your fingers or the back of a spatula or wooden spoon.
Bake 11 minutes, or until the cookies are done as you like them. Cool on a rack, then store, if necessary, in a covered container.
Assorted Butter Cookies
Make These Tasty Cookies
Pipe the dough into about 1/2-inch-wide, 1 3/4-to-2-inch-long segments, spaced about 1 inch apart, on your baking sheets. (Pictured Below)
Bake the cookies for 11 to 13 minutes, or until they are golden at the edges.
Melt Daek Chocolate and Dip one end of Finsihed Cookie into Chocolate
You can then dip the Chocolate aprt of the Cookie into chopped PISTACHIO NUTS