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Have you read my first mishap of the Christmas-cookie-baking season? Then you know that they went down as pretty tasty despite their looks or name. And so I have decided to continue my baking adventure. This time I've decided to a) go for something easy and traditional, b) checking the dose of every ingredient and c) rechecking it. And so the success shall be mine. 

The recipe is my good friend's Ina's from her lovely gingerbread-man recipe notebook. I have, however, decided to alter it just a tiny wee bit.

To me, a Slovenian person, the term shortbread sounds a bit funny. We use a word that describes the taste and the ingredient rather accurately - buttery.

I used:

- 250 g of butter (at room temperature)

- 70 g of icing sugar (the original recipe says 100 g, but that's a lot!)

- half a teaspoon of vanilla extract or, even better, one vanilla 

- additionally I used a splash of lemon extract that made the whole thing a bit fresher, but is not in the original recipe

- 300 g of white flour

- 100 g of starch (Gustin, Dr Oetker)

What I did?

I put the butter, sugar and the two extracts into the bowl of my Arty (stand mixer) and mixed it using the flat beater attachment. When it was all fluffy I gradually added the flour and starch. When it came all together I used cling film and covered the dough and let it rest for an hour in the fridge. The recipe says half an hour but it was easier to work with the dough once it was properly cooled down. 

I preheated the oven to 180 degrees C.

I rolled the dough to the thickness of perhaps 0.5 cm and made stars using a cutter (for the ultimate Christmas feeling). I baked them for 15 minutes. 

Once they cooled down I decorated them. For some I used marzipan. I rolled the raw marzipan and cut the same star shape as the cookies. Then I 'painted' the stars with a bit of marmalade and put the marzipan on the cookie, so they stayed together.  Others I sprinkled with colourful funfetti. But, obviously, you can decorate them whichever way you want.

Now be honest, don't they look really really tasty? I'm affraid the pictures don't do them justice and then there's the smell in the kitchen… c'mon, take your butter out of the refridgerator and let it soften. In 4 or 5 hours you could be enjoying these tasty cookies and not just be reading about them on my blog.

SLO

Ste prebrali mojo zgodbo o ponesrečenih medenjakih? Potem tudi veste, da so, kljub poimenovanju ponesrečeni in njihovemu videzu, bili sprejeti kot kar precej okusni. Tako sem se odločila, da nadaljujem moj pekarski pohod. A tokrat bom a) naredila nekaj enostavnega, b) preverila doze sestavin, c) doze sestavin preverila še enkrat. Tako mi bo uspelo!

Recept je od moje dobre prijateljice Ine, zapisan v njenem božičnem zvezku z recepti, a sem ga vseeno miceno spremenila. Čisto malo, obljubim.

Uporabila sem:

- 250 g masla (zmehčanega na sobni temperaturi)

- 70 g sladkorja v prahu  (po receptu bi sicer bilo 100 g, a je to dosti, za moje pojme)

- pol žličke vanilijevega ekstrakta ali še bolje strok vanilije

- čisto miceno arome limone, kar sicer ni v originalnem receptu and naredi piškotke zelo sveže

- 300 g bele moke

- 100 g škroba (Gustin, Dr Oetker)

Kaj sem naredila?

V posodo v Arty-u (stoječi mešalnik) sem dala maslo, sladkor in oba ekstrakta in jih zamešala skupaj z navadnim nastavkom za testo. Ko je mešanica bila penaste konsistence, sem počasi dodajala moko in škrob. Ko se je testo sprijelo sem ga prekrila s folijo za živila in dala v hladilnik za eno uro. Recept sicer pravi, da je pol ure dovolj, a se mi je zdelo, da se s testom lažje rokujem, če je res ohlajeno.

Prižgala sem pečico na 180 stopinj C.

Razvaljala sem testo na debelino približno pol centi in z modelčkom izrezala zvezdice. Pekla sem jih 15 minut.

Ko se se ohladili sem jih okrasila. Nekatere sem okrasila z marcipanom, ki sem ga razvaljala in iz njega izrezala zvezdice enake oblike kot so keksi. Kekse sem premazala z marmelado in tako se je marcipan sprijel s keksom. Nekaj sem jih posipala z barvnimi čokoladnimi mrvicami. Dekorirajte jih kakorkoli želite!

In sedaj, roko na srce, niso videti reeees okusni? Na slikah niso tako lepi kot v resnici. In potem je tu še vonj v kuhinji… vzami puter iz hladilnika in počakaj, da se zmehča. Čez 4 ali 5 ur lahko mažeš tudi ti te super piškotke in ne bereš zgolj zgodbic, ki povzročajo nabiranje sline v ustih na mojem blogu.