Puzzle & Top Hat Cookies!
Back when I made my Layton Cake back in January I wanted to make some puzzle cookies too but I was was too tired to bother with it at the time. Then spunkywulf showed me a sketch with Layton with a tray of freshly baked cookies (have you posted it anywhere? I looked but couldn't find it...) and I decided that it was time to bake the puzzle cookies. She suggested I also make chocolate ones in the shape of Layton's hat and use red frosting for the band/ribbon. So I did! XD I also made the Luke Cake for my brother's birthday as I had promised him. It was a month late but it was worth it!
Puzzle Cookies: Orange-flavored Sugar Cookies with Chocolate & Orange Buttercream
Top Hat Cookies: Chocolate Sugar Cookies with Red Decorator's Buttercream
**Decorator's Buttercream has shortening in it so it will hold it's shape when it's piped.
Regular buttercream should only contain butter, but many places (ESPECIALLY grocery bakeries) adds shortening to cut down on costs resulting in not-as-good-tasting buttercream... :(
Here's the process for those who care! (MANY PICTURES BELOW!)
This was my first time making Sugar Cookies (that I can remember...) It was time consuming and a little tricky to do. Now I see why they don't normally make them in bakeries.
While I was baking the cakes for the Luke Cake, I made an outline for the hat cookie cutter. (I had to make my own!)
Earlier that day I went to Home Depot and ACE to find some copper tooling foil but failed to find any or anything similar which wasn't already shaped into a pipe or something else. I was disappointed. Afterwards, my brother and I went to the supermarket to buy some ingredients. On our way back I randomly found a piece of metal lying on the ground which was the right height (a little thick) but close enough to what I was looking for. It was like it was sitting out there just for me. (I washed the metal very well with extremely hot water and soap, twice.)
So as I said, here's the outline and the piece of metal.
Here it is about half-way done.
Because the metal was pretty thick, this was insanely difficult to make. Bending wasn't too hard with the pliers I had... Cutting was the problem. It was way too thick for any regular scissors we had. We found one pair of heavy duty ones we normally use to trim the roses and other plants in the backyard. My brother was strong enough to make two cuts and bend it until it broke off. Then we needed to make another cut but the scissors had dulled too much and would barely make a dent!! D: Oh crap! I was almost done and really needed to make the final cut but we didn't have any thing sharp/strong enough to do it and it was around 2am so the stores were closed! D: Finally after trying a little saw and a couple regular scissors, I used a hammer. Yes, a hammer. I bent the metal where I wanted to cut it and hammered (not too hard) and then bent it the other way and hammered it again, repeated it once more and it finally snapped. TT u TT
So it was done after about 2 hours!
It's somewhat lopsided and crooked but we didn't care at that point. (I'll make another other with the right metal next time.)
It was time to make the dough.
I forgot to take pictures of the dough making for the orange sugar cookies which I made first, so here's the chocolate ones instead. (The steps for both are exactly the same.)
Here are the ingredients.
Sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flavor, sifted cake flour and cocoa powder.
Creamed the sugar and butter together.
Added the liquid and then the flour/cocoa.
At this point it was done. you don't want to mix it too much.
Wrapped it up and placed in the fridge for 24 hours.
Here's the orange one. I forgot to add the food coloring earlier before it was ready, so I probably over-mixed it a little bit.
The next night we baked the cookies! :D
We had never made these before so this was our practice batch.
First we rolled out part of the dough. Then we cut out the shapes.
I found that as the dough warms up the harder it is to work with. So roll it out quickly make sure the bottom has a good amount of flour to keep the cookies from sticking to the counter and dip the cookie cutter into flour before each cut, and pray the cookie will hitch a ride with the cutter so you don't need to scrape and peel it off the counter. Wrap the scraps in plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer for a while.
Look at how wonky these turned out, it's because they stuck to the counter.
Brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. I had bought some nice yellow colored sugar to use which I forgot about. So there's just regular sugar here.
And here they are out of the oven. They turned out okay...
Here's another batch which turned out much better. (These cookies didn't stick to the counter much, so their shape is nicer.)
As the dough was rolled and the scraps re-rolled the food coloring mixed more evenly making the cookies nice and orange!
Here are all the puzzles I've solved! XD
The hats were much easier to cut! :D
Baked!
And here are all the hats I stole from Layton! XD
I took some of the buttercream I made for the Luke Cake and flavored it with a little cocoa powder and orange extract. Mmmm.... <3
This will be for the puz cookies.
The final night. I sorted through all the cookies and picked out the most decent looking ones and paired them up with it's opposite. (The puz pieces are not symmetrical so I had to flip some of them over before baking.)
I put the chocolate-orange buttercream in a pastry bag with a star tip and piped it on to the cookies.
Then I stuck the tops on them and they were done!! :D
Mmmm.... puzzles.
After finishing the Luke Cake, I used the leftover red icing for the band/ribbon on Layton's hat.
I had never made red icing before and found that it has an icky bitter after taste. It's from red 3.
I'll have to buy some "no-taste red" which doesn't contain red 3 for next time.
These turned out really cute, but I don't really like chocolate cookies. XD
Now, on to the Luke Cake! XD
Puzzle Cookies: Orange-flavored Sugar Cookies with Chocolate & Orange Buttercream
Top Hat Cookies: Chocolate Sugar Cookies with Red Decorator's Buttercream
**Decorator's Buttercream has shortening in it so it will hold it's shape when it's piped.
Regular buttercream should only contain butter, but many places (ESPECIALLY grocery bakeries) adds shortening to cut down on costs resulting in not-as-good-tasting buttercream... :(
Here's the process for those who care! (MANY PICTURES BELOW!)
This was my first time making Sugar Cookies (that I can remember...) It was time consuming and a little tricky to do. Now I see why they don't normally make them in bakeries.
While I was baking the cakes for the Luke Cake, I made an outline for the hat cookie cutter. (I had to make my own!)
Earlier that day I went to Home Depot and ACE to find some copper tooling foil but failed to find any or anything similar which wasn't already shaped into a pipe or something else. I was disappointed. Afterwards, my brother and I went to the supermarket to buy some ingredients. On our way back I randomly found a piece of metal lying on the ground which was the right height (a little thick) but close enough to what I was looking for. It was like it was sitting out there just for me. (I washed the metal very well with extremely hot water and soap, twice.)
So as I said, here's the outline and the piece of metal.
Here it is about half-way done.
Because the metal was pretty thick, this was insanely difficult to make. Bending wasn't too hard with the pliers I had... Cutting was the problem. It was way too thick for any regular scissors we had. We found one pair of heavy duty ones we normally use to trim the roses and other plants in the backyard. My brother was strong enough to make two cuts and bend it until it broke off. Then we needed to make another cut but the scissors had dulled too much and would barely make a dent!! D: Oh crap! I was almost done and really needed to make the final cut but we didn't have any thing sharp/strong enough to do it and it was around 2am so the stores were closed! D: Finally after trying a little saw and a couple regular scissors, I used a hammer. Yes, a hammer. I bent the metal where I wanted to cut it and hammered (not too hard) and then bent it the other way and hammered it again, repeated it once more and it finally snapped. TT u TT
So it was done after about 2 hours!
It's somewhat lopsided and crooked but we didn't care at that point. (I'll make another other with the right metal next time.)
It was time to make the dough.
I forgot to take pictures of the dough making for the orange sugar cookies which I made first, so here's the chocolate ones instead. (The steps for both are exactly the same.)
Here are the ingredients.
Sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flavor, sifted cake flour and cocoa powder.
Creamed the sugar and butter together.
Added the liquid and then the flour/cocoa.
At this point it was done. you don't want to mix it too much.
Wrapped it up and placed in the fridge for 24 hours.
Here's the orange one. I forgot to add the food coloring earlier before it was ready, so I probably over-mixed it a little bit.
The next night we baked the cookies! :D
We had never made these before so this was our practice batch.
First we rolled out part of the dough. Then we cut out the shapes.
I found that as the dough warms up the harder it is to work with. So roll it out quickly make sure the bottom has a good amount of flour to keep the cookies from sticking to the counter and dip the cookie cutter into flour before each cut, and pray the cookie will hitch a ride with the cutter so you don't need to scrape and peel it off the counter. Wrap the scraps in plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer for a while.
Look at how wonky these turned out, it's because they stuck to the counter.
Brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. I had bought some nice yellow colored sugar to use which I forgot about. So there's just regular sugar here.
And here they are out of the oven. They turned out okay...
Here's another batch which turned out much better. (These cookies didn't stick to the counter much, so their shape is nicer.)
As the dough was rolled and the scraps re-rolled the food coloring mixed more evenly making the cookies nice and orange!
Here are all the puzzles I've solved! XD
The hats were much easier to cut! :D
Baked!
And here are all the hats I stole from Layton! XD
I took some of the buttercream I made for the Luke Cake and flavored it with a little cocoa powder and orange extract. Mmmm.... <3
This will be for the puz cookies.
The final night. I sorted through all the cookies and picked out the most decent looking ones and paired them up with it's opposite. (The puz pieces are not symmetrical so I had to flip some of them over before baking.)
I put the chocolate-orange buttercream in a pastry bag with a star tip and piped it on to the cookies.
Then I stuck the tops on them and they were done!! :D
Mmmm.... puzzles.
After finishing the Luke Cake, I used the leftover red icing for the band/ribbon on Layton's hat.
I had never made red icing before and found that it has an icky bitter after taste. It's from red 3.
I'll have to buy some "no-taste red" which doesn't contain red 3 for next time.
These turned out really cute, but I don't really like chocolate cookies. XD
Now, on to the Luke Cake! XD