Smartie Cookies

Total Time: 54 mins Preparation Time: 40 mins Cook Time: 14 mins

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter (room temp)
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon almond essence or 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• smarties candies or m&m's plain chocolate candy

Recipe

• 1 preheat the oven to 190°c.
• 2 keep 5-6 ungreased cookie sheets on hand.
• 3 beat the butter and sugar till fluffy and light.
• 4 add the salt + vanilla essence + almond essence and beat for 30 seconds.
• 5 with a spatula mix in the beaten egg.
• 6 put in all the flour in one go, and gather together to make a firm dough.
• 7 chill for at least 30 minutes in wrap.
• 8 roll out to ¼ inch thickness and cut with assorted cookie cutters.
• 9 decorate with smarties (or m ‘n’ m’s), and silver dragees if desired.
• 10 bake on ungreased cookie sheets for 12-14 minutes, watching closely so that they don’t get too brown.
• 11 remove from oven; let the cookies lay on the sheet for a minute. remove to racks to cool.
• 12 note: you can flavour these with any other extract of your choice; or just leave them plain vanilla if you like. i think orange and lemon may work well with these, though i haven’t tried it myself.
• 13 keep an eye on the cookies towards the end of the baking time. if you find a couple browning before others, remove them from the sheet onto cookie rack, and return remaining cookies on sheet to the oven.