Eggless butter cookies

Hello, hello! Have you missed me? Maybe just a little bit?! I haven't posted for a week, as my family and I had a week-long holiday in Cornwall. I did take my ipad with me, but I don't like blogging on ipad, and to be honest, I didn't have much time either. After all, we were in Cornwall to enjoy the outdoors. We were mostly lucky with the weather, there were some showers, of course, but we braved the elements and walked by the sea.
I did miss my blog, and even more, I missed baking.
Today we are cooped at home, what with this horrendous rain, and Eddie asked me to bake some cookies for him. I first told him that I don't have any eggs left, as I used the last ones for making salad for lunch. Then I googled and found  a recipe for eggless chocolate chip cookies.
I have adapted the recipe and converted cups into grams. It took me less than half an hour from start to finish, and we are now enjoying them with a cuppa.
I wanted to use some glorious looking Cornish farmhouse butter from Rodda's which I brought with me from Cornwall. I have tried this delicious butter last year, but it is not available locally. I was delighted to find out that I could buy it online, when I did the food shopping for our Cornish cottage, and ordered two blocks of butter. It is yellow, creamy and oh so tasty.

I also got a bottle of Rodda's semi-skimmed milk to take with us, and it survived the 9-hours-long drive in the cooler bag (mind you, it wasn't a warm day, so that helped).

Eggless butter cookies
Ingredients:
140g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
25g ground almonds (optional)
55g granulated sugar
55g light muscovado sugar
2tbsp semi-skimmed milk
1tsp vanilla essence
110g butter, melted
70g chopped cooking chocolate (mix of dark and milk, about half-half)

Mix all the dry ingredients in a deep mixing bowl, add the milk, vanilla essence and melted butter and mix well again. Chop the chocolate finely or use the chocolate chips (I didn't have any, so used the remains of two cooking chocolate bars).
Using hands, roll the cookie dough into small balls, then flatten them and place well apart on a tray covered with the parchment paper. If you fancy, press the fork over the top to make a stripey design. I had two trays of raw cookies to bake.
Place the trays in the oven preheated to 180C and bake for about 10 minutes.
The cookies will still be very soft, when you take the trays out, so judge the readiness by the colour, which is golden brown.

Let the cookies cool a bit before placing carefully on a plate.
There are about 15 cookies in total, and all my three men declared them very tasty. They are quite rustic-looking and are not evenly shaped, but they surely disappear fast.

Festive star cookies (baking with kids)

"That wasn't an accident, Mama!" (looking at an empty plate, from which all cookies are gone)

What could be better than a baking session on a Saturday?

Cookies before being decorated

Festive cookies
Ingredients:
1 medium egg
130g caster sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
1tbsp vanilla syrup (optional)
1tsp cinnamon
375g plain flour + more for dusting the board and rolling pin
1tsp baking powder
240g butter, melted

For decorating:
icing sugar + lemon or orange juice
Jelly bellies, Jelly diamonds, Dr Oetker Soft silver and gold pearls

In a big bowl beat the egg with the sugar and spices. Add the flour, baking powder as well as the melted butter and mix well. Cover the bowl with the dough and place it in the fridge for an hour.
Take the dough out and divide in two. I used one half of the dough for today's baking, the other half went back in the fridge for tomorrow.
Turn the oven on to 180C.
Cover the baking trays with the foil or parchment paper.
Lightly dust the board or working surface with the flour, roll the dough out to 5mm thickness. Using the star cookie cutters, cut out the shapes and lay them on the trays. Scraps can be kneaded together for making more cookies. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the cookies are golden brown. At this stage they are still soft, so be careful handling them. Leave the cookies on the rack to cool completely before decorating.
Make the icing from 4 heaped tbsp of icing sugar and fershly squeezed lemon or orange juice. Add the juice a bit at a time, the icing should be soft, pliable but not too runny.
Decorate with Jelly Bellies, diamonds, soft pearls or any sprinkles.

Eddie decorating the cookies and sampling along the way

I have used Rodda's butter to make the dough for these cookies, if you are using any other brand of butter (unsalted), you might want to add a pinch of salt to the cookie mix.

These cookies won't last very long here, already one of the plates has been polished by my older son.
They are very easy to make, and kids will enjoy taking part.

Festive star cookies