With this recipe, the candy crush saga comes out of the screen! Today we’ll turn the candies into cookies using shortcrust pastry, colored icing and a little creativity… enjoy! Find this and many more recipes with pictures on the Giallozafferano App (in English) http://itunes.apple.com/app/giallozafferano-recipes/id384387249?mt=8
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First of all, make the sweet shortcrust pastry: put the flour in a food processor with metal blade, add the diced cold butter, straight from the fridge – as an alternative, you can replace a third of the flour with almond or hazelnut meal. Process until the mixture is powdery, in this way the butter will blend better with the rest of the ingredients. Take a vanilla pod, slit lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add the vanilla and sift in the powdered sugar; lastly, add 2 egg yolks. Now knead, bring the dough together in the bowl, then transfer to a work surface. Knead just until smooth; the longer you knead, the more gluten is formed and the less flaky your cookies will be. Now pat it flat, wrap in cling film and place in the fridge to cool for at least half an hour.
Roll out the cold dough to a thickness of at least ¼ inch (½ cm); lightly dust the work surface with flour. If the dough is crumbly and won’t stay together, don’t worry, you can add a tablespoon of cold water or a tablespoon of egg white. Use the rolling pin to help you lift the dough without breaking it. Use a round cookie cutter for the blue candy and a flower-shaped cookie cutter for the purple candy, otherwise print paper templates, place them over the dough and cut around the template with a sharp knife. Take a small round cookie cutter like this for the details and place the cut-out circles on the flower, in this way. It looks just like the original! For the blue candy, lay a strip of dough across the centre and here it is! Brush the dough with the egg yolk to help the pieces stick together. And now the red candy, the jelly bean… here it is! Repeat for all the shapes, until the dough is used up.
This is the last one, now reroll the scraps and cut out more cookies, but first bake the first batch in a preheated static oven at 350°F (180°C) for about 15 minutes. The candies, or better, the cookies, should not brown but remain pale.
While the cookies are baking, they are almost done, prepare the icing: start with a mixture of sifted powdered sugar and boiling water. The cookies are ready. Transfer immediately to a wire rack to cool or the residual heat from the baking pan will continue to bake the cookies! Go back to the icing: add the water a little at a time, boiling water: the thicker the icing, the more it covers, the thinner, the more glaze-like it will be; anyway, add more powdered sugar if you want it thicker, or a little boiling water if you want it thinner. Make the icing just before using it, because it dries out quickly. Now divide it into 6 bowls, because the candies come in 6 different colors. Place the template in front of each bowl to use as a sample: powdered, paste or gel food colorings work best; whereas liquid food colorings will give a pastel effect. Start with the orange: use just a few drops, you’re always in time to add more. Combine two or more food colorings if you can’t get the same shade of colour; here it is. One more tip: wear disposable gloves when handling food colorings, to avoid staining your hands. Purple and finally blue. Ready for icing! I’ll use a toothpick: place a small amount of icing into the centre of each cookie and spread it around, making sure it doesn’t run down the sides. And while I’m decorating all the cookies, let’s see together the ingredients needed for this recipe!
Ingredients
for 30 cookies
For the sweet shortcrust pastry
– just over 1 stick (125 g) of butter
– just over 2 cups (250 g) of cake flour
– 2 egg yolks
– less than 1 cup (100 g) of powdered sugar
– 1 vanilla pod
– 1 pinch of salt
For the glacé icing
– 2 ½ cups (300 g) of powdered sugar
– 3-4 tablespoons of water
– food colorings
For brushing
– 1 egg yolk