Vanilla cookie buttons with strawberry icing and being tricked by my memory

I don’t know about you, but sometimes my mind plays tricks on me and I just can’t trust my memory. I was listening to “Never” the other day when my husband asked whose song that was. I told him it was Heart’s and said “remember that band from the 80s formed exclusively by girls?”, but he had no recollection of it. Then I decided to show him the music video, and there was a man playing the drums and another playing the guitar. “I could have sworn there were only girls on this band”, I said, and the hubby stared laughing. :D

Having too many cookbooks can wreck someone’s memory as well – thank heavens for EYB. I set up to make Nancy Baggett’s beautiful cookies – I was thrilled with the idea of a pink icing made without artificial food coloring – but really could not wait 6 hours for the cookie dough to chill (who has that kind of time these days? Not me). Ok, I’d slather the icing onto someone else’s vanilla cookies. As usual, I reached for Martha, but rolling cookie dough was definitely out of the question. I knew I’d seen drop sugar cookies somewhere, but my memory had already been tricked by people with big hair, I could not trust it. :) EYB helped my find John Barricelli’s super easy recipe, which I modified slightly for I did not want the cookies to spread – it turned out perfect.

Vanilla cookie buttons with strawberry icing
adapted from two great sources: The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook and The All-American Dessert Book

Cookies:
2 cups (280g) all purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
½ cup (113g/1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup + 2 tablespoons (175g) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg

Icing:
½ cup strawberries
2 cups (280g) icing sugar
1 tablespoon (14g) unsalted butter, very soft but not melted
generous ½ tablespoon corn syrup

Make the cookies: preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Using an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and creamy. Beat in the egg. At low speed, beat in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Make balls using 1 ½ teaspoons of dough and place 2.5cm (1in) apart onto prepared sheets. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden on the bottom. Cool on the sheets for 2-3 minutes, then slide the paper with the cookies onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Icing: Sift the icing sugar in a medium bowl. In a food processor, process the strawberries with 2 tablespoons of the icing sugar until puréed. Press the mixture through a fine sieve to extract as much of the strawberry pulp and juice as possible. Add 2 tablespoons of the strawberry pulp to the icing sugar, with the butter and corn syrup and mix to combine. Gradually add more strawberry pulp, mixing until desired consistency.
Dip the top of the cookies into the icing and place them onto a wire rack for the icing to set, about 2 hours – there might be some icing left.

Makes about 70