Vanilla Bean Funfetti Cut-out Cookies

 Prep Time : 10 + 20 Minutes | Cook Time : 15 Minutes | Total Time : 3 hours | Difficulty : Easy

It’s been so grey and wintery around here lately! These fun bright sweet cookies are the perfect antidote to rain and grey skies. I’ve been having a moment with my cookie cutters lately and have been looking for any excuse to use them. I have somewhat of a space issue in my kitchen. It has nothing to do with it having no storage, it’s more about how much kitchen stuff I seem to have accumulated… Lately I have been trying out a few things to get stuff up off surfaces and onto the wall, and one of my faves is my cookie cutter pegboard! It’s simple and decorative at the same time as helping me with my hoarding problem! It also reminds me that I have some cool cutters in there and I really should use them more often.

You will notice that I like to use incongruous cutters when I’m making cookies. For these bright happy cookies I’ve gone with the shark. I also like them in polar bears. I did some stars too, for balance…

First make the dough and set it to chilling. Cream the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until well incorporated. Split the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds. Add the vanilla seeds and ground almonds and mix thoroughly. The almonds really are key to the light crunchiness of the cookies and how forgiving they are to roll out.

Add the flour and baking powder and mix until a dough comes together. Add the sprinkles.

Mix just until they are distributed through the dough. Agitating the dough too much can make the sprinkles bleed colour faster.

Press the dough into a flat rectangle and pop it into a zip lock bag or wrap with plastic wrap. Chill for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator.

Once chilling time is up, preheat the oven to 190C (375F). I find it easier to work with half at a time, so cut the block of dough in two and roll out one half on top of a sheet of baking paper.

This make for super easy clean up and reduces added flour during rolling. The dough should be about 3 to 4 mm thick (1/8 to 1/6 inch). Cut out cookies as desired and place on baking sheets lined with baking paper.

If it’s warm and you can feel the dough softening as you work, pop the trays of cookies back into the fridge for 5 minutes before baking to chill them off again. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes depending on the size of your cookies. They should be just getting golden at the edges. Let them cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I don’t usually ice these because the sprinkles are lovely on their own, but don’t let that stop you going to town on these babies…

Sigh, one minute you’re the apex predator, next minute…..nomnomnomnom