You can decorate these butter cookies with chocolate chips, sprinkles, nuts - or anything which takes your fancy ! This is one of my standard “go to” cookie (biscuit) recipes as it is so easy to make & they turn out perfectly every time.
We recently went to lunch at a friend’s farm and I baked a batch of these to take with us as a ‘thank you’. They were served after lunch with tea & coffee, and everyone must’ve enjoyed them as there were all eaten up !
You can leave the dough plain, or mix some chopped cherries or grated chocolate into it (or both !) before baking. Chocolate sprinkles also work well when mixed into the dough. On this particular day I left the dough plain & decorated the tops with a selection of chocolate or rainbow sprinkles and edible silver balls – my daughter had great fun helping with this, as you can imagine !
Butter Cookies (from “The Complete South African Cookbook” by Magdaleen Van Wyk)
2 cups self-raising Flour
pinch of Salt
120 gm Butter
½ cup caster Sugar
1 large Egg
2 ml Vanilla Essence
Sift the flour & salt together in a bowl. Beat the butter & sugar in a separate bowl until smooth & creamy. Beat in the egg, to form a smooth mixture. Mix in the sifted flour & salt, then stir in the vanilla essence, blending well. Chill in the fridge for 15 minutes. Take small portions of the dough & shape into balls*. Place them 5 cm apart on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 180’C/350’F/Gas Mark 4 for 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
* I roll my dough out on a lightly floured surface & use cookie cutters to cut shapes for this recipe, as I find it less time consuming that rolling it into balls, and the cookies still come out just as well ! I gently press the sprinkles into the top of each cookie before baking, so they are baked with the sprinkles already on (they stick better this way).
We recently went to lunch at a friend’s farm and I baked a batch of these to take with us as a ‘thank you’. They were served after lunch with tea & coffee, and everyone must’ve enjoyed them as there were all eaten up !
You can leave the dough plain, or mix some chopped cherries or grated chocolate into it (or both !) before baking. Chocolate sprinkles also work well when mixed into the dough. On this particular day I left the dough plain & decorated the tops with a selection of chocolate or rainbow sprinkles and edible silver balls – my daughter had great fun helping with this, as you can imagine !
Butter Cookies (from “The Complete South African Cookbook” by Magdaleen Van Wyk)
2 cups self-raising Flour
pinch of Salt
120 gm Butter
½ cup caster Sugar
1 large Egg
2 ml Vanilla Essence
Sift the flour & salt together in a bowl. Beat the butter & sugar in a separate bowl until smooth & creamy. Beat in the egg, to form a smooth mixture. Mix in the sifted flour & salt, then stir in the vanilla essence, blending well. Chill in the fridge for 15 minutes. Take small portions of the dough & shape into balls*. Place them 5 cm apart on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 180’C/350’F/Gas Mark 4 for 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
* I roll my dough out on a lightly floured surface & use cookie cutters to cut shapes for this recipe, as I find it less time consuming that rolling it into balls, and the cookies still come out just as well ! I gently press the sprinkles into the top of each cookie before baking, so they are baked with the sprinkles already on (they stick better this way).
