Hubby food #6: Home-made 100s & 1000s cookies

(makes 40-50 cookies)

Butter cookie recipe adapted from Joy of Baking

My husband has a weakness for 100's and 1000's that i can't claim to completely understand. It seems that every time he goes to the supermarket alone he returns with a packet of Arnotts 100's and 1000's, his childhood favourite. Usually it's quite endearing and cute, but sometimes I do think it's bit excessive as every time i turn around there's a cookie in his mouth and he can finish the whole packet in a day or two! We now have an 'emergency' DIY jar of 100's and 1000's in the car just in case there's a vanilla ice-cream or plain bread and butter occasion that needs to given some colourful crunchy life :)

So for Valentines Day this year i thought it would be fun to trial making home-made butter cookies decorated with the classic pink frosting and of course, a healthy dose of 100's and 1000's! They turned out pretty good actually, though not sure if they're any healthier than the packet biscuits :0

Prep time: 20 min

Cooking time: 1 1/2hrs 

(because we could only do 1 tray of 8 at a time, much faster if you had a fan-forced oven!)

Ingredients
200g salted butter, room temperature
2/3 C (135g) caster sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 1/4 C (295g) plain flour

Frosting
50g butter
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 C icing sugar, sifted (i used soft icing mixture, but possibly the tougher icing mix may have been better)
1-2 T milk
1 drop red food colouring

Method
1. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract.
3. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mix, scraping down the sides occasionally until mixture is well-combined.
4. Divide the dough in half and shape into a rectangular log and wrap with glad wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight.

Left: butter-sugar mix, Top-right: mixture with flour combined,
Bottom-right: rectangular log to be glad-wrapped and refrigerated

NB. This mixture can be stored in the fridge or freezer and taken out later and you can slice and bake as many cookies as you need!

When ready to bake the cookies;
5. Preheat the oven to 180˚C.
6. Line a tray with baking paper (or 2 trays if you have a fan-forced oven and won't burn the bottoms!)
7. When you take the dough out, it should be firm so will be easy to slice. Slice the dough into thin slices (2-3mm), and place 5cm apart on the baking tray.
8. Bake for 10-14 minutes until the edges are brown, then remove and cool on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes.

9. Meanwhile, prepare the icing by beating the butter, vanilla essence, milk and sifted icing sugar together. Stir in the red food colouring.
10. Pour the 100s and 1000s into a shallow bowl. Once the cookies are cooled, then use a spatula to spread the icing in the top of the cookies, then place the biscuit icing down into the 100s and 1000s, give it a little jiggle to make sure it's all stuck, then place aside to set. Repeat with all the cookies or as many as you like!