Monday 25 July 2016

Easy Sugar Cookies That Hold Their Shape (and a rolling pin giveaway)!


This is a really simple recipe for you to try and a great giveaway too.

Have you ever tried to make cookies that don’t lose their shape when baked?

This recipe ensures that whatever shape cookie you bake, they come out of the oven looking like whatever you intended them to in the first place. None of this spreading into indistinguishable blobs!


This recipe is for a plain cookie, which Americans refer to as a sugar cookie, comprises just butter, sugar, one egg, a touch of vanilla and plain flour. In the right proportions, it is the perfect dough for keeping its shape.

It doesn't contain baking powder or soda, which can make a cookie puff up. These are chilled before baking also, another important factor in keeping their shape.

Which is ideal for a Valek engraved rolling pin. These wooden pins, laser etched from Polish beech wood, are engraved with loads of designs to choose from.

I have the spiral pin which gives a lovely effect on some chilled dough as you can see.


These rolling pins are so beautiful even without using them for baking. They are also ideal for kids to use with play dough, or potters using to emboss clay.


But for us bakers they can give lovely effects on dough.


They come in an assortment of designs, take a look at their website to see just how many you can choose from. And I mean that - you can choose! I am delighted to bring you a giveaway for one Valek rolling pin with one of the designs from the website. 



The pins are available from the website for around £16 to £25.



See below for the perfect recipe for cookie dough to use with these pins and details on how to enter the giveaway!



print recipe

Sugar Cookies
Basic sugar cookies which keep their shape
Ingredients
  • 200 grams butter, softened
  • 200 grams caster sugar
  • 1 medium egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 400 grams plain flour
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan) and line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper.In a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until just combined.Add the egg and vanilla and beat until just combined.Add the flour and incorporate until a dough forms.Break the dough into two halves, wrap in clingfilm and chill for two hours.After the two hours, roll out to about a quarter of an inch thick. Finish by rolling with the Valek pin to emboss the design on your dough.Cut out with cookie cutters of your choice.Place onto the baking sheets and bake for 10 to 12 minutes until golden around the edges.Cool before enjoying!
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 24 cookies

I added a brush of melted chocolate to the bottom of mines by tracing out the cookie cutter on some greaseproof paper.

I flipped the paper over and painted some melted chocolate to the traced shape. I pressed the cooled cookie into it and let firm up.

This part is optional.

These cookies are my entry to this month’s Treat Petite hosted by Kat at The Baking Explorer. The theme is anything goes!


To be in with a chance of winning a Valek rolling pin, a design of your choice, simply enter via the Rafflecopter thingamajig below.

The giveaway ends the midnight on the 15 August. Open to UK residents only good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure Statement: I received the rolling pin free to try. I have not been paid to run this giveaway any opinions expressed are my own.

141 comments:

  1. Pastry for a meat and potato pie!

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  2. Last thing i rolled was pastry for sausage rolls at the weekend

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  3. Last thing I rolled were pitta breads :)

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  4. Pastry for a gooseberry pie x

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  5. some pastry for a quiche i was making

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  6. Had to be a batch of biscuits though I somehow used too much marg & had horrible indigestion! The rolling pins are so unusual & beautiful at the same time :)

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  7. Some pizza dough yesterday. Thanks for the lovely giveaway, I would love to win one of these.

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  8. Pizza dough a couple of weekends ago for a sweetcorn, goats cheese and tomato pizza

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  9. pastry for a bramble pie was my last one

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  10. pastry for a redcurrant pie

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  11. Pastry for homemade quiche :)

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  12. Paula Readings26 July 2016 at 00:04

    Mine was pastry for a rhubarb pie.

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  13. Puff Pastry for Vol-Au-Vents, typically from me!

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  14. gingerbread biscuit dough with my son :)

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  15. pastry for a cheese and onion pie

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  16. dough for cheese scokes

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  17. Last thing I rolled was a cigarette!

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  18. Puff pastry for pie

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  19. pastry for bacon and egg pie x

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  20. That would be the shortbread biscuits we made this morning

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  21. Margaret Clarkson
    Scones

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  22. i made gluten free digestives and rolled the mixture

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  23. Replies
    1. I rolled puff pastry for cheese and onion pasties.

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  24. we always make biscuits and cut them out using different cutters so biscuits :)

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  25. my daughter's play doh :-)

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  26. pastry for a treacle tart

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  27. Pastry, for cheese and spinach pasties.

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  28. I haven't rolled anything in a long time but I do love the idea of etched rolling pins.

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  29. some pastry for a cheese pie x

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  30. These look so cool, what a fabulous effect! Perfect for Treat Petite :)

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  31. i make pasta
    lisa ann tebbutt

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  32. The icing for my daughters wedding cake

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  33. some pastry for an apple pie.

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  34. I can't quite remember, but think it might have been fondant for a cake I was decorating.

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  35. Puff pastry as i was making cheese and onion pasties :)

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  36. Um, a large bag of sawdust....rolled down the garden path!

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  37. Some pastry for a cheese and onion pie, pastry was a mix from a packet I'm not a very good cook

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  38. Fondant, pastry, biscuits really versatile in any kitchen. This rolling pin, I like the circle & diamonds one would get so much use.

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  39. Pastry for a Yemeni honey-pastry dessert.

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  40. pastry for my chicken and mushroom pie!

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  41. That would have been pastry, was making tartlets

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  42. These look amazing! I last rolled when making custard cream biscuits :)

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  43. Stormtrooper cookies for my nephews.

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  44. Apart from dice when playing monopoly it was for a rhubarb and ginger pie

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  45. Leave a comment telling me what was the last thing you rolled! . . . . . pastry for my Chicken and Mushroom pie

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  46. Fiona Sanderson6 August 2016 at 09:42

    I lost my recipe book with all my own creations in :-( so I have been thinking of what was in there and recreating them. The last thing I rolled and baked was my cinnamon and gingerbread cookies (photos on my Instagram happiness_and_honeyloops). They went well but I forgot the salt!!

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  47. Clare Munden

    I made some shortbread :)

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  48. Cheese Straws

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  49. Scones - well I do live in Cornwall!!

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  50. I rolled pastry for mince pies in June

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  51. Biscuits :)
    Thanks for a lovely giveaway!

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  52. The last thing I rolled was shortcrust pastry for a citrus tart.

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  53. This is a great invention!!!!

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  54. Some gingerbread dough. EJ Dunn

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  55. My 7 year old daughter down a small hill :) she also loves baking

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  56. Puff pastry for supper tonight

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  57. I rolled chappatis this evening for our dinner.I love the paisley design rolling pin.

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  58. Your biscuits look really lovely nad I love the pattern formed by the rolling pins. I really like the paisley patterned one.

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  59. I think it was pastry for jam tarts. I have never seen these rolling pins before - they look great! (@PeanutHog)

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  60. does rolling my eyes at husband when he 'can't find it' yet again count?

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  61. pastry for a steak and kidney pie

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  62. The last thing I rolled was biscuits with the children but we couldn't find the rolling pin! Had to use a pint glass but I wasn't very successful.

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  63. Pastry for an apple pie

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  64. The last thing I rolled was modelling clay to make a pair of earrings:)

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  65. Some playdough with my daughter!

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  66. Icing for engagement cake was the last thing I rolled xx

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  67. I rolled out some bread dough the last time I baked

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  68. The last thing I rolled was pastry for a quiche! I love this rolling pin, how fantastic! Makes me want to get baking :) (not that I need any encouragement...)

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  69. I made my first (mini) quiche(s) last week so was rolling pastry for those. They were delicious and surprisingly easy

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  70. pastry for a chicken and mushroom pie.

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  71. Pastry for a blackcurrant tart - we picked our own and ate them the same day - gloriouse!!

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  72. Pastry for a delicious apple pie 😋

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  73. suet pastry for a bacon roly poly

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  74. Pastry for veggie sausage rolls

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  75. Icing for the top of my little girls cake

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  76. Dough for a homemade pizza base.

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  77. Pastry for mince pies. @jaizduck

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  78. Shortcake. I love these rolling pins....

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  79. Charmian Filewood15 August 2016 at 01:25

    Scones!

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  80. pastry for a chicken and vegetable pie

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  81. The last thing was actually biscuits :)

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  82. Pastry for a black currant pie

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  83. pastry for iced biscuits I made with my daughter. :) This looks so cool.

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  84. Puff pastry last night for a corned beef hash pie .x

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  85. a log....... only joking it would have been gingerbread men

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  86. That would be short crust pastry when I made apple tarts last week. Thanks

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  87. marzipan for my daughter's birthday cake

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  88. Philip Underwood15 August 2016 at 21:33

    I rolled biscuit dough!

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  89. fondant for my sons birthday cake

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  90. Puff pastry for a home made pizza

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  91. The last think I rolled was cookie dough.

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  92. Last thing I rolled was mince pies

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  93. The last thing I rolled was Pastry for an apple pie x

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