Petite Treat Thursday: Vanilla Kisses with Raspberry Butter Cream

There is something about the individual serve that beckons us with its dual personality. On the one hand the single serve is a measure of control, 'oh yes, I'll just have one', we can say, comforted by the fact that once it is gone we have had our share of the goodness, the treat is over.
On the other hand the individual serve is decadent, it's all mine; this cupcake, this biscuit, this ice cream cone, is all mine and I'm not sharing because this is made for one. Just for me.
In honour of the petite treat and it's restrained decadence I am announcing a new theme for Thursdays:
Petite Treat Thursday.
Each week will feature a small treat, something small enough to not be a full blown indulgence but hedonistic enough to satiate our need, our right, to have a little pleasure, every day.

This inaugural Petite Treat Thursday is dedicated to my Dad. The recipe for these vanilla kisses is based on a biscuit recipe that he taught my sister and I to bake when we were little girls. I fondly remember Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons spent in the kitchen with my Dad and his cracked copy of the 'Australian and New Zealand Complete Cookery Book' deciphering imperial measurements into metric and beating butter, learning to watch how it creamed together with sugar to the right consistency before adding the next ingredients.
Daddy, I loved those moments, they are some of my favourite memories of childhood. During those times you taught Jess and I so much more than how to make shortbread or marshmallows; you taught us that patience  and hard work can turn something basic into something beautiful, that sometimes you can take a basic recipe and add your own flair, it is okay to wing it sometimes in fact it can lead to great discoveries (turquoise icing anyone?), and that at the end of the job it is essential to lick the bowl. Cook's treat of course! So Dad here is a little bit of something you taught me mixed with some things I've picked up on my own.

That's my Daddy!

Vanilla Kisses with Raspberry Butter Cream
Makes approximately 40 individual biscuits, so 20 kisses


Ingredients:
220 grams butter, softened
90 grams icing sugar
150 grams plain flour
125 grams cornflour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line two rimless baking sheets with baking parchment.
2. In a medium mixing bowl cream together butter and icing sugar until pale. Then mix in vanilla bean paste.
3. Add plain flour, cornflour and baking powder and beat until well combined.
4. Spoon into a large piping bag fitted with a medium star tip. Pipe stars onto baking sheets, leaving room for spreading.
5. Slide into oven and bake for about 15 minutes. Do not allow to brown, bases of biscuits should be just golden and tops still pale.
6. Allow to cool completely before sandwiching together biscuits with raspberry butter cream.

Just out of the oven.

Raspberry Butter Cream


Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons raspberry sauce or raspberry jam

Method:

1. Cream butter until soft and pale
2. Mix in icing sugar and sauce or jam until well combined.
3. Spoon a small amount onto one biscuit and place another on top, you now have a kiss!

Note: I used some organic raspberry sauce that was made from whole raspberries. We purchased it from our local farmer's market a little while ago. You can use jam with the same outcome.

My darling vegan friends please note that these can easily be made friendly by using a non dairy margarine, everyone needs petite treats!

Perfect with tea!

I hope you enjoy whatever petite treat you choose to have today.
These kisses are headed to work tomorrow, with one left for Dad to enjoy tonight!