I have been trying to master the piped cookies for quite a while now, tried and failed many recipes until i came up with this . The key to these piped beauty’s are equal amount of butter and flour,these together create a delicious soft crumbly and melt in you mouth cookie.

Well these is nothing more to say about these,the pictures talk by them self and try are enough to get your taste buds tingling.

Are you ready for a mouth water ride . Let GOO..

Chocolate Shell Butter Cookies Ingredients 25o grams soft unsalted butter

60 grams icing sugar

220 grams all-purpose flower

30 grams cornflour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

1/2 teaspoon any flavorless oil

4 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped Directions Preheat oven to 170ºC . Position a wire rack in the middle of the oven. Grease 2 cookie sheets with 1/2 teaspoon oil and line with parchment paper (see below for method before placing parchment paper on baking sheets. In a large bowl put in soften butter using a hand held beater, beat the butter for 3-4 minutes. Butter will double in volume and becomes light and fluffy. Add in the icing sugar and beat gagging for another 2 minutes. (the mixture will resemble a soft butter cream consistency) . Scrape down the sides of the bowl couple of time in between beating with a rubber spatula. To the butter mixture add in flour, cornflour and vanilla essence. Beat for another minute or until no visible dry patched are seen. Spoon the cookie batter into a piping bag fitted with a large star tip nozzle. Pipe shell like cookies with about 1 inc gap between. (detailed method on how to pipe is below). Once all the shells are piped chill in refrigerator for 10 minutes so that the shape maintains while baking. Bake one baking sheet at a time. Place the baking sheet in the center of the oven for 10- 13 minutes or until golden brown. After 10 minutes of baking keep an eye on the cookies as the burn very quickly. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat until all the cookies are baked. For dipping To melt chocolate, place chopped chocolate in a wide and shallow bowl and put it in the microwave . Heat on medium high heat for 30 seconds to start with remove from microwave and stir well (stirring is important as the microwave heats unevenly and you could burn the chocolate easily.) Repeat heating of 15 seconds intervals,string between each interval until the chocolate has melted. Transfer the melted chocolate into a small and shallow bowl or container, dip each cookie half way into the melted chocolate and place on parchment paper to set.

Here are 2 options to pipe these cookies.

To create shell shaped cookies.

Each shell should be about 4 cm long , to make each shell same with a pencil draw 4 cm lines on the parchment paper before lining the baking sheet. Be sure to flip the parchment paper upside down to the pencil lines are on the bottom and does not touch the cookie. Start by holding the bag 45 at 6:00 with the tip slightly above the surface. Squeeze hard, letting the dough fan out a little as it will force the tip up. Gradually release pressure as you lover the tip. Pill the bag towards you until tip reaches the end of the line you have drawn and you have created a tip at the end. Repeat with all the cookies .

To create ring cookies.