Description
These delightful Wreath Butter Cookies combine buttery richness with festive red and green colors, making them perfect for holiday celebrations. The dough is divided, colored, and piped into charming wreath shapes, then decorated with sprinkles for a cheerful touch. Baked until just dry, these cookies offer a tender crumb with a gorgeous swirl of colors.
Ingredients
Scale
Cookie Dough
- 100 g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 50 g icing sugar
- 1 egg white
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or essence
- ½ tsp salt
- 100 g all-purpose flour
- 60 g cornstarch
Decoration
- Red gel food colouring
- Sprinkles
Instructions
- Whisk butter and sugar: Whisk together the butter and icing sugar until the mixture is creamy and smooth, ensuring the sugar is well incorporated.
- Add egg white: Add the egg white to the butter-sugar mixture and whisk again until fully combined and glossy.
- Mix vanilla: Stir in the vanilla extract to infuse flavor uniformly through the batter.
- Incorporate dry ingredients: Add salt, all-purpose flour, and cornstarch to the wet ingredients and gently mix with a spatula until just combined to form the dough.
- Divide and color dough: Weigh the dough and split it into two equal parts. Gradually add red food coloring to one half until you achieve the desired vibrant shade.
- Prepare dough for piping: Place each portion of dough into separate piping bags. Pipe alternating layers of colored dough onto plastic wrap in stripes, forming two layers of each color to create a striking marbled effect.
- Shape dough tube: Carefully roll the plastic wrap with the piped dough into a cylinder shape. Trim excess plastic wrap from the ends using scissors.
- Load piping bag: Insert the dough cylinder into a large piping bag fitted with a star nozzle at least 1 cm (1/3 inch) in diameter to allow for smooth piping.
- Pipe wreath shapes: Pipe the dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet forming circles to create wreath shapes. If the closure area is uneven, lightly tap it with your finger to smooth it out.
- Add sprinkles: Decorate the piped wreaths with sprinkles for a festive look.
- Bake cookies: Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for 12 minutes or until the cookies are dry to the touch but not browned, to retain a tender texture.
Notes
- Use grams for accurate measurements as this recipe is sensitive to small changes that can affect texture.
- Avoid using a piping nozzle smaller than 1 cm diameter to ensure dough flows smoothly.
- Do not overbake; cookies should be dry but not golden to maintain softness.
- If you prefer traditional wreath colors, you can substitute green gel food coloring for half the dough instead of only red.
- The dough can be chilled briefly if too soft for piping but should be pliable enough to pipe easily.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 90 kcal
- Sugar: 5 g
- Sodium: 40 mg
- Fat: 5 g
- Saturated Fat: 3 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 2 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 10 g
- Fiber: 0.2 g
- Protein: 1 g
- Cholesterol: 15 mg
