More Red Velvet! I’m rapidly becoming an addict. This time, Red Velvet Cookies, replete with cream cheese buttercream. I’m posting this just before Christmas, because this is the perfect time of year to have such pretty looking cookies around. They make amazing gifts.
I have to say that I never thought I would be the one making Red Velvet cookies,let alone blogging about them. Frankly I didn’t think they would be worth posting, but they are just unbelievable.
I got the inspiration from a local cafe which had a jar of Red Velvet cookies on the counter. I thought that they looked so pretty, with a beautiful red and white colour, but not pretty enough to try. Commercial cookies be so disappointing. So I resolved to make some myself.
Obviously, if you are making your own Red Velvet cookies then you can dictate what goes into them. It’s not just about making a cookie which is chocolate and red. Red Velvet cake is special because of the inclusion of butter milk and cider vinegar in the recipe. So I needed to make a cookie which was just like Red Velvet cake. Obviously, if you are making a crystal cookie, you can’t use butter milk. However you can use cultured butter, which has the same slightly cream-cheesy flavour to it.
Speaking of cream cheese, it’s obvious that if you’re making Red Velvet cookies you also need a special kind of frosting. Just plain old vanilla buttercream wouldn’t be right. So I decided to make a vanilla cream cheese frosting instead. It is absolutely super delicious!
And, of course, you don’t have to make them red. Just leave out the food colouring and make chocolate cream cheese cookies if you like!
Red Velvet Cookies with Cream Cheese Buttercream
makes about 16 sandwich cookies
Red Velvet Cookies
ingredients
130g cultured unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
300g self raising flour
2 tbsp cocoa
2 tbsp buttermilk
approximately 1 tsp red gel food colouring, or more (or none) if desired.
mixing
Beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Sift the half flour and cocoa over the mixture and add the buttermilk. Mix until smooth and add the rest of the sifted flour mixture. Add the food colouring until the mixture is a burgundy colour. The cookies will bake into a redder colour than the raw mixture.
Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and press down lightly on a baking tray lined with bake paper. To make the nice hatched pattern, I used a mini potato masher. Use a fork if you don’t have anything fancy, but feel free to experiment with patterns!
Bake the cookies at 180 degrees Celsius for 12 minutes or until the cookies are set and smell aromatic (its hard to tell if they are browned!). Transfer to a wire rack to cool. When cold, sandwich with the cream cheese buttercream as described below.
Cream Cheese Buttercream
ingredients
150g cultured unsalted butter
100g cream cheese, softened
150g icing sugar
pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
mixing
Beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Beat in the icing sugar, salt and vanilla until smooth. Load the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a 10mm round nozzle.
Assemble the cookies in pairs, bottom side up. Pipe large blobs of buttercream onto half the cookies. Top with the other half of the cookies. Refrigerate until set.
These cookies keep for up to a month in the fridge.
Enjoy!xxx
