Mini Mice Cookies and a Virtual Cookie Swap!

2010 Holiday Cookie Swap | Recipe 1

It’s the season and all that, and this year Lorna and Mum are heading to join us for Christmas in New York! I am very excited about having them here for the holidays and although I know it’s going to be a really rough time for all of us as it’s our first Christmas without Dad (Dad would also have been celebrating his 60th birthday December 22nd), I’m happy we will be spending it together.

As both Mum and Lorna will be here I thought this year that I might host a cookie swap but, as usual, I left it a bit late and I’m not sure people will have the time. I was hoping to invite 6-8 people over with their favorite cookies and the recipe. We’d all come away with some tasty cookies but I was also hoping to bake all the recipes in turn once a month, photograph them and post the recipes here on GF&H. As I said, this year it’s a bit late to do the party so instead I’m going to make this first annual GF&H Cookie Swap a virtual one and you are all invited! Send your recipes to us at greenfigsandham@gmail.com and once a month we will pick one to feature. Please remember to include a your name so we can attribute the recipe to you (and any source names if, for example, it’s from a recipe from a cookbook) and a web address if you’d like us to link back to your site if you have one.

Right, so I’m going to start with a recipe for mini mice cookies that I found in a Martha Stewart magazine. I’ve made some changes to the recipe because, firstly Martha’s version calls for licorice tails and neither of my girls like that, and secondly because I don’t have the time (or frankly the patience) for melting and piping chocolate for the eyes and mouth. I’m aware that Martha only needs 4 hours of sleep a night so she has the time but I need at least 8 to be human so I’m looking for short cuts where ever I can. Happy Holidays! – Melani

Mini Mice Cookies
makes about 30 mice

Okay this makes white mice, but if you want to make the chocolate ones too make an additional batch of dough but but reduce the flour to two and a half cups and add half a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder and increase the sugar to 1 full cup.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temp.
3/4 sugar
1 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
3/4 tsp salt
(Cocoa Powder if making brown mice)
Fruit leather or Liquorice
Sliced Almonds

For the icing

1/2 cup icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
1 teaspoon Golden syrup or honey
1 1/2 teaspoons water
Brown food coloring gel

Mix together the sugar, syrup and water to get icing. You can just use an icing bottle or just use a toothpick to apply it. Now the icing will be white so great for the chocolate mice but to get the brown for the white mice I just added brown gel food coloring (gel coloring is better as it won’t make the icing any runnier). If you do have the time you can melt chocolate and pipe it on for the eyes and mouth.

Mix the butter in and sugar together really well until it’s pale and fluffy, beat in the vanilla extract and then the egg, on low add the flour and salt a bit at a time until it’s mixed. Divide the dough in two and form into sausage shapes about the fatness of the mice, wrap in cling film and then pop them in the fridge for about an hour just to firm up a bit, or keep them this way until you are ready for them; up to about 3 days. If you leave them longer than an hour or two, make sure they’ll have time to warm up a bit or it’ll be like trying to mold rock. This time I made half of each color dough and put the rest in the freezer to see if I can make them again in a few weeks – I’ll let you know.

Put the oven on 350. Form the mice (they should be about 1 1/2 inches long), then push in two almond for the ears and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment and cook for about 18 – 20 minutes, turning once half way. While they are in the oven cut strips of fruit leather to size. Transfer them to a wire rack and while they are still warm push the fruit leather strips or liquorice tails into them. Make sure you do this while they are warm as once the cool they’ll just crack if you try do it then. Once they are cool add eyes and mouthes and voilà!