The first time I saw this idea for matchstick cookies I knew I need to come up with an excuse to make them. Finally, Christmas is coming up and I’ve got my perfect reason!
Initially I thought about using a reference to the little match’s girl’s story and say I hope these matches make people’s wishes come true. Of course, that’s before I remembered…the poor little match girl ends up dying from the cold after striking her matches…hm…plan B!
I thought about packaging the cookies in handmade matchboxes…because…well, matches belong in matchboxes and that’s just how the universe works. Eventually, I did come to my senses that this probably wasn’t the most practical route. With the quantity I was doing, it’d take me literally days to get done and I can already see myself regretting and whining by about the second halfway through the first box.
So what’d I do? I ended up staying simple and put the cookies into little baggies in between Christmas cards to wish people a cozy Christmas. And the feedback was great! People loved the idea and how the cookies tasted!
I won’t lie to you, the matchsticks are labour-intensive. They’re easy to do, but labour-intensive nonetheless, so you probably should set aside a good half day or more if you’re making the whole recipe. The best thing about them though is that you get soooooo many from the recipe (I got 319 matchsticks), enough for all my Christmas cards plus a large box of leftovers for people at work! If you even it out, the time and energy spent isn’t bad at all. I hope that convinced you to give them a try! If not, I go back to my ultimate argument, matchstick cookies are meant to be made by you, says the universe. So there.
In a bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking soda.
In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on low until pale and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla extract and continue beating on low until well combined. With the mixer running, slowly add the flour mixture and mix until the dough looks well incorporated.
Divide the dough into two portions and wrap them individually with plastic wrap. Flatten the dough into a disc shape and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 1 day.
Remove one disc from the refrigerator and place on a lightly-floured surface. Roll the dough out to ¼ inch (1 cm) thickness evenly, adding a little more flour as necessary to prevent the dough from sticking.
Preheat the oven to 375F.
Cut the dough into matchsticks around 5cm long and .5 cm width and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet, leaving some room in between each matchstick as they spread a little when baking. Re-roll the leftover dough and cut out as many matchsticks as much as possible. Repeat with the second disc of dough. Once you have filled a baking sheet, place the cookies in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to prevent the cookies from spreading too much when they are baked.
Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, keeping a close eye on them as they can quickly burn. For cookies with a little crunch, try 8-10 minutes. They’re ready when the bottom and edges brown slightly. For cookies that are softer and chewier, check them at around 6-8 minutes and take them out as soon as there’s any sign of browning at the bottom edges of the cookies. Leave them on the baking sheet to cool for 5 minutes before removing them onto a flat plate or cooling rack to cool completely.
For Icing:
Sift icing sugar into a bowl. Add corn syrup and milk and stir until thoroughly combined. Add food coloring until you reach the colour you like. I think I had to use about 1-2 tsp of red in mine. Add more milk (1 tsp at a time) to loosen up the mixture and stir until you reach a consistency of thick but dip-able icing.
When the cookies are completely cooled, take each cookie and dip one end into the icing so they look like matchsticks. Place them on parchment or wax paper for icing to set. After 15-20 minutes when the icing is kind of set (you’ll see that some of the icing has spread out, that’s normal), take each cookie and loosen it up from the parchment or wax paper to remove the cookie from the excess icing and place them on a clean sheet of parchment or wax paper and refrigerate to set completely.
Per each of 319 Cookies (leftover icing removed from calculation)
These look absolutely adorable! Perfect little Christmas treats 🙂 (Such a nice idea to send out cookies with your Christmas cards by the way, I’d never thought of that to be honest).
Flour adds fluff and texture to the cookies. Adding too little flour can cause cookies to be flat, greasy, and crispy. Most recipes assume you'll use all-purpose, but if you want a lighter, crumblier cookie texture, choose one with a lower protein content such as cake-and-pastry flour.
Put the cookie pieces together on the baking sheet.Gently mush the edges together to "glue" the cookies into each other as they bake. Sometimes gluing the cookies together is enough, if they are interlocked and share enough edges. Sometimes though... you need to add some "tape."
While there may be countless variations, each cookie at the core has four ingredients – butter, sugar, flour & eggs. The proportions of ingredients and the methods of mixing are what define our cookies. Dough spreads – Inside the hot oven, the butter starts to melt and the dough gradually starts to spread out.
What happens when you bake without brown sugar? To be succinct, the resulting baked good could be slightly drier or more crisp. Without the excess moisture from the molasses in the brown sugar, the final cookie won't be as chewy and the final bread might be drier.
Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.
Unsalted butter gives you complete control of the overall flavor of your recipe. This is especially important in certain baked goods where the pure, sweet cream flavor of butter is key (butter cookies or pound cakes). As it pertains to cooking, unsalted butter lets the real, natural flavor of your foods come through.
The reason oil is used in baking is to add and keep moisture in your baked goods. Oil essentially coats the flour, then traps the gasses produced by the chemical reaction of the leavening agent, slowing down the gluten formation and keeping your treats fluffy and delicate.
In that role, white sugar aerates the dough when creamed with butter for thick and puffy cookies. Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more.
When added to dough, baking soda releases a carbon dioxide gas which helps leaven the dough, creating a soft, fluffy cookie. Baking soda is generally used in recipes that contain an acidic ingredient such as vinegar, sour cream or citrus.
Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.
The lower the sugar, the less cookies spread, the drier/more crumbly they are. Cookies with less sugar taste less sweet, of course. But beyond that, their flavor also becomes flat; sugar is a flavor enhancer much like salt is.
Baking powder or flour in excess will cause cookies to rise more, making them more fluffy and cakey. Increased sugar will make them caramelize more and increased fat will make the dough heavier and richer, all increasing retention of water in the dough- these all add up to chewier cookies.
If your cookies come out of the oven looking flat, you may not have adequately chilled the dough before baking. Chilling times may vary depending on the cookie you're making, but you should typically chill cookie dough in the refrigerator for at least two hours before you pop it in the oven.
This may seem counterintuitive—after all, isn't flour a key ingredient in baking? Yes, but if you add too much flour, your cookies won't spread as they bake. Too much flour causes the dough to become dry and crumbly, which prevents it from flattening out during baking.
Introduction: My name is Trent Wehner, I am a talented, brainy, zealous, light, funny, gleaming, attractive person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
