Sunday 27 January 2013

Red Velvet Valentine Springerles

One of the things I am aiming for this year is, that when I am making something for an occasion or Holiday, I want to publish what I have made before we get there. As I write this, I am on track to achieve this with my Red Velvet Valentine Springerles.

There seems to be bit of a trend lately for very red, red velvet cakes, I have to say that I am not fond of these. The red velvet cake is supposed to be chocolate and I don't think those bright red cakes have much chocolate in them? Traditionally, the red colour was revealed when the acids in the vinegar and buttermilk react with the cocoa powder so that a compound called anthocyanin, that is in the cocoa, becomes more red. Additional red colour seems to have been added since about the 1970s and now many modern bakers have seemingly dropped the chocolate for an entirely red cake

That said, I have cheated a bit here, as I don't have a cookie recipe using buttermilk, so I have used a colouring and flavouring by LorAnn which adds both a red colour and the buttermilk flavour of red velvet.

I love the look of a springerle cookie, but, rarely have time to make the proper recipe. I have found that if I adapt my sugar cookie recipe by using icing / confectioners sugar and freezing the cookies before I bake them that I get a pretty good impression on my cookie.

I also baked some plain hearts out of the red velvet mix and used the springerle to mould some fondant to decorate them with


Recipe

Ingredients
200g icing sugar / confectioners sugar
200g butter or block margarine
1 tablespoon Red Velvet Bakery Emulsion by LorAnn
1 egg
30g cocoa powder (sift the cocoa powder if it is lumpy)
370g plain flour

I make these in my stand mixer.
  1. Beat the icing / confectioners sugar with the butter or margarine and the Red Velvet Emulsion till just blended, but the colour is well mixed through. (The smell is amazing)
  2. Add the egg and beat again until just mixed
  3. Mix the flour and cocoa powder together lightly
  4. Beat the flour mix into the butter and sugar mix. Your mixer might rubble a bit, keep it on a low speed, the mixture will go bread crumby and then will start to come together. When the mix forms into larger balls, you are ready to begin.


Rolling and making the cookies

Equipment

Rolling pin (a wooden one is fine)
Marzipan spacers (optional)
Springerle mould (I used "Heart and Rose", "Amo Te" and "Cupid in Heart"
Cookie cutter that matches your mould or a good knife
Dry pastry brush

Prepare some baking trays / cookie sheets with a non stick liner.

Pre-heat your oven. I use a fan oven and bake them at 155C. For a conventional over you might need to experiment at about 165C or 170C
  1. Take out a couple of good handfuls of the mixture and press / knead together until you have a smooth ball.
  2. Roll out about 5mm thick (I use marzipan spacers to help)
  3. Sprinkle and spread a very thin layer of flour over to stop the mould from sticking
  4. Take your Springerle Mould press down really firmly on top of you dough. Carefully lift off using the little ring on top
  5. Check the impression if happy, cut out with your cutter or knife, otherwise, knead together and re-roll
  6. Place carefully on baking tray and use a dry pastry brush to gently brush off as much of the flour as you can
  7. Place the tray in the freezer and leave for about 20 to 25 minutes.
  8. Bake for around 10 to 15 minutes (check regularly)
The picture below is the cookie as baked above. I like this, but it was a little dark for what I wanted. Dark in mood that is, rather than colour, so I decided to add a little lustre and some experimentation ensued. (I picked the best cookies for lustre-ing, so this one is a little misshapen)



This first one (below) I tried was using a sparkly pink lustre. It gave the cookie a bit of a metallic look, which I quite like, but, it's not the sophisticated look I was after.


One of the things that I didn't like about this cookie was that the colour looks a bit grainy. I then remembered that I had a product called Gildesol which helps lustre adhere to surfaces and look better, as I fetched my gildesol I saw in the box, a pot of burnt copper lustre by Squires Kitchen and knew this was going to give just the colour I was looking for.

I brushed a thin layer of Gildesol all over the cookie with a flat brush and then brushed over a thin layer of lustre



To mould the fondant with the springerle mould, I use pretty much the same technique as for moulding the cookies, rolling the fondant out between spacers and then impressing it. As long as the fondant isn't warm and sticky, it doesn't usually stick to the mould, if it does, smear on a little vegetable fat (Trex / Crisco) after rolling. I rolled and pushed a pea sized piece of fondant into the rose part of the mould, before making an impression, to ensure I got a good impression as this part of the mould is so deep.

Really love this, hope you do to?



That is it for today. Thanks for popping by, please call again soon

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