Butter Cookies

"Cookies are made of butter and love." 

~Norwegian Proverb

 

             "I love you only when you give me cookies". You should have seen his face when he said that. I came across the video when I was searching for educative Islamic cartoons for my son. The little plump guy was perched on top of his high chair and his mom was asking him, "Do you love me?" and he replied, damn serious, "Yes, but not always. I love you, only when you give me cookies." How fast he made his point! If every grown up man and woman had been this straight forward, our life in this planet would have been far less complicated :)

              That was when I recalled my old butter cookie recipe. I thought of trying it to appease my little nagger. Well, he is not yet two and the words in his vocabulary are not yet comprehensible to others.. but we being his mom and dad manage to translate the words in his dictionary. Here are some examples...

for biscuit he says 'fa'; for playing, 'aputh aputhi'; for water, 'blum blum'; for car, 'kal'... But he is more expressive in his expressions. When he likes the food I give him, he goes off to bring his chair, drags it near me and sits in it, to get more. When he doesn't, he goes off and never comes back even if I call him... :(

             In fact he is the maiden 'test taster' who checks my food the very first time. So I was eager to find out how my butter cookies turned out. After having a bite he went off... I looked on in anticipation... and there he was, returning with his chair and I fought a grin. After eating one, he hugged me as if saying.. "Mommy, I really love you when you give me cookies." So friends.. Don't you think it is the finest way of appreciation... The most glorious of thumps ups..?  And after that how can you ever stop making cookies..? That's how I became an obsessive butter cookie cook :) You know what? Butter cookies are not hits in the kids gang alone. Anybody gets hooked after it melts in the mouth. Let me tell you how I did the job..

Ingredients:

 180 g unsalted butter at room temperature
 28 g castor sugar
 1 tsp vanilla essence
 A pinch of salt
 130 g plain flour
 105 g corn flour

Method:

      

        

                Place the butter and castor sugar in a mixing bowl and whisk in medium speed. Then increase the speed. Add the vanilla essence. Add flour little by little, setting the mixer to low speed. Then add corn flour slowly. Scrape the dough completely from the mixer and keep in refrigerator in a covered vessel or wrapped in cling film for at least two hours. This is important because it would be difficult to work with the dough if it's not cooled adequately. Then take it out and transfer to a lightly floured board and knead a few times, just until the dough smooths out. Roll it out into a dough of about 1/4 inches thick.Then shape the biscuits using cookie cutter and transfer them to a baking tray using a knife. Preheat the oven to 160 degree C. Bake for about 15 minutes until the sides start turning golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. Store in an air tight container. Serve with warm milk or tea.