My Melody & Piano Strawberry Shortbread Cookies (icing-free)

Presenting My Melody and Piano strawberry shortbread cookies with no added icing and minimal artificial colouring! The kind of cookie for those who love the buttery aroma without the sugar overload :).

Ingredients (makes about twelve 6-7cm shortbread cookies):
Pink dough
50g icing sugar
100g unsalted butter, cut to small pieces (use good quality butter!)
135g plain flour
15g cornflour* (may replace with plain flour)
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp strawberry emulco/paste
2g Queen's natural sourced pink powder (optional)

White/yellow/black dough
15g icing sugar
30g unsalted butter, cut to small pieces
40g plain flour
5g corn flour (or plain flour)
Pinch of salt
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
Gel food colouring (if no natural sourced ones available, e.g. white colour)
1/8 tsp Queen's natural yellow color butter (optional)
1/8 tsp charcoal powder (optional)

* cornflour is used to make the cookie less tough but is optional to use.

Steps:
1. Prepare the pink dough. Sift together icing sugar, flours, salt and pink powder.

2. Cut the butter into the dry mixture and knead to form a dough. Add 1/4 tsp strawberry paste. Divide the pink dough into two. Colour one portion with another 1/8 tsp strawberry paste.

3. Prepare the white, yellow and black dough in a similar way. Portion out about 10g for yellow dough, 10g for black and keep the rest white or uncoloured.

4. Roll the pink dough to thickness of 5-6mm between two baking sheets. Roll the rest of the dough to 2-3mm thickness. Chill the dough in the freezer or fridge for at least 30 minutes or overnight.

5. Begin by cutting out the pink bases using  the homemade template. You may find it helpful to use freezer packs as your work surface to keep the dough firm for a longer time in hot Singapore. Place the cutouts on baking tray lined with baking sheet. Chill the whole tray in the fridge.

6. In a separate baking tray, cut out the white faces using plastic template. Chill the white bases in the freezer for 15 minutes before proceeding with cutting out the facial features and sticking them on. I made an "O" mouth for My Melody at first but the requester wanted it changed to a smile. I managed to make the change after baking. You may find the mouths too fine to cut out from the dough. Piping them in after baking is much easier as I have found out.

Freeze the completed faces until firm.

7. Carefully transfer the face onto the pink base. Add on the flower for My Melody.

8. Preheat the oven to 150°C and set the rack to second lowest position. Freeze the tray of dough cutouts until oven temperature is stable. Bake for 15-17 minutes, rotating the tray about 10 minutes into baking time. Keep a close eye on the cookies! Once the bottom appears a little brown, remove from the oven or the cookies will appear brown. I accidentally browned a few cookies and had to rebake.

9. Cool the cookies on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

10. Prepare a black paste made of about 1tsp cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp charcoal powder and enough hot water to get a toothpaste consistency. Transfer to piping/zip lock bag with a small hole cut. Pipe out the smiley mouth. Dry in oven at 60°C fan mode for about half an hour. Cool completely on cooling rack before storing in airtight container.

Looking sweet!

With love,
Phay Shing