As you know, I'm a regular baker of Aine McAteer's choc chip cookies - they are heavenly. A few weeks ago, I bought gorgeous cookie cutters in Ikea - lots of animal shapes, including a beautiful reindeer. So I tried another of Aine's biscuit recipes, designed for cutting into shapes, but it didn't work out for me. I'm not sure if it's because I didn't have enough arrowroot for thickening (I had only a little bit left - the recipe calls for 2 tablespoons). Somehow, I don't think it would have made much difference. My dough was really sticky. I floured the surface, and I floured the rolling pin, but the dough stuck to everything. And when I tried to cut it, the shape fell apart straight away (I knew that was going to happen, but I had to try it anyway.) I don't come from a baking background (my mum is famous for burning pancake mix, and while my granny was a great cook, I don't remember how she made her pastry for fruit tarts - I wasn't much of an assistant in her kitchen), so I have no idea how to roll pastry, or how to get it to the right consistency.
There are plenty of websites with information on this of course. I have found this one that says that the dough should be chilled in the fridge first - that might help. But their dough looks a lot firmer than mine, even before it goes into the fridge. Mine is quite elastic and definitely very sticky (and delicious to eat raw - no egg, so it's all right - really reminds me of my childhood). The mix for this recipe is slightly different from the chocolate chip cookie recipe, but maybe I should add more flour? In the end, I dropped the dough onto my baking trays and baked it anyway. Very nice taste, but I would really like to use my cookie cutters!
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