Let's continue with the heart theme! If making your own candy seems a bit daunting (or obsessive), you might be happy to make these easy cookies. It's a really fun dough to work with - it will seem impossibly crumbly at first, but when you least expect it, it'll come together and become beautifully silky and smooth. Miraculous!
The baking ammonia is essential to get the right texture, but I haven't tried making them with, say, baking powder. I'm sure you'd still get a good cookie, but maybe not just the same.
Vanilla Cranberry Cookies
Makes 50 small cookies (and no, you don't *have* to make them heart-shaped.)
250 g cold butter
500 g flour
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
250 g confectioner's sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking ammonia
50 g dried cranberries, chopped
Dice the butter and mix with the flour using a food processor, a stand mixed or your fingers. The butter should be very well distributed throughout the flour, and crumbly. Add vanilla, confectioner's sugar, egg and baking ammonia. Knead until you have a smooth dough - you might not think this will ever happen, but keep going, it will. I used my Kitchen-Aid for this. Add the cranberries.
Let the dough rest in the fridge for at least an hour. Roll out and use a cookie cutter to get the shape you prefer. Bake at 175°C for 6-8 minutes. The cookies should be lightly golden at the edges, but the cranberries can burn easily so watch them!
Recipe in Swedish:
Vaniljhjärtan med tranbär
7 comments:
They sound the perfect thing to nibble on during a lazy afternoon.
I was just wondering what to use all my gingerbread cookie cutters for now that christmas is over! Anyway, I haven´t seen any dried cranberries in my local store, can I take lingonberries instead and how do I dry them in that case?
/Katrin
Katrin - you might want to check the health food stores in your area! You could use lingonberries, but drying them isn't all that easy. You probably need to do it in a very low oven for a very long time - but I've never tried. (Well, I did try with cherries once. Not awfully successful!) Raisins would work too, possibly those smaller, golden ones? Or wolfberries if you can find those, they seem to be quite popular now! :)
Hi Anne, I stumbled on your blog recently and have been enjoying it. But this is my first time commenting.
The use of ammonia is interesting. What texture does this cookie have? Crispy? Or soft?
Tasha, thank you for writing! :) These cookies are fairly light and crunchy. Swedish cookies are almost never soft, in fact - well, some with a lot of nuts are chewy, but that's as far as it goes. :) The baking ammonia is a leavening agent, that leaves tiny tiny air bubbles throughout the cookies. These only contain a little and aren't very airy, but Swedish "dream cookies" - I have two recipes for those - are really airy.
I dont think I have ever seen baking ammonia...Ill have to check around! These are so pretty.
I'm not familiar with baking ammonia, either. They sound like lovely little cookies though so I'll have to keep my eye out for it...
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