Stamped Rolling Pin Sugar Cookies

For my birthday, my amazing sister-in-law brought me this totally gorgeous rolling pin all the way from Poland. I had seen plenty of these before (though never one so pretty) but hadn’t ever used one. Of course, I had to get to work right away making some cookies. I’ll give you my recipe plus a few tips on how to use one (because it took me a minute to master it).

The Classic Stamped Sugar Cookie Recipe

According to the box, this is the cookie recipe to use with this rolling pin. Who was I to argue? I just converted the measurements as best I could from metric and here’s what I’ve got:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1-1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1 egg
• 1-1/2 teaspoons almond extract
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3-1/3 cups flour

It’s a pretty simple recipe. Just cream together the butter and confectioners’ sugar. Then add in the egg and almond extract and beat until nice and light. Mix in your salt and flour until combined and you’re done!

Roll out the dough until nice and thin with a regular rolling pin – I’d say somewhere between a quarter and an eight inch thick. Then go over with the stamped rolling pin and cut out shapes with any cutter you like (I just used a basic round one). Pop in the oven at 375ºF for about ten minutes (or golden brown). Done!

Chocolate Stamped Cookies

Of course, I couldn’t just stop with almond cutouts, I had to try some chocolate ones, too. For a while, I was really wracking my brain if my family’s regular chocolate cutout recipe would suffice. Then I was frantically googling recipes. In the end, the answer was right under my nose. Truly. My friend got me Bravetart for my birthday and on the cover are stamped sandwich cookies. I gave those a shot. Here’s the recipe:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/4 cups flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder

To make these, combine the butter, sugar, syrup, salt, baking soda and salt together in a stand mixer. Beat until fluffy – about five minutes. Scrape the sides and then gradually add the dry ingredients.

It will look pretty dry at first, but if you keep it going with the mixer, it will smooth out.

Bake at 350ºF for 10-15 minutes.

Some Stamped Rolling Pin Tips

I’ll tell you right now that using this rolling pin took a little practice, but I think the effect is worth it. So just follow these tips and you’ll be on your way to some darn pretty cookies.

• Don’t chill the dough. I know. This goes against everything you’ve ever learned about rolling out cookies, but with this recipe, it’s best to just work with the dough right out of the bowl. Chilled it’s just too crumbly and the dough really wants to pull up with the decorative rolling pin.
• Give the pin a dusting.Like with any cutout cookies, you should give the rolling pin a dusting of flour ahead of time. Same goes for this decorative rolling pin. Because this one has so many crevices, I took a clean (and never been used) paintbrush to get the flour into those nooks and crannies. It helps tremendously.
• Firmly press with the rolling pin. Cue this Spongebob clip. Then really do press down firmly to imprint the design. The more definition you have before going into the oven the better. You’ll end up with more distinctive cookies after baking.
• Be patient. Patience is not my strong suit, but it’s worth working on for these cookies. Until you get the dough the right temperature (I chilled my first and then learned from that mistake) and the pressure just right, these cookies can be a bit tricky. But once you get the technique down – it took me probably three or four passes – it gets much simpler.

Good luck with your fancy rolling pins!