VANILLA BEAN POPPERS – HOLIDAY FOOD FUN VARIATION:  Recently, I was thrilled to win a prize for the delightful little cookies in this post.  Urb’n’Spice is proud to be one of the Grand Prize Winners of an Edible Christmas Gifts Contest.  Since then, I have made this recipe several times and have had quite a bit of fun with it.  (See Rainbow Poppers for my grandson’s third birthday rainbow themed party).

That same little boy helped me make another variation today:  Christmas Vanilla Bean Poppers!  He and his older sister often ask if they can make more vanilla bean poppers.  Young children enjoy making the ‘snakes’ and ‘ropes’ and cutting the little cookies with a plastic pastry scraper.  Separate the dough (recipe below) into three parts.  Reserve one part, colour one part with a few drops of red food colouring, and the remaining part with a few drops of green food colouring.

These vanilla poppers make a Delightful Hostess Gift.  Here is the original recipe for your reference – have fun with these!

Vanilla Bean Poppers

I make these teeny, tiny cookies for hostess gifts and put them in pretty jars during the holiday season. I call them poppers because they are delightful delicate little cookies that are so irresistible you will keep popping them in your mouth. These cookies are lots of fun to make with children. They can help you roll the dough into long rope-like snakes before you cut them into small pillows or balls. They will love giving these cookies to their teacher.

As you can see in the photos below, the cookie dough is very easy to mix up and it is great fun to make the ropes, cut into tiny pillows and roll into balls. They can be left as little pillows as well. They bake up in a few minutes. Cool before dredging them in icing sugar. They are irresistible treats. The little bowl of baked poppers used in the photograph quickly disappeared before my eyes.

VANILLA BEAN POPPERS

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 8 oz. brick plain Cream Cheese, softened to room temperature
• 2/3 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (or substitute Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free Baking Flour)
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 1 dash fine salt
• 2 cups icing sugar, for coating the cookies

METHOD:

1. In a mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the butter, cream cheese and 2/3 cup icing sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add the vanilla bean paste and mix to combine
3. Combine the flour, cornstarch and salt together. With your mixer on low speed, add these dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix until combined well.
4. Remove small handfuls of dough from the mixer at a time and roll into ‘snakes’ about 1/2 inch in diameter. (Remember, these are tiny cookies). With a sharp knife, cut the dough into 1/2 inch pieces.
5. At this point, you can leave them in the pillow shapes as they are, or you can roll them into tiny balls. Either way, place these tiny pieces of dough on a parchment-lined baking sheet. (The cookies do not spread, so you can place them fairly close together).
6. Bake in 325oF oven for 12 – 15 minutes, depending on the size of your tiny pillows or balls. The bottoms of the cookies should just start to turn a very light golden.
7. Let the cookies cool slightly. In a medium-size bowl, place the 2 cups of icing sugar. Place the cooled cookies in the bowl and toss them to coat thoroughly with the icing sugar. Tip:  Place the cookies in a sieve to shake the excess icing sugar off.
8. Place the cookies in a decorative container or jar, label and decorate with ribbon and give to your favourite someone.

LEARNING TIPS:  

Please CLICK the link above to access my UrbnSpice LEARNING TIPS, which are listed alphabetically on the Learning Tips blog post under the following subheadings:

• Parchment Paper
• Oven Temperature Accuracy
• Vanilla Extract
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OTHER GIFT IDEAS:

Variation to Vanilla Bean Poppers:  Urb’n’Spice Rainbow Poppers

Dee’s Old Fashioned Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

Cherry Rhubarb Compote

Chocolate Desserts Cookbook Series