French Butter Cookies {Foodie Friday}

I told you about my favorite Christmas gift, but that’s not the only baking wonder I got for Christmas. I will probably just keep telling you about all my cool Christmas gifts as we go along. Maybe then I can make Christmas last until July. So I got not one but TWO cookie presses for Christmas. Both are made by Kuhn Rikon, but one was the super huge kind they used to sell at Williams-Sonoma.

 I was soo excited. I made cookies for Caroline’s Birthday party and well.. some just for us..hehe. I kind of like them plain, so that’s how I ate them. It did come with decorating tips and instructions, but they are so good by themselves that I didn’t waste my time mixing up icing. I’m not good at icing, but I digress. .

This is your classic butter cookie. The most important part is to make sure that all your ingredients are at room temperature. The dough has to be really soft if you are going to put it in a press. But you don’t have to. I also saw these Garden Cookie Cutters that you could use too.

It might be easier to do it that way honestly. I had some difficulty getting the dough to stick to my pans. The instructions say NOT to use non stick pans. Now, I ask you—who has pans that are NOT non stick. No one. I was using my stones and having a terrible time of it. I had to fill the press up about 50 times to get 6 cookies to look decent. I tried parchment paper and that worked a little better, but I kept using it over and over because I am too cheap. The more I used it the more buttery it became. I think that some silicone mats would work well, but I don’t have any..so. All this typing just made me really hungry…maybe it’s time to make some more.

French Butter Cookies

Yield: about 40 cookies

Ingredients:
For the dough:
2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour

Directions:

Have all ingredients at room temperature

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the the beater attachment, beat together the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg, vanilla and salt and continue beating until well mixed, about 1 minute. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour and beat until just blended about 2 minutes, stoping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of bowl. 

Fill the cookie press with the dough according to the manufacturer's instructions and fit the desired cookie disk. Press the dough out onto ungreased baking sheets (not nonstick), spacing the cookies 1 inch apart.

Bake until the cookies are light golden, about 14 minutes. Transfer the baking sheets to wire racks and let cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks and let cool completely. Decorate the cookies with colored sugars or icings as desired. Store in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. 
Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Source : Williams Sonoma