HAPPY SPRING, HAPPY EASTER … ICED SHORTBREAD COOKIES

“It’s Spring fever. That’s what the name of it is.
And when you’ve got it, you want…
oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want,
but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”
Mark Twain

It’s Easter Sunday, the kids are chomping away at these yum shortbread cookies like little Easter bunnies. Making these iced cookies have been a totally relaxing & therapeutic experience for me. Colour=Mood Upliftment! Good tasting, good looking food is even better! I’ve been trying to put this post out since early this morning, but somehow life doesn’t respond to my hypnotic powers on holidays. It’s almost evening & I’ve now got a little time to myself. I have many people in mind as I post these… my friend Chhoti in Kiev who was my Easter connection here, Chrissie in France who just made an orange chutney to go with duck, Hopie-an American in Paris who is my BFF from BloggerAid , Coco-the Purple Foodie who I wish I could mail these to, Rosie in the UK who was my source of inspiration for these, Nic in Kent & Manggy in Manila who crack me up with their banter & nonsensicals…I was exhausted. Decided to Spring clean, & the kids decided to call friends over. I was run ragged racing around because they’ve been home for the last too many days … Spring break of sorts here! My life’s turned upside down, dragging them out of bed at 9, when I’m pretty much used to them being out of the house by 7.30! Twittered about it, & Meeta tweeted back to say, ‘Go & bake Deeba, it’ll relax you’. Do you TWITTER? Well if you don’t, this might be a good time to begin. Must warn you that it’s addictive … as all good things in life are!How right that sounded, only that I’d baked pizzas for them all morning, but was off looking for inspiration almost instantly.Where else to seek sweet relief but blog land! Batteries recharged, was back with many plans the next morning … the primary one being iced cookies for Sunday. Other plans that materialised were a ‘Cheese, Garlic & Oregano Swirled Artisan Loaf’, oven roasted new potato wedges inspired by Helen’s tweet a few days ago, served with a chipotle based dip using a mind-blowing Mexican chipotle paste Nic mailed from the UK recently, & fresh herbs marinated grilled chicken. Aaaaaaah bliss! Will post the bread soon…
Easter has a strange significance in my life having studied in convents all along. It’s many things that mingle … Spring, Easter lilies, the bunny & Easter eggs that my aunt would get from London each year – all in one! I still remember going to the beautiful church in CJM, New Delhi, to escape classes, & standing in long lines for ‘Holy Communion’ with my bunch of friends, often trying to climb the metallic steps to ring the bell. That never happened, but I can still feel the the calmness & coolness of the interiors of the cathedral that we used to shatter with our incessant giggling!
When I had kids, Easter meant an egg hunt for my little ones, bonnet for the daughter, basket & all. Now they’ve grown up, but still went on a ‘silly’ hunt today just to munch on some sweet treats. The daughter has been on my case for ages to do some fun stuff in the kitchen. One look at Rosie’s post & I was INSPIRED! I hardly do iced cookies any more since the kids have grown, but these had me hook, line & sinker. I wanted to make them right away. First thing in the morning yesterday, made my brown sugar shortbread cookie dough. It’s simple; I beat it by hand & love the results. Have to keep in mind the warm weather here though, because they tend to get a little fragile in summer (I increase the flour a bit if need be).I used those as a base for the royal icing & boy, did we have fun all afternoon. Sonny boy got VERY involved too as he wanted to “ice too Mama”! Before I knew it, almost all the little flowers had been smuggled out, silently, one by one, by his little hands. He plastered each one of them with smileys!! I got 1-2 initially, but that was all. For probably the first time in my life, I let go & let the 2 of them enjoy themselves with the icing. I’m so proud of myself that I didn’t lose control & yell at the mess & sugar all over my hair & theirs. Take a look … that’s exactly what they did – have FUN as the daughter’s cookie states! Even managed half a smile when they were done, & just said bye & walked off leaving me with a hugely messy kitchen!
ICED BROWN SUGAR SHORTBREAD
Ingredients:
125gms butter; room temperature
5 tbsps brown sugar; ground
1 1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 tsp almond essence; optional
Icing:
200gms icing sugar
1 egg white
Food colouring as required
Method:
  • Preheat oven to 150C. Lightly grease 2-3 baking sheets.
  • Sift the flour + baking powder + salt.
  • Beat the butter, sugar & essence till fluffy.
  • Put the flour in & mix to a dough. Chill for an hour in clingwrap.
  • Roll out, cut shapes & bake for 12-15 minutes till light golden brown. I roll mine out fairly thin so it takes about 10-12 minutes. Thicker shortbread takes longer.
  • Cool completely on racks before icing.
  • Makes 2-3 dozen cookies depending on size & thickness.

For the icing:

  • Whisk the egg white till soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar & whisk till of desired icing consistency. Put into separate bowls & colour as desired. Leave a little white for outlining & detailing. You can thin some of the colours with a drop of water for flooding.
  • Pipe onto cookies. Allow to set completely before stacking.
  • Note/Caution: The icing contains uncooked egg.

Posted by Deeba @ PAB

Published by

Deeba @ PAB

About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.

50 thoughts on “HAPPY SPRING, HAPPY EASTER … ICED SHORTBREAD COOKIES”

  2. Everything you bake always looks sooo perfect !

    Happy Easter to you and your family!

    Elenka

    Reply

  5. Absolutely nice an cute cookies Deeba!!! so nice, I ove them, and waht really beauty are your kids!!! xxGloria

    Reply

  9. These are so festive and beautiful! You have put a huge smile on my face. Happy Easter! 😀

    Reply

  10. They look superb, Deeba. Love the colors. The kids have done a great job. Happy Easter!

    Reply

  11. oh these cookies look so nice and they re even nicer cause you shared the experience with your daughter . really nice!! Happy Easter 🙂 they surely inspire spring 🙂

    Reply

  12. I loved them the moment I saw the twitpic! They are absolutely gorgeous. Can I come over for an afternoon of baking as well? 😀 I still have my reservations for using egg white as the icing.

    Reply

  13. Love the kids’ pics 🙂 Your son is too cute to help you like this.

    And great, great cookies too. I’m not an icing fan, but this is certainly great to get the kids going!

    Reply

  14. How beautiful your cookies look. what is therapeutic for u, makes me a nervous wreck.. & i really need to make more of these to get out of the fear.. Very pretty! & my kids love helping to ice too, only i hardly give them a chance.. mean me.

    love that swirl loaf.

    Reply

  15. These are beautiful!! And what fun they must of had decorating them!! Happy Easter and Happy Spring!!

    Reply

  16. Deeba, you daughter is so beautiful, and your son is super cute too.
    How fun it is to make cookies together with them. I can see you young one enjoy to decorate them.

    Happy Easter, and have wonderful spring…
    Cheers,
    elra

    Reply

  18. Stunning cookies Deeba! I can definitely see how the colours are uplifting! 😀

    Reply

  21. Aw, thanks for mentioning me. I’m glad I uplift your mood with my SENSicals. I love the pretty cookies!

    No, I won’t Twitter… I’m afraid it will suck away even more time…

    Reply

  22. Baking is therapeutic…. Couldn’t agree more… 🙂

    Mehar and Rohan are sucha blast… They’re really cute… give them my love…

    The cookies are awesome, Love the colours…. 🙂

    Reply

  24. they look fabulous…tell the kiddos they’ve taken after their mom!! happy easter…. i did well…. nothing!

    Reply

  25. Thanks for thinking of me, I wish I could pop over and share some of these delightful cookies with you, all so beautifully decorated.
    The kids have done an awesome job with their decorating too!
    Happy Easter!!

    Reply

  28. Spring is just poppong off your pages Deeba:D We hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend:D

    Reply

  29. Love the picture of your daughter. So cute. Those cookies are perfect. So creative. Hope you have a good Easter Monday.

    Reply

  30. How cute! Nothing like having a group of hands working away at something pretty and creative. I think I want to go back to playschool!

    Reply

  36. oh how beautiful! i’m sure you had fun making all of them. you guys are sooo creative.

    Reply

  37. Aw how sweet of you to think of me! I certainly would love some of those colorful and delicious-looking cookies! I never thought of making shortbread with brown sugar but it sounds wonderful!

    Reply

  38. If I had only a fraction of your talent and artistry with baking, I would be happy for life! These cookies are absolutely beautiful!

    Reply

  42. Cool article! More people need to read that! You should put it on Wacanai.com ( ). People post all sorts of articles and instructions on how to make cool stuff. You can link your website to it too. When people search for similar stuff on Wacanai your article will pop up. This should drive a lot more traffic to your article. You can even track how much more traffic you are getting because they have a bunch of graphs and stuff that show how many people are reading your article and how many people are using your info.

    Reply

  43. Thank you Kyle…I just did! Wanted to get back to you but don’t have an email address. The link is

    Reply

  44. You’re gifted with talent girl! Looks like you kids are following in your foot steps!

    Reply

  45. The cookies do look like a lot of fun, Deeba! Isn’t it wonderful to do such projects with the kids! I hope you all had great holidays!

    Reply

  46. Your cookies turned out fabulous. Love making decorated cookies, but haven’t tried a shortbread recipe. Sounds yummy! Beautiful children and so lucky that your daughter likes to edit photos. Oh the time it would save me!

    Reply

  47. Oh, what fun these daintly cookies are! And what lovely photos of your children. A post full of blessings!

    Reply

  48. Like what i seen here, it was very interesting to see and visit all
    the great stuff on here, and would very much recommend this site
    to someone else also. Great Job…

    Reply

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