So I possibly has the worst day ever today. Let me run your through it.
It started off with me waking up in a pretty terrible mood, just one of those days. Don't ask, I don't know why. That morning I had to go to the police station to report an attempted break in. That only took, what, 3 hours and came with extremely helpful policemen... Not. Huge waste of time! Then, I decided to try get some Christmas shopping done. Well... That was an epic fail. For those of you in South Africa, you'll know all about load-shedding. If you don't, basically it's when the electricity company turn off the electricity in an entire area for two hours. So I'm inside the mall and Bam! No lights. Grreeaat! So I ended up getting all of diddly squat for my family. After my fail of a shopping experience, I decided to go to campus to get my end of year results and what do I find? The classroom my results are in, is locked. At this point in the day I was so fed up, I even tried to pick the lock with my hair pin (don't worry UCT, I didn't manage to pry it open, despite my best efforts) So utterly defeated I decide I need to bake something, that will cheer me up right? So off home I go. Now my dad loves vanilla cupcakes, and I was going home to Durban to see my family the next day (I live in Cape Town, by the way). So I whipped up the batter and threw them into the oven, only to have the electricity go off again. Damn Eskom and load shedding for ruining my perfect batch of cupcakes.
So, after two hours of no electricity, a sunken mess of half baked cupcake batter and possible the worst day, the only way to salvage it was to bake a batch of sugar cookies. Complete with royal icing and sprinkles. And damn were they yum. 4-o-clock in the morning and my cookies complete (with no hiccups this time), bags packed and flights home booked, I was completely ready to hit the sack and welcome a new day! Hopefully one that was not so awful.
Seeing my family the next day after so many months away more than made up for my previous day. And seeing them enjoy my cookies (almost too pretty to eat) was well worth the late night. I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as we did!
Sugar Cookies with royal icing
Sugar Cookies
- 226 grams unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 1/4 tsp salt
- t tsp pure vanilla extract
How To:
Cream the butter until creamy and then add the sugar and beat until smooth. Then add the vanilla extract and incorporate. Gently add the flour, cornstarch and salt to the butter and just bring together to form a dough. Flatten the dough into a disk, cover in cling film and let it chill in the fridge for about an hour.
Pre-heat your oven to 177 degrees Celsius and line your baking sheets. Flour your surface lightly and roll out your dough. Cut out your shapes and put them on your trays. Lightly flour your cookie cutter to prevent the dough sticking to it. Place the cut cookies on the trays back in the fridge to firm up so they hold their shape in the oven. Once firm (about 15minutes) bake for 8-10 minutes. To ensure an evenly baked biscuit, make sure when you roll out the dough that it is the same thickness throughout.
I glazed my cookies, once cooled, with some simple royal icing.
mmm, yum!
