Day 1 (30/08): Shortbread

For the first day, I started the challenge off by making shortbread! I adore Walkers shortbread (I truly believe it's the world's finest shortbread :D). Though this recipe didn't yield Walkers-quality shortbread, it still did make a melt-in-your-mouth shortbread.

I followed the recipe by cupcakejemma on YouTube, with some alterations and additions.

I started by laying out all the ingredients.

L to R: Mixer with powdered sugar, vanilla essence, dark chocolate, and all-purpose flour, salted butter

Before starting the actual 'first step' of the recipe, I measured the bowl (to get accurate measurements).

Then, I measured out 150 grams of softened butter and 50 grams of powdered sugar.

The scale showed 261 g a few seconds before taking this picture! :(

The recipe calls for 60 g of caster sugar but I found that 50 g of powdered sugar does the trick

After mixing the softened butter with the powdered sugar, I got this buttery delight.

I added in the flour and the vanilla extract...

...to get this crumbly dough!

After kneading the dough for a short period of time, I dusted the workplace with flour. I then rolled the dough and cut out small pieces using a wine glass.

Sprinkling flour on your workplace, the rolling pin, AND the cookie cutters (or wine glass) is extremely important. If you don't do so, the dough will stick and you'll have to repeat the process.

Then, I baked the cookies for about 12 minutes.

To decorate the cookies, I made royal icing using egg whites (2) and powdered sugar (∼ 2 cups).

I used the Martha Stewart recipe with the quantities mentioned above. After whipping the egg whites to a frothy mixture, I added in two tablespoons of powdered sugar till I exhausted all the sugar.

Then, I whipped the mixture for about five minutes to get the desired consistency. After whipping, I added a few drops of gel food colouring – the turquoise went quite well with the golden brown cookies.

You can test for the stiffness of the peaks by overturning the utensil. The icing shouldn't fall out. Be sure to do this over a plate (in case it isn't done)

Here are the final results!

I'd say day 1 was a success! See you on day 2. :)

Updated to fix format of date on 12/09