potato_head (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
potato_head) wrote2012-05-13 10:53 pm
potato_head) wrote2012-05-13 10:53 pm
AVENGERS COOKIE SANDWICHES
I made cookie sandwiches
inspired by the Avengers
(warning: this is going to be a veeery image-heavy post. There's 33 photos total)
This is going to be a long-as-fuck post, because I decided this would be the best time to do some instructional pics on making swirl cookies.
Yes. I decided the time when I was making three different kinds of cookie sandwiches would be best for this. It seemed reasonable at the time.
I used my usual sugar cookie recipe for these; I made a batch and a half, and separated that into three half-batches. I decided to add the food coloring after chilling this time, even though it's a pain to knead food coloring in by hand, because otherwise I would have had to wash the mixing bowl...a lot.
Coloring the Dough
This is the Iron Man cookies in their larval stage. I started by separating the half-batch into two quarter-batches and kneading those into round lumpy objects to better judge that they were about the same size.
Then, make pockets in the dough and add food coloring.
Fold pockets over (squirt red on self in process), knead color into doughs. Add more color and continue kneading it in until the colors look right.
Yay!
I did the same for the other two doughs. Captain America dough got divided into red and blue.
Hulk dough wasn't separated, just greenified. This took 75 drops of food coloring. I might have gone a bit greener actually, but I was tired of kneading. (No, seriously. These half-batches are huuuuge, so it's really more like three batches. My arms are so sore today)
So after this, all of the doughs were warm and sticky and annoying so I put them back in the fridgefor a time-out to chill for a bit before moving on to the next step.
Making Swirly Cookie Logs
Yup, that's right. That's what this section is titled. SWIRLY COOKIE LOGS
Start with supplies: all the dough you're going to put into the swirly cookie, flour, rolling pin, and parchment paper. (If you don't have parchment paper, get some. If you hate parchment paper for some reason, okay, you don't have to use it, but it's a good idea)
Work both the doughs until they're malleable, but not super sticky. Normal rolling consistency. Then squish them a bit flat and pile them on top of one another.
TOWER OF DOUGH. Continue to squish them down by hand for some time (I didn't get a picture of that step) because rolling under parchment paper is a bit difficult, and that's what you'll be doing. Once your dough pile is looking more like a dough pie, put parchment paper on top and use the rolling pin to flatten further.
Keep in mind the thickness is up to you. You're not rolling these out to cut; how thick or thin you roll the dough now has no effect on how thin the cookies will be, but rather on how thin or thick the swirls will be. Also, the dimensions of your dough splat will determine whether you have fewer, larger cookies or many, smaller cookies.
Once you are satisfied with your dough splat, peel off the parchment paper.
It doesn't have to look perfect, see? Now start rolling it up. If you start from a narrow side of your dough splat, you will have fewer, larger cookies. If you start from a long side of your dough splat, you will have more, smaller cookies.
Once it's all rolled up, wrap it back up in the parchment paper you just used to roll it out (or wrap it in cling film or something if you're anti-parchment-paper) and put it back in the fridge to chill for awhile.
Here's some in-progress Captain America cookie log shots:
Then after those two chilled, I moved on to...
Cutting and Baking
I just rolled the Hulk cookies out and used a glass as a cookie-cutter because I knew I wanted them big and squarish.
I used a decorating tip to cut out holes that you were meant to be able to see the icing through. (After baking, the holes ended up a bit small for that, but they still looked neat)
The two logs chilled while I did the Hulk cookies, so they were ready for slicing into cookies when I finished. The raw Iron Man cookies looked...kind of like raw salmon TBH.
...Sushi, anybody? I used the ring that secured the decorator tip to cut out these circles, as per Iron Man's arc reactor.
For the Captain America cookies I used my little star cookie-cutter.
It took about an hour and a half/two hours to bake all these cookies. Just the cutting+baking part, I mean; and this was really fast cutting for sugar cookies, since I was just slicing logs and cutting out huge one-shape cookies. If you're going to do three batches of sugar cookies in a night, be aware of what sort of mission you're embarking on.
After they were all baked and cooled, I moved on to the final step.
Cookie Sandwiches
The filling I used is this one here. It's meant to go in chocolate cookies (kind of like a home-made oreo) but it was excellent on these, too! I split one batch, almond-flavored, between the Iron Man and Captain America cookies; and made a second batch, vanilla-flavored, just for the Hulk cookies.
The Captain America cookies got plain white filling.
And yes, as I'm sure some of you will be able to tell - the star holes didn't keep their shape all that well while baking (I probably should have chilled the cookies before baking a bit longer) so I ended up re-cutting the holes post-baking. Which is kind of dangerous and burny and I don't recommend you do that at home because it's best done right when the cookies come out of the oven.
The Iron Man cookies got neon blue frosting; this was my first use of my new 'neon' food coloring colors!
In retrospect, I could have put another drop in, maybe (I only put one).
The Hulk cookies got neon purple frosting, also from my new 'neon' food coloring c:
After cleaning everything up, I had to go to bed; and wanted to wait until morning to take photos for the natural light. So I had to take precautions to ensure the cookies weren't all eaten in the night.
The note reads:
"LOOK, BUT DON'T TOUCH
If a single one of these sandwiches is eaten when I wake up, I will murder every person in this house.
I suggest you help one another resist temptation.
Use tazers if necessary! =)
(Edible cookies in the kitchen!)"
And now for just a picspam of all the cookies. In various poses.
inspired by the Avengers
(warning: this is going to be a veeery image-heavy post. There's 33 photos total)
This is going to be a long-as-fuck post, because I decided this would be the best time to do some instructional pics on making swirl cookies.
Yes. I decided the time when I was making three different kinds of cookie sandwiches would be best for this. It seemed reasonable at the time.
I used my usual sugar cookie recipe for these; I made a batch and a half, and separated that into three half-batches. I decided to add the food coloring after chilling this time, even though it's a pain to knead food coloring in by hand, because otherwise I would have had to wash the mixing bowl...a lot.
Coloring the Dough
This is the Iron Man cookies in their larval stage. I started by separating the half-batch into two quarter-batches and kneading those into round lumpy objects to better judge that they were about the same size.
Then, make pockets in the dough and add food coloring.
Fold pockets over (squirt red on self in process), knead color into doughs. Add more color and continue kneading it in until the colors look right.
Yay!
I did the same for the other two doughs. Captain America dough got divided into red and blue.
Hulk dough wasn't separated, just greenified. This took 75 drops of food coloring. I might have gone a bit greener actually, but I was tired of kneading. (No, seriously. These half-batches are huuuuge, so it's really more like three batches. My arms are so sore today)
So after this, all of the doughs were warm and sticky and annoying so I put them back in the fridge
Making Swirly Cookie Logs
Yup, that's right. That's what this section is titled. SWIRLY COOKIE LOGS
Start with supplies: all the dough you're going to put into the swirly cookie, flour, rolling pin, and parchment paper. (If you don't have parchment paper, get some. If you hate parchment paper for some reason, okay, you don't have to use it, but it's a good idea)
Work both the doughs until they're malleable, but not super sticky. Normal rolling consistency. Then squish them a bit flat and pile them on top of one another.
TOWER OF DOUGH. Continue to squish them down by hand for some time (I didn't get a picture of that step) because rolling under parchment paper is a bit difficult, and that's what you'll be doing. Once your dough pile is looking more like a dough pie, put parchment paper on top and use the rolling pin to flatten further.
Keep in mind the thickness is up to you. You're not rolling these out to cut; how thick or thin you roll the dough now has no effect on how thin the cookies will be, but rather on how thin or thick the swirls will be. Also, the dimensions of your dough splat will determine whether you have fewer, larger cookies or many, smaller cookies.
Once you are satisfied with your dough splat, peel off the parchment paper.
It doesn't have to look perfect, see? Now start rolling it up. If you start from a narrow side of your dough splat, you will have fewer, larger cookies. If you start from a long side of your dough splat, you will have more, smaller cookies.
Once it's all rolled up, wrap it back up in the parchment paper you just used to roll it out (or wrap it in cling film or something if you're anti-parchment-paper) and put it back in the fridge to chill for awhile.
Here's some in-progress Captain America cookie log shots:
Then after those two chilled, I moved on to...
Cutting and Baking
I just rolled the Hulk cookies out and used a glass as a cookie-cutter because I knew I wanted them big and squarish.
I used a decorating tip to cut out holes that you were meant to be able to see the icing through. (After baking, the holes ended up a bit small for that, but they still looked neat)
The two logs chilled while I did the Hulk cookies, so they were ready for slicing into cookies when I finished. The raw Iron Man cookies looked...kind of like raw salmon TBH.
...Sushi, anybody? I used the ring that secured the decorator tip to cut out these circles, as per Iron Man's arc reactor.
For the Captain America cookies I used my little star cookie-cutter.
It took about an hour and a half/two hours to bake all these cookies. Just the cutting+baking part, I mean; and this was really fast cutting for sugar cookies, since I was just slicing logs and cutting out huge one-shape cookies. If you're going to do three batches of sugar cookies in a night, be aware of what sort of mission you're embarking on.
After they were all baked and cooled, I moved on to the final step.
Cookie Sandwiches
The filling I used is this one here. It's meant to go in chocolate cookies (kind of like a home-made oreo) but it was excellent on these, too! I split one batch, almond-flavored, between the Iron Man and Captain America cookies; and made a second batch, vanilla-flavored, just for the Hulk cookies.
The Captain America cookies got plain white filling.
And yes, as I'm sure some of you will be able to tell - the star holes didn't keep their shape all that well while baking (I probably should have chilled the cookies before baking a bit longer) so I ended up re-cutting the holes post-baking. Which is kind of dangerous and burny and I don't recommend you do that at home because it's best done right when the cookies come out of the oven.
The Iron Man cookies got neon blue frosting; this was my first use of my new 'neon' food coloring colors!
In retrospect, I could have put another drop in, maybe (I only put one).
The Hulk cookies got neon purple frosting, also from my new 'neon' food coloring c:
After cleaning everything up, I had to go to bed; and wanted to wait until morning to take photos for the natural light. So I had to take precautions to ensure the cookies weren't all eaten in the night.
The note reads:
"LOOK, BUT DON'T TOUCH
If a single one of these sandwiches is eaten when I wake up, I will murder every person in this house.
I suggest you help one another resist temptation.
Use tazers if necessary! =)
(Edible cookies in the kitchen!)"
And now for just a picspam of all the cookies. In various poses.
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