Mushroom Cookies

By mujdemiisterim at 2009-03-24

Today is my hubby's birthday. He is not that sort, fond of celebrations and parties. I have been asking for a week what to do but he always ignored it. Therefore, I could not make a proper plan. Moreover, whenever I intend to make something, I have difficulties in finding the ingredients and lose my enthusiasm. Finally, this problem has been solved. I found a wholesaler here, which is supplying everything for the Bakery Shops. Every pack in 1 kg, 2kg, 5kg or 10 kg of amount. I have chosen the ones that I will use often. As a result, in such a hurry, my plan could not catch the time. Actually, I should have had a cake in the fridge already. But unfortunately, there is none :(((

Yesterday after work, I made really delicious Mushroom cookies which I thought that it is so simple to make and that will take me maximum one hour to make but I had the difficulty due to the limited utensils in my kitchen in China. So, it lasted quite a long time to make it. I got a comment from my dear husband : 'They look really good but they taste boring! Why you did not put cream in it?" He has no connection to cookies. For him, if there is a dessert, it should be either cream cake or something creamy. Today, as soon as I am off home, I have to bake a cake for him . I will also add it here soon.

In China, there are really nice cakes visually. However, in Shuozhou city where we live, they bake the sponge cake and merely decorate it with butter cream which is shaped and colored. They add no fruits, chocolate or nuts in it. Therefore, we never prefer to buy one as long as we are not constrained. 

Actually, I planned to make these cookies as a speicy in the birthday menu. However, since it was my first try, I never could imagine that they would take such a long time. I have left no time to bake my cake :( Don't you ever be scared. I just had those difficulties due to the old equipment and small plates I had here. Otherwise, this has nothing to do with the recipe. For the recipe of this cookie, firstly I would like to thank to my dear friend Esra (Acemi Sef) who tried it and recommended it to me, and then to Efsun who shared it with us.  

How to make it: 

Ingredients:

• 250 gr. butter
  
• 2 cups of flour
  
• 2 cups of corn starch
  
• 1 pack of Dr. Oetker vanilla (or 1/2 tablespoon)
  
• 1 pack of Dr. Oetker baking powder 
  
• 1 cup of powder sugar (if you dont have, you can make it in your blender.). 
  
• Some sunflower oil  (I did not mention any amount purposely, the best is to add it in small proportions to catch the exact consistency)
  
• 1 tsp  cacao
• To shape the mushrooms, (depending on the size you prefer) 500 ml.coke bottle cap or cream bag socket (as seen on photo below)
  
• 180ºC preheated oven 
  

Add the flour, corn starch, vanilla, baking powder and the powder sugar to the room temperature butter and mix them all. Pour some oil in the mixture and knead until it comes to a consistency that it is not sticking on your fingers.This process takes at least 15-20 minutes. Now, we can roll our dough and put them on the oven plate. The sizes depend on your preference. I made them in different sizes because the mushrooms are never the same size like they are out from the factory) 

After you align them on the oven plate, dip the cap in the cacao powder and press it on the cookie. (My husband enjoyed this process a lot. He shaped most of the cookies himself. In a while, I felt like 2 kids playing with the dough in the kitchen :)  

Place the oven plate in the preheated oven. Heat the first 10 minutes from the top, the following 5 minutes from the bottom. (I could make it that way in my one) The cookies should remain white. Check the bottoms if they turned pink and keep it accordingly in a bit more when necessary.

Bon appetit!

Tip: Cookies will still  be soft when you put them out of the oven. Don't you worry. They will get harder when they are cooled. (Luckily, Esra warned me!)