Baking Up Roses: Melting Moments

Happy Valentine's Day! I saw Happy Home Baking post these beautiful rose cookies, and after searching for the conversions, I used this recipe found here at Joy of Baking. Apparently these cookies are quite popular, but I have never heard of them! I baked up these roses for my family as my Valentine's treat to them.

To get the red in these, I painted red stripe down the inside of my canvas pastry bag. I used a Wilton 1M star tip, and found it still hard to pipe these out. I let it sit out to warm up a little and that seemed to help some. *I piped my rose cookies and then chilled them a little before baking, so they'd hold most of their shape. These are an extremely delicate cookie, and the taste reminds me of a Spritz cookie. I was only able to get 2 dozen roses plus a few.



Melting Moments

1 1/2 cups (210 grams) all purpose flour
1/2 cup (60 grams) cornstarch (corn flour)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (30 grams) powdered (confectioners or icing) sugar
1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Topping:
1 cup (110 grams) powdered (confectioners) sugar, sifted

In a medium sized bowl whisk together the flour, cornstarch and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat until incorporated. *Cover and refrigerate the dough for at least one hour or until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

When dough is firm, form into 1 inch (2.54 cm) balls and place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets spacing about 1 inch apart. Bake for about 12 - 14 minutes or until the edges of the cookies start to brown. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, line another baking pan or tray with parchment or wax paper. Sprinkle about half of the confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar onto the bottom of the pan and then place the slightly cooled cookies on top of the sugar. Put the remaining sugar in a fine strainer or sieve and then sprinkle the tops of the cookies (or you can just roll the cookies in the sugar).

These cookies store very well. Place in an airtight container between sheets of wax paper and they will keep a couple of weeks.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.



enjoy,