When you want to serve just a little something sweet, but don’t want to overdo it on the sugar and calories, you can’t go wrong with these tiny cookies. They are rich with butter, slightly crunchy from the cornmeal, and I think they’re best when seasoned with something unexpected such as black pepper. Serving them on very tiny condiment dishes ( Set 4 4″ Sashiko Colors Bowls J3000Z
Placing two of these tiny cookies on a very small dish makes the presentation as special as the cookies.
Tiny Butter Cookies
Basic Recipe
1 and 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter
½ cup cornmeal
½ cup confectioners sugar
1 ½ cup white flour
2 teas Madagacca Bourbon Vanilla Bean Paste Nielsen Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Paste 4 oz
(or 1 scraped inside of a vanilla bean and 1 teas vanilla extract)
1 teaspoon Salt
Options for Seasoning:
1 teas or more freshly ground pepper
1 teas or more cayenne pepper
2 teas or more grated citrus zest
½ cup finely chopped nuts
More options:
Substitute cocoa, oatmeal, or wheat flour for the cornmeal
Heat oven to 350 degrees
Mix ingredients in a food processor just until the dough starts to stick together.
I mix the sugar, vanilla and butter in the food processor.
Dump into a bowl and gather into small balls with your hands. Roll out the balls into logs about the diameter of a nickel.
Roll the dough into thin “logs” and wrap them in waxed paper. You can freeze the dough at this point and save them for the times when you need a fast but elegant dessert.
Wrap these rolls in wax paper and put in the refrigerator or freezer to chill. After 30 minutes, cut the logs into coins about ¼ inch thick.
Slice after the dough has been chilled. If you’ve frozen the dough for future use, let it thaw at room temperature for about five minutes and then slice and bake.
Place them on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet and bake until their edges begin to turn light brown, about 10 minutes. Remove the paper from the cookie sheet and cool on the counter before lifting the tender cookies off the parchment.
The cookies should be golden browned when they are done. I seasoned these with freshly ground black pepper.
