Reuben's cookies

It has rained the whole weekend. Not that much you can do when it rains. Luckily, baking is something you can do anytime! So Reuben and I spent some quality time together in the kitchen. I love baking with Reuben. The constant trying to eat the ingredients is annoying, but I love how much he wants to be involved. He pours everything into the bowl and always has to use the mixer (he's pretty good at it as well).

When deciding what to bake today, I thought back to my childhood and what it was that I liked eating. I instantly thought of iced vovo biscuits. Mum and Dad always bought biscuits for school lunches and to eat with coffee after their dinner. The iced vovo's were regulars in our cupboard. I didn't feel like sticking with tradition today, I thought we needed something a bit pretty to brighten up such a dull weekend, so we went with a flower shaped biscuit. Reuben didn't care either way, he just loved eating them!

Spotless

Helping Mummy

Flower Iced Vovos

Biscuit

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup icing sugar 
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

1 cup plain flour 

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Using an electric beater, mix the butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Add the flour and salt and mix until just combined. The dough is quite crumbly, so use your hand to knead everything together. Roll the dough out between two pieces of baking paper until it's about 1.5/2cms thick. Using a circle cookie cutter, cut shapes into the dough. Using a smaller circle, cut a circle from the middle. Place on a lined baking tray. Bake cookies for about 10 to 15 minutes. Cool for about 5 minutes on the baking tray then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

 

Icing

200g icing sugar

Tbs milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 or 2 drops pink food colouring

Raspberry jam

Shredded coconut

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the milk, vanilla extract and food colour and stir until smooth. If the icing is too thick, add a few extra drops of milk. You want it to be spreadable, not runny. Spread the icing onto the cookie. Use a teaspoon to drop a small amount of jam into the centre of the cookie then sprinkle with coconut. Leave for the icing to set at room temperature. ENJOY!