This week, Roy is fulfilling a request from one of his friends. He has been asked several times how he makes the beautiful design on his shortbread cookies, and when he explained that he used a stamp, his friends asked him how to create one. Roy’s stamp was purchased many years ago, and is ceramic, but his friends wondered if he could make one. Roy looked for a dough recipe which would dry hard and be safe to use in making biscuits. He thought of salt dough, but was concerned that it might make the biscuits taste odd. Then he discovered this recipe for a baking soda clay. It was used in many blogs to make other things, but he wondered if it might work for a cookie stamp - it did. So this week, Roy Creates A Cookie Stamp.
You Will Need:
- 2 cups of baking soda
- 1 cup of corn flour
- 1 and ¼ cups of cold water
- Toothpicks, knifes, forks, cookie cutters, buttons, and all sorts of random shapes to make your stamp design!
Method:
- In a saucepan, mix together the baking soda, corn flour and water. Bring the mix to the boil.
- Stir constantly until the mix becomes a similar consistency to mashed potatoes (this will take only 1 or 2 minutes!)
- Transfer the dough to a bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and allow the dough to cool
- Knead the dough on a baking paper covered bench until it is a smooth consistency. If it is too sticky, add a little cornflour, if it is too dry add a little water.
- Roll the dough out about 2 centimetres thick on the baking paper and decide what size your stamps are going to be. Roy decided to make them the size of a wine glass, as this is what he always uses to cut his shortbread out!
- Use the glass to cut your stamp out. Remove the excess clay from around the stamp and set aside.
- Making sure to keep your design smaller than the size of the stamp you have chosen, create your stamp design. Roy wanted to make love hearts on his biscuits, so he pressed a small, love heart cookie cutter into the centre of the stamp (only about half way into the dough) and used a knife to cut some of the clay away from the outside of the cookie cutter. This left a raised heart in the centre. Be as creative as you like!
- Use the excess clay to make decorations or gift tags!
- Put the stamps in a dry place to dry out. Leave them to dry until they are completely hard – this could take 2 to 4 days.
- When the stamps are ready to use, make Roy’s Shortbread (the recipe is here), and follow the directions for stamping!