Decoration Cookies: For Your Cakes on Doll's Day

Name: Decoration Cookies: For Your Cakes on Doll's Day
Yield: 5 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 80 grams Flour (cake flour); 40 grams Sugar; 10 grams Almond flour; 30 grams Butter; 2 or 3 drops Vanilla essence/extract; 1/2 of small spoon contained in box Food coloring (red); 1/4 tsp Matcha; 2 pens of the dark brown, 1 pen each of other colors Chocolate decorating pen (dark brown, white, pink); 1 Other decorations (silver dragées, chocolate chips)

cookpad.japan @cookpad_jp

If you've prepared pretty cakes for Doll's Day, regular decorations from the grocery store might not feel like enough! Why not try out the second edition of my "Let's Make Cute Decorations" recipe series?

The cookie dough is quite crumbly, so try to bring it together by pressing and squeezing the dough together. It may be a lot of work, but this dough is perfect for shaping and always make my cookies crispy and delicious, so I'm loyal to this recipe. Recipe by Kenchan

cookpad.japan @cookpad_jp

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Ingredients

5 servings

80 gramsFlour (cake flour)
40 gramsSugar
10 gramsAlmond flour
30 gramsButter
2or 3 drops Vanilla essence/extract
1/2of small spoon contained in box Food coloring (red)
1/4 tspMatcha
2pens of the dark brown, 1 pen each of other colors Chocolate decorating pen (dark brown, white, pink)
1Other decorations (silver dragées, chocolate chips)

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Steps

1

Place a large bowl on your scale, and measure out the flour, sugar, and almond flour.
2

Mix the dry ingredients together, breaking apart any clumps.
3

Melt the butter and add to the bowl. Mix the contents and bring the crumbly dough together by pressing it together. Add vanilla essence at this stage.
4

Once the dough has come together, slice into thirds.
5

Add food coloring to the previously used bowl, and dissolve with a few drops of water.
6

Add another third portion of dough the bowl with the red food coloring in small bits, so as to make the mixing process easier. Make sure that the coloring spreads throughout the dough evenly. Once the color has been incorporated, bring the dough together again by pressing the crumbs together.
7

In the bowl with the remaining third portion of dough, sprinkle in the matcha. Mix so the color spreads around evenly. Don't dissolve the matcha in water before adding it to the dough.
8

Divide each color into five portions. Shape them into ellipses.
9

This is how they look from the side. They form a little platform, I guess, so the top is a bit narrower than the base.
10

With the last remaining third portion of dough for the heads. Round the balls so that they turn out just a tad flat on one side (for the tops of their heads).
11

Line the body and head portions evenly. Bake them first at 150℃ for 15 minutes, then at 130℃ for 5 minutes.
12

These are the baked cookies stacked like in Step 10. The heads are slightly flattened. Start warming up the decorating pens in a bain-marie.
13

Adjust the position of the heads so that the green emperors slant towards the left, while the pink empresses slant toward the right. This way, they'll look like they're meeting each other in the middle when placed next to one another.
14

Draw on the collars of the emperor's robes. They look a bit neater if you slant the emperors' collar "folds" to the right, and slant the empress' to the left.
15

Use a white chocolate decorating pen to outline the sleeves.
16

Draw the outlines of their robes with a chocolate decorating pens. You can use the pink color to give your empress sleeves and collars as well.
17

Trace out the emperors' hairlines. This is how they look from a bird's eye view. Fill in the outlines with a chocolate decorating pens. Spread the chocolate evenly with the tips of their pens.
18

This is how the emperors look from the back. I tried to keep their hair up to the middle of the backs of their heads.
19

Place chocolate chips on top of heads of the emperors, to give them little ritual crowns. You can glue these on with a chocolate decorating pen.
20

Give your empresses hair. Leave some space in the front for their faces, but the hair can reach all the way down the back, up to their shoulders. Decorate the tops of their heads with dragée pearls.
21

These are how the empresses look from behind. I did haven't much of the dark brown decoration left at this point, so I skimped a bit... They would probably have looked better if their hair was a bit longer.
22

Give your dolls cute faces. Make them laugh, have them look prim and smug -- have fun giving them all sorts of expressions!
23

Stick on some extra decoration on the robes as desired. I used sprinkles that I had left over from Valentine's Day. If you have any chocolate left over in your decorating pens, this would be a good time to use it up!
24

Here are the emperors. I gave their robes a refined touch with some brown embellishments.
25

Take the size of your dolls into consideration and draw out the fans and ritual batons with the chocolate decorating pen. Draw them on top of a baking sheet and chill in the refrigerator to harden.
26

Use the chocolate from your decorating pen as glue to stick on the dolls' fans and ritual batons where their hands would be.
27

Perch them on top of your pretty cakes. Prepare them about 2-3 days in advance and set them on your cakes the day of the celebration.
28

We're a five-member household, so I prepared five pairs of dolls this time around. But it's a good idea to make four pairs and use up the material for the last one to make other items like "Hishimochi" (decorative tri-color mochi associated with Doll's Day).