Jewel Box Cookies

Glitter and sprinkles for your Monday! # 331: Jewel Box Cookies

After living patiently on my TBB list (the TBR of baking: To Be Baked) for longer than I’d like to admit, I finally gave this frilly cookie project a try. Verdict: finicky and time-consuming, but so much fun to make!

Also the look of pure joy on peoples’ faces when they realize they can shake the sprinkles inside makes my day.

Not as uniform as I was hoping for, but let’s just call it a metaphor for how everyone’s love is unique and endearingly imperfect. Next time (I know I’m crazy, but I probably will make these again! Maybe diamond-shaped?) I’ll use the cookie cutter to clean up the shape after it comes out of the oven.

My go-to (and really only) sugar cookie recipe is from SweetAmbs and it’s infinitely customizable. I switched up the flavors this time, swapping the orange zest and cardamom for amaretto and raspberry black tea.

I saw in one of her recent Instagram posts that she added mini chocolate chips to a batch and I’m obsessed. She had to flip the cookies upside down to get a perfectly smooth surface for decorating, but honestly so worth it.

The tea leaf speckles remind me of vanilla bean or espresso powder. Ooo espresso powder and mini chocolate chips? Definitely making those next!

It’s not green, I promise! The lighting’s trying to do a throw back to my halloween cookies which truly were green.

Squish.

Why did the heart go to the gym?

To get pumped up! (sorry)

This project created a lovely problem: the cookie equivalent of doughnut holes. I turned all the smaller heart cut-outs into iced conversation hearts. Edible marker for the win.

My first foray into using isomalt. I first learned about it on GBBO and while it sounds fancy, it functions the same as boiled sugar. The crystals are a by-product of beet sugar and when tempered correctly, the resulting hard candy is super clear and durable. Basically edible glass!

Just like with caramel, no stirring allowed.

Looks like seltzer water, stings like a thousand sunburns.

The bubbles cleared on their own, but I had a toothpick at the ready just in case.

Notes to future self:

Use less. It doesn’t have to be that thick! My window panes came out hefty.. I bet they’d hold up just fine at half the thickness
Don’t use a surface that has any sort of texture. I had mine set on a silpat and it took on the woven texture. Which was pretty cool (not gonna lie) but not what I was going for