Mickey Mouse Cookies!

To make up for the last silly experiment post, here is an actual recipe that I baked yesterday for a rescheduled wedding shower dessert potluck at work today. I was excited for the opportunity to use a new cookie cutter I had just bought last week at Disneyland! Naturally, my dessert for the shower had to be: Mickey Mouse Cookies (Not to mention the fact that the bride is a HUGE Disney fan!).

To start, I wanted a basic, simple sugar cookie recipe that's result would hold up well in the face of decorations. So I decided to try a recipe appropriately titled, "Simple Sugar Cookies" by famed Italian chef Lidia Bastianich in the back of her children's picture book, "Nonna Tell Me a Story: Lidia's Christmas Kitchen". The book is darling, and great to read around the holidays, and I was equally excited to be able to taste test one of her many recipes--adapted slightly to my needs:

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour, of course)
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


Directions:


1.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour, baking powder and the salt into a bowl. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together in another bowl, then add the egg and vanilla to the butter mixture and continue to beat. Add the flour mix to the butter mix little by little until they are thoroughly combined.

2.) Shape the dough into four equal disc shapes (I made three), wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour or more. Lidia notes that the dough will be "a bit crumbly, but will come together when chilled." However, even though I left my dough in the fridge for an hour and a half, it remained crumbly and fell apart upon unwrapping. Thus I also added about 1/2 teaspoon vegetable shortening to each disc of dough and kneaded it back and forth until the dry dough because moist enough to roll flat.

3.) Roll each disc of dough to about 1/8 of an inch thick and cut out shapes with your favorite cookie cutter. Lift them carefully to place on a baking sheet lined with parchment (not wax) paper. I got about 26 cookies out of the three discs, working the cut dough scraps back into a ball and rolling them flat again.

4.) Bake about 8-9 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies become golden brown. Remove them from the oven and cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

5.) Decorate with the icing of your choice! I melted a package of dark chocolate pieces in the microwave for about a minute to use on the Mickey Mouse ears, then, in a separate bowl, melted a package of white chocolate chips with half a tablespoon of vegetable shortening in the microwave to use on the mouse faces. (Stir the chocolate well and dip fast before it hardens!). Leftover white chocolate mixed with a couple drops of red food coloring helped me create pink bows for Minnie Mouse as well. I used a toothpick dipped in dark chocolate to create facial features, and an almond sliver with a drop of green icing completed the eyes.

It was a lot of work to do the decorating part, but definitely worth the cuteness factor that resulted! I hope my coworkers enjoyed!