Hey yall! I wanted to quickly share with you my dummy dough! The business model of my cookie business requires me to frequently make up sample sets of cookies often weeks in advance of the approaching holiday. That way I can photograph them and post on social media what I'll be offering and can take pre-orders. Well what do you do with those Halloween cookies that you made the 3rd week of September? I often put them in the freezer and hope that someone calls me up in desperation for "whatever you've got!" or maybe sell them at a discount at Halloween. But often I'm left with cookies and it kills my soul to just throw them away. So I came up with a recipe that won't hurt my heart one bit to toss in the garbage. My gluten free ingredients are SO pricey so I'm super excited about this knock-off cookie. It's cheap and super quick- basically a variation of old school salt dough that you painted in elementary school!
Dummy Dough
3 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
1+ cup water.
Mix all ingredients until it forms a ball. Add a tad more water if it's not coming together. Roll, cut and bake immediately. Bake 6-8 minutes at 350 degrees. Be aware that if you over bake, the edges might curl and that of course doesn't provide a great surface for royal icing. Cool and ice as usual. And if you want you can even cut back on your royal icing for your sample photography cookies by not adding extracts and cutting back a TB or 2 on the meringue powder.
NOTE: These dummy cookies do have a slight flex and aren't as rigid as typical cookies. That is fine with me because it still provides a great surface for royal icing which will dry and still look great for photography. If you really want them rock hard you could cook them longer at a lower temperature and essentially dry them out like a traditional salt dough.
Now sit back and laugh when your husband eats one!
