Yeast Dough Easter Cookies

The hyacinths, among other flowers, are blooming beautifully in my garden right now, and I couldn't resist using them as a backdrop for my photos. Yeast dough bunnies, lambs, eggs and chicks seemed like the perfect subjects to photograph.

These are a slightly different kind of Easter cookie. Thanks to the yeast dough, they aren't as caloric as, say, shortbread cookies, and they are just as much fun :)

Yeast Dough Easter Cookies

While making them, I was a little afraid they wouldn't hold their shape. But I think you can recognize all the shapes I cut out together with my kids quite well.

This dough is easy to work with and easy to cut. Like most baked goods made with yeast dough, these cookies are best fresh, right after baking. You can basically think of them as a small snack or a not-so-sweet treat to go with tea.

I got about 100 cookies out of this, so I froze half of them right away. The number depends on the size of your cookie cutters, though.

Instructions:

Mix the flour, almonds, salt, yeast, sugar and vanilla sugar (or extract) together in a bowl. Warm the milk slightly (pour about 2 tbsp into a small bowl), then combine it with 2 eggs and the butter and mix until you have a smooth dough. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and set it aside to rise for about 30 minutes, until the dough doubles in volume. After that time, turn the dough out of the bowl onto a floured counter, knead it, shape it into a ball and divide it into 2 parts. Roll out the first part to a thickness of 1 cm and cut out any shapes you like, placing the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (when you've used up all the dough, do the same with the remaining half).

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Mix the egg yolk with 2 tbsp of milk and brush it over the cookies. Decorate them, for example by making eyes out of raisins or dried cranberries, and bake on the middle rack of the oven for 15-20 minutes. Let them cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!