Sea of Stars

Sea of Stars - over 100 star shaped sugar cookies for classmates and teachers

To celebrate Children's Day (June 1) and Etienne's 9^th birthday (May 30), and from the many requests by his friends, I decided to bake a huge batch of cookies for Etienne's classmates. Some of his classmates got wind of my baking abilities, and often when I pick him from school, they hint (OK, downright ask) for cookies. Etienne gets lots of candy on his classmates' birthdays,and he requested the same. I'm not a fan of children eating candy. Aside from the sugar, there are other additives and colouring to be concerned about. A few is fine, as you really cannot separate candy from kids. But I find the consumption by some kids truly frightening. So, for 47 kids X 2 cookies per kid plus a few teachers, Sugar Cookies was the way to go.

I used the sugar cookie recipe by my friend Terri, which is really a pate sucre, and frosted them with a simple glace icing. For a co-ed class, stars was the obvious choice. I got this really pretty picture of the stars cooling on the wire rack. This is a sweet cookie, as the name suggests, but not overly sweet that you taste nothing else. I used lemon juice in the glace icing to offset the sweetness, and that worked out great.

Butter 1 cup

Sugar 1 cup

Egg 1 large

Vanilla essence 1 tsp

Baking powder 2 tsp

Flour 3-4 cups (I started with 3 cups but found the dough still too sticky and just added on till I got the right consistency).

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Sift flour and baking powder and add to batter till a stiff dough is achieved. Roll out between sheets of plastic (I recycle the waxed bags from boxes of cereal), dusted with a little flour. Cut out using cookie cutters. Bake 4-8 minutes in a pre-heated 200C oven. Cool on a wire rack and decorate with glace icing.

Glace icing

I use the 'eyeball' method when making glace icing. Just add lemon or orange juice, milk or even plain water to icing sugar till you get a drizzling consistency. Be aware that very little liquid is required to melt down the icing sugar. Add food colouring of your choice. I use a small resealable bag to pipe. Cut a small tip off one corner and pipe away. The resealable bag prevents any back-flow and keeps any icing from drying out. Small bits of dried icing getting in the way while you work is quite irritating. If you have any leftover, just seal the clipped corner, and it keeps neatly in the fridge.