Mushroom Cookies

My mom found the recipe for Mushrooms cookies back in the 70s of the last century in the magazine "Week" in the section "Culinary hoaxes". And to this day, it remains one of my favorite home-baked recipes (although I do it and only on special occasions). I even successfully participated in a culinary competition with him in 2012. True, to prepare it, you will have to spend a couple of hours. But the investment of time will certainly pay off. Such cookies of an unusual shape invariably cause surprise and delight in children. Bake it with them for any holiday in kindergarten or school (you can even ahead of time - it is stored for quite a long time). The structure of the dough is dense, but not tough, and the cocoa, which covers the caps of the mushrooms, and the sugar syrup, which the legs stick together, give it a special taste.

Ingredients

• To simulate land:
• poppy
• For syrup and glaze:
• granulated sugar - ½ thin glass
• water - 3 tbsp. l.
• cocoa powder - 1 tsp. with a middle slide
• For the test:
• granulated sugar - 2 thin glasses
• eggs - 1 large (weighing about 65-68 g)
• butter - 200 g
• sour cream 18-20% fat - 200 g
• salt - a pinch
• baking powder - 2 tsp.
• premium wheat flour - about 5 glasses

Directions

1. Take the butter out of the refrigerator in advance (2-3 hours before cooking the cookies) to make it very soft, creamy, or soften it in the microwave just before cooking.
2. Turn on the oven and heat it to number 3 (about 170 ° C).
3. In a separate bowl, mash the egg with all the sugar for the dough with a spoon or beat with a mixer with ordinary whisks to foam, add softened butter, sour cream, a pinch of salt to it. Mix everything with a mixer and change the usual beaters to beaters for yeast dough.
4. Add sifted flour to the resulting mixture
5. In the resulting mixture, gradually add the sifted flour with 2 teaspoons of baking powder. At the end of the cooking process, the dough can be mixed with your hands, the finished cookie dough Mushrooms should not stick to them.
6. We form dough blanks for making cookies
7. Divide the dough into two equal parts and roll out one of them in the form of a sausage Ø 1.5-2 cm.Cut it into equal pieces about 2 cm wide.
8. Roll up balls from the dough and make a depression
9. Roll a ball out of each piece, flatten it on one side and make a depression there with your finger. To prevent the indentation from swelling when baking, insert a small lump of non-stick baking paper (parchment) into it.
10. Line a large aluminum baking sheet (21x32cm, 5cm high) or any similar or larger non-stick baking paper.
11. We spread the dough blanks on a baking sheet
12. Place the mushroom caps evenly on it at a distance from each other, place in the oven and bake at number 3 (about 170 ° C) for about 25 minutes.
13. Let the finished products cool slightly, then remove them from the baking sheet and place them on a flat surface so that they do not deform.
14. We form a mushroom leg from the dough
15. From the remaining half of the dough, also roll a sausage Ø 1.5-2 cm. And cut it into equal pieces about 2 cm wide. Shape each piece into a mushroom leg shape and cut it in half.
16. We bake dough pieces
17. Place the halves of the legs on a used baking sheet with non-stick paper, place in the oven and bake at number 3 (about 170 ° C) for about 15-20 minutes.
18. Cooling ready-made blanks for making dessert
19. Cool the finished halves on a flat surface, sort by shape and size so that they fit in pairs.
20. Cooking syrup for gluing parts of mushrooms
21. Start preparing the syrup for gluing parts of the mushrooms. To do this, in a separate saucepan with a thick bottom, bring to a boil ½ cup granulated sugar and 3 tbsp. tablespoons of water, remove the foam from it and boil until a medium-thick syrup is obtained (when large bubbles appear on its surface). The whole process can take about 7 minutes.
22. Lubricate halves of mushroom legs with hot syrup
23. In pairs, grease the halves of the mushroom legs with hot syrup and immediately glue them together.
24. To make cookies, dip the finished leg in poppy seeds
25. Then dip each finished leg in syrup and then in poppy, imitating earth.
26. We form cookies Mushrooms
27. Pick up the caps that are suitable for the legs, pour syrup into the recess of each and immediately insert the stem of the mushroom into it. Slightly press the cap against the leg with your hands so that the syrup grasps slightly. Place the finished mushrooms on a large plate or other flat surface, feet up, and let dry slightly.
28. Dip Mushroom cookies in cocoa syrup
29. In the remaining syrup, put 1 teaspoon of medium top cocoa and a little water (if the syrup has become too thick), boil, stirring occasionally, for 1-2 minutes. Taking the mushroom by the stem, dip the top of its cap in cocoa syrup, let the excess drain off and lay the finished mushroom on its side, letting the glaze dry.
30. Serve ready-made Mushroom cookies to the table, and store "unclaimed" cookies in an open container (then it will dry out and be crispy) or in a sealed container (to make it softer) at room temperature for about 3-5 days.