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Monday, December 18, 2023

RED VELVET SNOWFLAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING: Bake Cookies Day & Snowflake Day!

I'd never made Red Velvet Cookies before, so I was pleased to find this recipe in the holiday issue of Country Living Magazine. These cookies are perfect for today's two 'food' holidays: National Bake Cookies Day and National Snowflake Day! Lucky for me, I have lots of snowflake cookie cutters. Aren't these cookies darling? And the cream cheese icing is divine. Get baking!

According to CountryLiving
The first recipe for red velvet as we know it was published as a velvet cocoa cake around 1911. (Leavening agents interacting with the acidic cocoa create the reddish hue, though we now intensify it with food coloring.) 
New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel helped popularize the dessert in the 1930s, but it was the infamous armadillo groom’s cake in the 1989 movie Steel Magnolias that secured its spot as a Southern staple.

RED VELVET SNOWFLAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING

Ingredients 

For the cookies: 
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled 
1 1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder 
1/4 tsp baking soda 
1/2 tsp kosher salt 
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature 
2 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature 
1 c. granulated sugar 
1 large egg yolk 
1 tsp distilled white vinegar 
1 tsp pure vanilla extract 
1/2 tsp red gel food coloring 

For the cream cheese icing: 
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature 
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature 
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract 
Pinch kosher salt 
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar 

Step 1 
Make the cookies: 
Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. 
Beat butter, cream cheese, and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until creamy, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in egg yolk, vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring. 
Reduce mixer speed to low, and gradually beat in flour mixture just until combined. 
Divide dough into 2 discs; wrap each in plastic wrap, and chill 2 hours. 

Step 2 
Preheat oven to 350°F
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 
Working with one disc of dough at a time, roll between 2 sheets of parchment to 1/4-inch-thick. 
Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and place, at least 1 inch apart, on prepared baking sheets. 
Freeze 20 minutes. 
Bake, in batches, until set and dry to the touch, 8 to 10 minutes. 
Cool on baking sheets 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. 

Step 3 
Make the cream cheese icing: 
Beat cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute. 
Beat in vanilla and salt. 
Gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. 
Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a small open piping tip. 
Pipe onto cooled cookies as desired.

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