Cook the Book: Gold Dust Cookies

Ingredients

• 0.5 teaspoon double-acting baking powder 
• 6 tablespoons butter soft
• 1 large eggs 
• 1.3 cups flour all-purpose
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or vanilla extract)
• 30 servings edible gold dust 
• 0.5 teaspoon salt 
• 0.5 cup caster sugar 

Equipment

• baking sheet
• baking paper
• oven
• wire rack
• plastic wrap
• spatula

Directions

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until whipped soft and pale, then beat in the egg, followed by the ginger (or vanilla), flour, baking powder and salt and continue mixing until it all comes together to make a soft dough.
2. Form into two discs, wrap each one in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator 20 to 30 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a cookie sheet or two with parchment paper.
4. Cut into shapes, dipping the cutter into flour as you go, and place the first cookies a little apart on the lined cookie sheet/s. Keep the scraps of the first disc, to mix with the scraps of the second and roll and cut, reroll and cut, until you've used up the mixture. This is a wonderfully pliable dough, which makes it an unstressful joy to work with.
5. Bake in the oven 8 to 12 minutes: this depends on their shape, how many sheets are in the oven at the same time, and whether on the upper or lower shelf, though you can swap them around after about 5 minutes. When they're ready, expect them to be tinged a pronounced pale gold around the edges; they'll be softish still in the middle, but will harden on cooling.
6. Take the sheets out of the oven, remove the cookies, with a flat, preferably flexible spatula, to a wire rack and let cool.
7. Using a small (unused) paintbrush or eyeshadow brush, dip in the edible gold dust or glitter flakes, and give each cookie its gilded coating.