Kim-Joy shares a paw-some recipe for the most adorable shortbread kitties.
You don’t need many ingredients or much time on your hands to create the most buttery and adorable shortbread kitties. And just like real calico kitties and their beautiful tri-colour fur, each one is unique and totally down to how you marble the dough and where YOU place the cutter! Can be made vegan and/or gluten-free.
Makes: around 30 small cats
Ingredients
- 200g [¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons] salted butter, at room temperature, cubed (or vegan butter – use one that’s close to 80% fat content)
- 85g [½ cup minus 1 tablespoon] caster or granulated sugar
- 280g [2 cups plus 2 tablespoons] plain [all-purpose] flour, plus extra for dusting (to make gluten free, substitute with a gluten free plain flour blend plus ¾ teaspoons xanthan gum)
- Orange gel food dye
- ½ teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
Method
- Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper or a silicone mat.
- Beat together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until smooth and spreadable.
- Add the flour (plus xanthan gum, if gluten-free) and mix until just combined. The dough should be slightly sticky, but soft and easy to handle.
- Pinch off 2 x 35g [1¼ ounces] pieces of dough and set aside the remaining larger piece. Mix orange food dye into one of the small pieces and cocoa powder into the other.
- If the dough feels too warm or soft, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it in the fridge for 15 to 30 minutes until firm enough to roll out.
- Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and roll the large plain piece of dough out to around 5mm [¼ inch] thick. Press in pieces of the orange and brown dough all over randomly, then roll out again until around 4mm [6 inches] thick. Cut out cat shapes using cutters, then transfer to the prepared baking sheets. You will have some leftover dough, so press this together and roll out again, being careful to prevent the colours from merging too much.
- Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, or in the freezer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160°C [325°F/Gas mark 3].
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until just ever so lightly browned at the edges. Leave to cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheets, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Store in an airtight container for 1 to 2 weeks.
© Bake Me a Cat by Kim-Joy (Quadrille, £16.99) Photographer: Ellis Parrinder
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