When it comes to theme parties cakes and cookies are the easiest to customize to match the theme. For my #DisneySide party I made these chocolate dipped Mickey and Minnie sugar cookie pops yesterday using the Mickey cookie cutter which I received in my #DisneySide @Home Celebration Kit.
Ingredients:
All purpose flour – 3 cups (390 grams)
Salt – 1/2 teaspoon
Baking soda – 1 teaspoon
Unsalted butter, room temperature – 1 cup (227 grams)
Granulated white sugar -1 cup (200 grams)
Eggs – 2 large
Vanilla extract – 2 teaspoons
Chocolate chips – 2 cups (approx.)
Canola Oil – 2 tablespoons
Red Icing tube or royal icing.
Method:
1) Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda in a bowl.
2) In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy .
3)Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat until combined.
4) Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until you have a smooth dough.
5)Divide the dough in half and flatten each half into a disc. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for about one hour or until firm enough to roll.
6) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven.
7) Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
8) Remove one half of the chilled dough from the refrigerator and, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of about1/2 inch (1 cm). (Keep turning the dough as you roll, making sure the dough does not stick to the counter.)
9) Cut out desired shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter and transfer cookies to baking sheet.
10) Gently insert a cookie stick in each cookie with a twisting motion. Place your left hand gently on the cookie as you insert the stick with your right (dominant) hand. If the back of the cookie cracks while you are inserting the cookie stick simply take a tiny bit of scrap cookie dough and put on top of the crack.
11) Place the baking sheets with the unbaked cookies in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes to chill the dough which prevents the cookies from spreading and losing their shape while baking.
10) Bake for about 10-12 minutes depending upon the size of the cookies until the edges are just starting to brown.
11) Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
12) When cookies have cooled down completely you are ready to dip them in chocolate. Put the chocolate chips with the oil in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds intervals until almost all the chips appear melted. Do not wait until the chocolate is smooth else you run the risk of burning the chocolate. Stir the partially melted chocolate chips to finish the melting process.
13) Dip the “ears” of the cookie pops into the melted chocolate and shake off excess chocolate. Keep them on a parchment lined baking sheet to dry.
14) After the chocolate has dried you can make bows for Minnie Mouse with red icing tubes or royal icing. Let icing dry before stacking and storing the cookies.
This was the first batch that I rolled and baked. I had rolled them to about 1/4 inch thickness as mentioned in the original recipe but since I was making them into cookie pops, they needed to be slightly thicker. You can see the indentations made by the stick in the collage. For the next batch I rolled them slightly thicker which made it easier to insert the stick to transform the cookies to cookie pops.
