The first time I saw this idea for matchstick cookies I knew I need to come up with an excuse to make them. Finally, Christmas is coming up and I’ve got my perfect reason!
Initially I thought about using a reference to the little match’s girl’s story and say I hope these matches make people’s wishes come true. Of course, that’s before I remembered…the poor little match girl ends up dying from the cold after striking her matches…hm…plan B!
I thought about packaging the cookies in handmade matchboxes…because…well, matches belong in matchboxes and that’s just how the universe works. Eventually, I did come to my senses that this probably wasn’t the most practical route. With the quantity I was doing, it’d take me literally days to get done and I can already see myself regretting and whining by about the second halfway through the first box.
So what’d I do? I ended up staying simple and put the cookies into little baggies in between Christmas cards to wish people a cozy Christmas. And the feedback was great! People loved the idea and how the cookies tasted!
I won’t lie to you, the matchsticks are labour-intensive. They’re easy to do, but labour-intensive nonetheless, so you probably should set aside a good half day or more if you’re making the whole recipe. The best thing about them though is that you get soooooo many from the recipe (I got 319 matchsticks), enough for all my Christmas cards plus a large box of leftovers for people at work! If you even it out, the time and energy spent isn’t bad at all. I hope that convinced you to give them a try! If not, I go back to my ultimate argument, matchstick cookies are meant to be made by you, says the universe. So there.
In a bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking soda.
In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on low until pale and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla extract and continue beating on low until well combined. With the mixer running, slowly add the flour mixture and mix until the dough looks well incorporated.
Divide the dough into two portions and wrap them individually with plastic wrap. Flatten the dough into a disc shape and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 1 day.
Remove one disc from the refrigerator and place on a lightly-floured surface. Roll the dough out to ¼ inch (1 cm) thickness evenly, adding a little more flour as necessary to prevent the dough from sticking.
Preheat the oven to 375F.
Cut the dough into matchsticks around 5cm long and .5 cm width and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet, leaving some room in between each matchstick as they spread a little when baking. Re-roll the leftover dough and cut out as many matchsticks as much as possible. Repeat with the second disc of dough. Once you have filled a baking sheet, place the cookies in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to prevent the cookies from spreading too much when they are baked.
Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, keeping a close eye on them as they can quickly burn. For cookies with a little crunch, try 8-10 minutes. They’re ready when the bottom and edges brown slightly. For cookies that are softer and chewier, check them at around 6-8 minutes and take them out as soon as there’s any sign of browning at the bottom edges of the cookies. Leave them on the baking sheet to cool for 5 minutes before removing them onto a flat plate or cooling rack to cool completely.
For Icing:
Sift icing sugar into a bowl. Add corn syrup and milk and stir until thoroughly combined. Add food coloring until you reach the colour you like. I think I had to use about 1-2 tsp of red in mine. Add more milk (1 tsp at a time) to loosen up the mixture and stir until you reach a consistency of thick but dip-able icing.
When the cookies are completely cooled, take each cookie and dip one end into the icing so they look like matchsticks. Place them on parchment or wax paper for icing to set. After 15-20 minutes when the icing is kind of set (you’ll see that some of the icing has spread out, that’s normal), take each cookie and loosen it up from the parchment or wax paper to remove the cookie from the excess icing and place them on a clean sheet of parchment or wax paper and refrigerate to set completely.
Per each of 319 Cookies (leftover icing removed from calculation)
Very clever idea! Thank you! 🙂
these look like a lot of work, but they are very cute 🙂
You have a very pretty blog there! Love it! 🙂
Those are so cute! Check out our blog for some great treats! 🙂
Love this recipe! Will be linking back to this in my upcoming post 🙂
These look absolutely adorable! Perfect little Christmas treats 🙂 (Such a nice idea to send out cookies with your Christmas cards by the way, I’d never thought of that to be honest).
While there may be countless variations, each cookie at the core has four ingredients – butter, sugar, flour & eggs. The proportions of ingredients and the methods of mixing are what define our cookies. Dough spreads – Inside the hot oven, the butter starts to melt and the dough gradually starts to spread out.
Flour is the main ingredient that provides structure in a cookie – without it, there would be no cookie! The gluten in flour forms a web of sorts – the framework that catches the air bubbles/gasses given off during rising. This helps provide the structure.
Baking Powder. The type of leavening you use in your cookies doesn't just help them rise while baking, it affects their texture and structure too. Baking soda in cookies yields a denser cookie with craggy tops, while baking powder causes cookies to rise higher during baking for a cakier texture.
1. Cookies. Cornstarch does kind of incredible things to cookies. I mean not only does it give them soft centers, prevents them from spreading, and makes them somewhat thick (in a good way), but it also contributes to the chewiness factor, which, in my opinion, is the most important cookie attribute.
Room temperature butter is just the right consistency to incorporate air when it's creamed with sugar. These trapped air pockets result in risen, fluffy cookies. If the butter is any warmer, it won't incorporate enough air and your cookies will have less rise.
In that role, white sugar aerates the dough when creamed with butter for thick and puffy cookies. Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more.
Here's a baker's trick you'll find in our new Monster Cookies recipe: Adding a piece of fresh white bread to the storage container will keep cookies from becoming hard or stale.
Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.
There are a few ways to keep cookies chewy and soft. Store them at room temperature in an airtight container. If you notice the cookies are starting to harden, add a slice of bread or a few marshmallows to the bag, the moisture from the bread or marshmallows should soften the cookies within a few hours.
If you enjoy your cookies soft and chewy, chances are likely the recipe contains a common ingredient that serves a very specific purpose. No, it's not granulated sugar, nor the butter. It's not the egg, all-purpose flour, or even the vanilla extract. The simple, yet oh-so-necessary component is cornstarch.
What happens when you bake without brown sugar? To be succinct, the resulting baked good could be slightly drier or more crisp. Without the excess moisture from the molasses in the brown sugar, the final cookie won't be as chewy and the final bread might be drier.
If you prefer your cookies chewy rather than crispy, adding extra yolks will create a softer and more tender final product, and you can even save the extra whites for another dessert or dish. For best results, Serious Eats recommends adding one extra yolk per whole egg that your cookie recipe calls for.
Cream of tartar makes cookies chewy, as it precludes the sugar in the dough from crystalizing, which would lead to crispiness (ie: the opposite of chewiness).
What does cornstarch do in cookies? Like in this case, when the amount of cornstarch is higher than the flour, the texture of the cookies will get more crumbly, favoring that melt-in-the-mouth texture that we all love.
Bread, cookie, muffin, and cake are the most common baked goods. The major components responsible for the texture, flavor, and visual appearance of most bakery items are flour, water, and leavening agents.
Introduction: My name is Tish Haag, I am a excited, delightful, curious, beautiful, agreeable, enchanting, fancy person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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