Leopard print cookies

What’s your opinion on leopard pattern? Controversial as it is in the fashion world, I like to think about it more in terms of marketing and psychology (it reminds me of the beautiful archetypes of people living in caves and wearing animal skins). That said, I’m not sure if I’ve ever had something animal printed at home 🙂 Leopard print cookies are the rare exception as they are easy to make, taste heavenly and last, but not least – they are Oh so very photogenic!

Ingredients
600 g flour for butter biscuits (or just use an all-purpose one)
200 g powdered sugar
250 g butter
2 eggs
5 teaspoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda and 4 teaspoons of lemon juice
Pinch of salt
Cinnamon sugar
Natural vanilla (in case of emergency can be substituted by aroma)
(you can also substitute part of the flour by some almond flour, but I prefer the simpler version)

How to bake your very own leopard cookies.
Dough for these cookies is really easy to prepare. Easter is coming and so is my “annual fear of the Easter cake”, which may be one of the most complicated cakes I’ve ever made because of the yeast dough. The recipe and a looong report on this big favourite of mine is sure to come next month, complete with the 5-hours-to-make yeast dough. But first, let’s get back to our shortcrust pastry that is so super easy peasy in comparison.

Step 1
Mix flour, baking soda and salt in one bowl and beat the eggs with sugar, butter and lemon juice in another, larger bowl. Then stir the dry mix slowly into the larger bowl, until it all blends together and forms a smooth, buttery cookie dough.

Step 2
Now the cocoa magic comes. Take 1/3 from the dough and divide it into two parts, one slightly larger than the other. You want to get two shades of brown, so add a bit of cinnamon sugar and 1 spoon of cocoa to the smaller piece of dough to make it light brown and mix the rest of the cocoa powder with the bigger part to make it dark brown. Knead out cocoa dough, then take all 3 pieces, wrap each one in a plastic foil and put them into the fridge for 1 hour.

Step 4
Now follow closely. Take the darker cocoa dough and roll it into a long and narrow strip. Then form a cylinder of the same length from the light cocoa dough and wrap the light one into the dark one as if you were rolling a cigarette. Put your cigarette in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Step 5
And then time of figure cutting comes. Roll out the white dough, cut the 2-shaded dough into small pieces, put them on the white dough in a pattern that imitates leopard skin, cover with foil, slightly press and roll out again.

Then remove foil and cut printed dough with a round cookie cutter or just a simple glass. Put cookies on a track with baking paper and put into the oven preheated to 180°C for approx. 20 mins until cookies become golden.

Voila, that’s it 🙂
I just can’t stop looking at them. Maybe I was indeed too strict to the leopard pattern…