Vasty's Birthday Cookies

My friend Vasty had a birthday dinner and I wanted to surprise her with cookie favors for her guests. She loves shortbread cookies so I decided to attempt them. This was my first time working with shortbread and I must say it was very time consuming and harder to work with than sugar cookies. But they were sooooo good!

I wanted to do something different from what I am used to. So I used photoshop to create a logo. The logo read: It's My Birthday! with a cupcake with a candle in the middle, and at the bottom it said thanks for coming with the date. I then ordered edible transfers from Fun Cakes For You . Holly was so amazing, she printed, cut, and shipped the transfers to me. I was a little worried because it was last minute but they were amazing.

I glazed the cookies with white royal icing, added the trasfers, and then piped a border with royal icing and sprinkled sugat crystals from Wilton around the edges. I finished them up by bagging them and adding a ribbon to them.

Shortbread Recipe (Joy Of Baking)

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups all-purpose flour
   
2. 1/4 teaspoon salt


3. 1 cup (2 sticks) unslated butter, softened


4. 1/2 cup powdered sugars


5. 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a separate bowl whisk the flour with the salt. Set aside.


2. In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream the butter until smooth (about 1 minute).'


3. Add the sugar and beat until smooth (about 2 minutes).


4. Beat in the vanilla extract.


5. Gently stir in the flour mixture just until incorporated.


6. Flatten the dough into a disk shape, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill the dough for at least an hour.


7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the middle of the oven.


8. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.


9. On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick.
   
10. Cut into rounds or whatever shapes you wish using lightly floured cookie cutter.


11. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet and place in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. This will firm up the dough so the cookies will maintain their shape when baked.


12. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes, or until cookies are lightly brown. Cool on rack.

• Makes about 20 shortbread cookies.