Butter cookies with churrera

These butter cookies are made with our churrera , how do you like it? A churrera is very similar to a cookie gun in its operation: a tube with a plunger that pushes the dough through a die. A little strength and little mystery.

These cookies are what has always been called tea cakes , with a sandy consistency that melts in the mouth due to the huge amounts of butter they contain. Delicious and also leave a scent at home that makes the whole neighborhood happy.

We give you some tricks to make them come out perfect, following the recipe from one of my favorite websites, Serious Eats :

1. You have to aerate the butter with the sugar a lot and continue aerating after incorporating the egg.
2. However, the flour should be mixed by hand, with a silicone spatula .
3. If we want to curl the curl (because we are worth it), we will previously put the trays that we are going to use for baking in the fridge and, in any case, we will not use mats or baking paper, but the greased tray, without more.

And I add:

1. It is important that the butter and the egg are at a similar temperature. The egg should not be cold from the fridge.
2. We will test the consistency of the dough after adding the flour; if it is too sticky we will have to add flour one tablespoon at a time.

ILSA metal crock pot , KitchenAid Artisan robot bowl, T&G acacia wood tray and Laura Ashley espresso cups with saucers

Ingredients ( for about 30 pastries, depending on size)

• 225g butter, softened, but not softened
• 200 g of white sugar
• 1 egg at room temperature
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 5g of salt
• 350 g pastry flour

Elaboration

1. Heat the oven to 175° and put two or three baking trays in the fridge.
2. Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of a robot kneader with a shovel. We beat at high speed until it increases in volume and whiten, at least 7 minutes. The mixture must remain matte at all times , with the butter not melting. Be careful in summer, because if the mixture starts to shine, we will put the bowl in the fridge for a few minutes.
3. Add the egg and continue beating at high speed, scraping the walls from time to time so that it is perfectly homogeneous, again for 5 to 7 minutes, until a silky and airy dough is obtained.
4. Sift the flour and add it to the bowl. Mix very briefly with the robot, add the salt and vanilla , and finish mixing by hand, with a spatula .
5. Be careful, because the consistency of the dough is important so that the cookies are solid enough, they do not spread in the oven and they detach well from the gun. The dough should be adherent and very soft, but not stick excessively to the fingers when we touch it.
6. Once the desired consistency is achieved, with the spatula we load the churrera . Attach the desired die and place the lid.
7. We are forming the cookies on the refrigerated trays and only smeared with butter . This is the most delicate part: to form each pastry, you do not have to give a full stroke of the plunger, but only half, that is, with each full stroke of the plunger, two cookies can be formed.
8. You have to get the hang of it so that the sizes are even, but it is a matter of practice. And this dough has an advantage: if any cookie is horrible, we only have to remove the dough from the tray with a spatula and put it back in the churrera .
9. This churrera gun allows us to change the die without having finished all the dough that we have inside, at any time to make a different shape.
10. We will have to load the pistol several times, since the amount of mass of the recipe is greater than the capacity of the gadget.
11. We put the first tray in the oven and cook the cookies for 10-12 minutes depending on the strength of each oven, until they are golden brown around the edges. We take them out and with a metal spatula we transfer them to a rack .
12. We fill as many trays as necessary and cook the pasta in the same way.

These tea paste or butter cookies are addictive; Vanilla gives them a magnificent touch, although we can also flavor them with citrus zest, crushed very fine so that it does not bother when extruding the dough, or with cinnamon. Although I have made them very simple, we can also decorate the cookies with sprinkles, with chocolate noodles, with cherries in the center or bathe them in chocolate once they are cold. Do not say that we do not give you ideas.