Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Alice in Wonderland Cookie Recipes

King of Hearts Playing Card Cookies

Sugar Cookies
1/2 C.  unsalted butter
1 C. Coconut Oil
2 C. Sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp Almond extract
5 C. Flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Salt

In a mixing bowl add butter and coconut oil at room temperature and mix together.  Then add 2 cups of sugar mixing until the mixture because nice and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing on a low speed.  Once all the eggs or incorporated into the mixture, beat on medium speed for 2 more minutes, until it becomes nice and fluffy.  Add the extracts to the mixture and mix until its fully blended.
In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt and sift together.  Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well until the dough is finished.  Let it chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour (or over night,) 
After it has chilled, flour your surface and roll out cookie dough.  I like them pretty thick but that all depends on how crunchy or soft of a cookie you want.  If you like the crunchy roll them out thinner, if you like them soft make them thicker.  Cut using a square cookie cutter, and bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  Take them out when they are no longer doughy, but you also dont want any brown on them.  Otherwise they are over done.  Let them sit on the cookie sheet for 3 more minutes, to let them finish cooking.  These cookies will be soft, so try to handle them as little as possible.  

In a mixing bowl make a classic buttercream frosting with almond extract instead of vanilla.  You can do any recipe that you like, since its going under fondant, it doesn't matter what frosting you use, just make sure that its very tasty!

Classic Buttercream Frosting
2 cubes of butter at room temperature
1 pinch of salt
1-2 tsp Almond extract
4 C. Powder Sugar
2 T. Heavy Cream

Start by mixing the butter together, then add the salt and Almond extract.  Mix until well blended, scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula and add 2 cups of powder sugar.  Mix on a LOW speed and until it has blended in with the butter.  At this point it should be a very thick frosting.  Add the last two cups of Powder Sugar with 2 Tablespoons of heavy cream.  Mix well until blended together, then put on a medium high speed for 5 minutes.  This will make the frosting very fluffy! 

Note:  This cookie was a total experiment to me, I was playing around with cutting the fat by using Coconut Oil and less butter.  When the cookie came out of the oven, I thought it was awful, but I didn't have time to re-do it.  However, as it sat I tried the cookie for 3 days after the party, and every day it tasted better and better.  Its a moist cookie, and one thats excellent to serve the next day.  But know that it does have a coconut taste too it, so it might not be the best Holiday sugar cookie to serve!

For the decorating.  I bought Wiltons Fondant, at any craft store or Wal-Mart.  I made two little balls, one red, the other black.  I also purchased Food Pens.  Its pens made with edible ink so you can draw on fondant.  And I got mini cookie cutters for the shapes on the cards, and then used my same square cookie cutter.  You will also need almond extract to seal the shapes onto the fondant.

So here's what I did:
1.  I rolled out my white fondant and cut the same square shapes as the cookies. 
2. Next, I used my food pen, and placed black dots all around the edges of the cookies.
3. Then, I rolled out my playing card shapes, and cut them out in red and black.
4. After that, I used my finger and dipped it into the almond extract, then rubbed it on the back of my shape, and placed it ont he playing card.  
5.  Last, I frosted the cookie, then placed the fondant design on top!
Mad Hater Cookies

Last December, I went to the most darling Tea House in NYC called Alice's Tea Cup as you can view HERE. While there I picked up their recipe book and decided to use one of the recipes for my party.  The recipe that I was going to use is called The Red Queen's Pink and White Chessboard Cookies.  However, I noticed one of the main ingredients is 4 heaping teaspoons of Rose Tea Melange tea leaves, which I figured most kids would not like.
So I used my sugar cookie recipe instead and then tried to follow there pattern to make it a chess board. My recipe was a little soft and didn't work out perfectly, but for the Mad Hater it worked.

Sugar Cookies


1 1/2 C.  unsalted butter
2 C. Sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp Almond extract
1 tsp. Vanilla extract
1/4 C. Sour Cream
5 C. Flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Salt

Egg Wash
1 egg white beaten

In a mixing bowl add butter at room temperature and mix together.  Then add 2 cups of sugar mixing until the mixture because nice and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing on a low speed.  Once all the eggs or incorporated into the mixture, beat on medium speed for 2 more minutes, until it becomes nice and fluffy.  Add the extracts to the mixture and sour cream, and mix until its fully blended.  
In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt and sift together.  Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well until the dough is finished.  Let it chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour (or over night,) 
Once chilled divide the dough in half and dye one half black and the other pink.  Flour your work surface and prepare for the complicated part.  I also did this at 5 a.m. so I probably made this more complicated then it needed to be, that being said this is what I did:
1. Make a egg wash, beating the egg whites until a little fluffy and get out a pastry brush.
2. Divide the dough up into balls.  You want it a 4 x 4 so you will need 8 balls of pink and 8 balls of black. 
3.  Roll out all your dough balls and make them into a long snake.  Basically using your fingers to roll them out evenly to a long log.  You can also roll them out and cut them evenly into eight different strips, BUT that didn't work for me, so I did the snake method.  
4. Next, put one strip of pink, then a strip of black.  In between each layer seal with the egg wash so that they stick together.  Layer on top using opposite colors.  Once finished, I wrapped it up into plastic wrap and let it sit up until an hour before the party. 
5.  Take out of the refrigerator, and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices with a sharp knife.  Lay on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 Degrees for 8-10 minutes.  Let cool, and then serve!
Eat Me Cookies

So for the Eat Me Cookies, my Mother found this charming little mini cake pan, but when my cakes came out, they just didn't look very good.  My wonderful Grandmother asked if she could help cook anything for this party.  So my Mom asked her if she would cook her shortbread.  This is a recipe I have grown up with, and dearly love!  So my Grandmother whipped these together for me, and pressed them into the mold, and then we baked them and they came out perfect!  So here is the originally recipe. 
Mrs. Kings Scotch Shortbread

(She was from Scotland and had at one time dressed the Ladies of the Court, Mother worked with her in her dress shop in Walla Walla, Washington.)


6 cups of flour
1 lb butter
1 cup sugar

Cream all together and pat in cookie sheet. Score with a fork.
Bake at 350 until it begins to look golden in color
Be sure not to let it get to brown.



6 comments:

  1. Cute. I think those card cookies would be great for poker night as well! I may need to do that.

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  2. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! I can say that they were as good as they look and they look fabulous! The cards are just amazing. I am sure they were a ton of work and I can't imagine doing the checkerboard cookies. You have such an amazing ability to create fabulous parties down to the very last details!

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  3. Thanks so much Jackie, that means the world to me! It was a lot of work, but it payed off in the end!

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  4. oh awesome! another reason to get a mad hatter costume done haha

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