Sparkle Kitchen: Fairy Cookies
In Martin & Sylvia’s Halloween story "Part One: The Thinning of the Veils", the lucky pair attend a fairy ball for Halloween. Sylvia is enraptured as she explains some of the food there to her father.
“Do they have fairy cookies?” asked Daddy.
Sylvia’s eyes widened, “Yes – they’re the ones with sprinkles, right Martin?”
While spring fairies may be dainty and dine on polite, pastel tea cakes, I’ve always imagined that Halloween fairies are sassier stock. From the moment I first heard that line, I knew that—while the underlying treat might still be light and lemon-y—the frosting on those cookies had to be bright purple!
My take on fairy cookies features a lemon-cake-like-cookie (they’re a riff on “Black and Whites”), with blueberry frosting. In creating the frosting, I referenced Adventures in Cooking. She uses freeze-dried blueberries, which I couldn’t find in any of my local stores. Since I couldn’t find them, I figured that many of you might not be able to either, and I came up with a more common substitute—blueberry jam. As always when making butter-y frosting, it’s incredibly important to be sure your ingredients are at room temperature before you begin so that it doesn’t all separate.
Hope you and all your little fairies enjoy these!
Fairy Cookies with Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting
(Makes 12 cookies)
Ingredients
For the Cookies
¾ cup cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ stick butter
⅓ cup sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla
Zest from one lemon
Juice from half the lemon
1 egg
1 egg yolk
For the Frosting
1 stick butter
½ cup cream cheese
3 Tablespoons blueberry jam (pureed in a food processor if the jam has large chunks of blueberries)
⅔ cup powdered sugar
Sparkly sprinkles (optional, but awesome!)
Directions
For the Cookies
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. In another bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, and vanilla for a few minutes, until light and creamy. Add the lemon zest and juice, then the egg and the egg yolk. Last, mix in the flour a little at a time until it’s all incorporated.
Using a 1 ounce scoop and leaving lots of room in between, scoop balls of dough onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. I was able to get exactly 6 cookies on a normal baking sheet. It will look like they have too much room, but these cookies really spread.
Once the baking sheet is full, pop it into the freezer for 10 minutes, then into the oven for 10-12 minutes. They’re done when the utmost edge just barely starts to brown. Set cookies aside to cool completely.
For the Frosting
Using room temperature ingredients, beat together the butter and the cream cheese. Add the jam, mixing until the frosting is an even color. Lastly, slowly add the powdered sugar. Once the powdered sugar is mostly incorporated, turn your mixer up to a higher speed and whip the frosting for another minute or so.
Frost the cookies using whatever method you prefer. (I put the frosting into a sandwich bag and nip off a corner.) Then top the cookies with sparkly sprinkles, and wait for the fairies to show up!
Enjoy!
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About the Author
Meryl Carver-Allmond
The Sparkle Kitchen Series is created by Meryl Carver-Allmond.
Meryl lives in a hundred-year-old house near the prairie with her sweet husband, two preschoolers, one puppy, one gecko, and about ten chickens. While she's been writing since she could pick up a pen, in recent years she's discovered the joy of photography, too. She feels lucky to be able to combine those skills, along with a third passion — showing people that cooking for themselves can be healthy and fun — in her Sparkle Kitchen posts.
