Colourful Cookies Recipe

I’ve always wanted to bake colourful cookies whenever I saw the picture on Pinterest. So last week, I managed to spend some time with my daughter to bake them. This is a very easy recipe but it does require time to bake and is a workout for your arms. To mix the dough with four different food gels took me a long time to get the perfect colour. My daughter did get quite impatient with me mixing the food gel into the dough so I had given her a plastic glove to help knead the dough too.

To make the cookies colourful, I opted for food gel rather than food colouring liquid. Gel is much easier to mix than liquid and liquid may make your dough too wet and soft. This is my first time I bought the gel and the colour is not too bad. I had also used the food gels for my icing when I made my gingerbread house.

Ingredients:

• 500g plain flour, sifted
• 250g butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• Food gels

Method:

1. Whisk butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and beat well.
2. Fold in the flour into the mixture and knead it into a dough.
3. Divide the dough into five different portions (depending on how many colours you want).
4. Knead the food gel into the dough and mix well.
5. Roll the dough onto a floured work surface and use a variety of floured cookie cutters.
6. If you want to make Swiss roll cookies, lay two different coloured dough together and roll tightly with a cling film. Then pop it into the fridge to chill it before you slice the dough.
7. Bake in the preheated oven at 160°C for 10 – 12 minutes. Leave it to cool on the baking sheets.
8. If you want to make Swiss roll lollipop cookies, use a wooden stick to pierce into the dough before baking. After baking, swap the wooden stick for a coloured plastic stick. It’s helpful to use a plastic stick that is slightly larger than the wooden stick.

This tastes like plain butter cookies but the colours make it look very interesting!