Tempera Painted Butter Cookies

So (for now) my five favorite things in life are:

(1) Noel
(2) pizza
(3) reading
(4) butter cookies
(5) chocolate

It's a bit embarrassing that 3 of my top 5 are food items, but hey, I can't lie, I like eating! And, I'm pretty sure I have perfected #4 on my list, so I have to share my new technique.

I've been making these cookies for years in various shapes and formats. I make bunnies and ducks at Easter, Christmas trees and stockings at Christmas, leaves in the fall, which I've talked about before, and for Valentines Day I always make hearts, which normally I frost and decorate like those candy hearts with little sayings on them. This time, however, I decided to experiment with the tempera technique that I used at Thanksgiving time last year, and it worked beautifully.

Before you bake them the cookies look a little odd, the tempera is thin and yellow-ish, and it seems like they won't turn out. But both times I've done it they've come out in bright jewel tone colors, and they're very festive looking. The tempera technique is also really a cinch to do. My one word of warning is that you need to make sure that whatever brush you use to apply the tempera doesn't lose its bristles easily. Last time I used some little kid water color type paintbrushes, and they kept losing bristles on the cookies. (And on a total sidenote, later I noticed that the brushes were made out of horsehair! Ack!!! So I checked all the cookies again, and threw away two that looked like they might've had a bit of a brush bristle on them, but I'd already given some away. Sorry to those of you who ate those...hope you weren't vegetarians...)

So anyway, this time I used a basting brush to brush the tempera on, and it went pretty quickly since I was doing hearts. I think it would be a little tricky to use a basting brush if you wanted to do more intricate cookies, but it might still work. What's brilliant about using tempera instead of frosting is that since you apply the tempera before baking there's no need to wait for cookies to cool before you frost them, or for frosting to harden before you can stack them. I rolled out, cut, painted, baked, and cooled them all, and had them in a container less than an hour after I started pre-heating the oven, which isn't bad for almost seven dozen cookies!

Because the tempera lends a bit of crustiness to the top of them they taste more like a shortbread cookie than a butter cookie, but I kind of like that, because I think you can taste the actual buttery, flaky cookie more than when you smother them in frosting and they become just another sweet treat. My valentine definitely likes them this way, that's for sure!

Egg Tempera
(makes enough to top about 40 two-inch cookies)

1 large egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon water
2 drops vanilla extract
3-5 drops food coloring

In a small bowl stir together the egg yolk, water, vanilla, and food coloring until it's all evenly colored and slightly fluffy. Brush a thin layer over the top of butter or sugar cookies, sprinkle with sugar, and bake as directed. The tempera doesn't expand a lot, so don't use it on cookies that rise substantially, it will just crack. Also make sure that you only put a very thin layer on the top of the cookies, if you get it too thick it'll run off the cookies while they're baking and smell eggy, which is just weird! Let the cookies cool for a minute or two after they come out of the oven, then stack and store them in an airtight container. I also wouldn't recommend the tempera technique if you're trying for pastel shades, because the egg yolk is so bright to begin with that you have to put quite a bit of food coloring to dilute the yellowness.

P.S. Before I get any comments from the peanut gallery...Noel is definitely staying in my top five! It's the cookies/pizza that might be negotiable!