Sweet & savory german cookies

When everyone is relaxing having done their 'bah bah sheep' cookies marathon, here I am just starting to burn midnight oil baking my version of CNY cookies. The pre-CNY period is usually quite busy as I tend to my businesses, ie 128 boutique and the organic shop, Just Health. CNY is usually the busiest period for us, but we never complain, cos it's a good sign. Due to time constraint, I am not gonna shape the cookies into sheeps nor any other animals' shape. They are just gonna be the conventional shape. This round, I made some sweet ones, using the same old recipe I've been using for these melt-in-the-mouth German cookies, and I have also made some savory ones, recipe adapted from Joyce's cream cookies cookies. I do like the savory ones cos they are not that sweet, yet its creamy and savory notes make it morish. I felt it would be a great gift to my in-laws as they don't favor sweet stuffs. Best of all, I wouldn't have problem letting my little fella munching on them when we are at the in-law's cos they are made by myself with less butter and less sugar, so they pass the 'toddler' cookies requirement. 

I have made these in different colors. Now that the little fella is at the age where he's recognizing colors, shapes and alphabets, I thought I could use this as an opportunity to reinforce his color recognition. For the pretty fuschia pink color ones (it was intended to be a light pink, I guess I went OD a little on the food coloring) I added about 2 drops of red food coloring onto half of the cookie dough. For the brownish color ones, I added about 2tsp of cocoa powder into the dough. 

Here are the recipes for the savory cream cheese german cookies. adapted from Joyce's 

Ingredients (makes about 70-80 small cookies) 

• 250g salted butter, room temperature (I used 220g unsalted butter and added 2tsp salt to it) 
• 50g icing sugar (I used brown sugar which I have blitzed into powder form) 
• 100g cream cheese, room temperature (I used 120g cream cheese) 
• 250g potato flour/ potato startch 
• 160g all purpose flour (I used Japanese superfine flour) 
• 2tsp black sesame 

For the sweet german cookies, here's the recipe I've always been using, from my old post: 

• 125g unsalted butter, chopped
• 40g icing sugar (I used brown sugar which I have blitzed into powder form) 
• 125g potato flour
• 80g all purpose flour (I used Japanese superfine flour)

Method

1. Beat butter and sugar till fluffy
2. Sift in potato flour and superfine flour, mix to form a soft dough. 
3. Roll into small balls (about 2cm in diameter), arrange on baking tray and press lightly with a fork, dip the fork in water so the cookie dough wont stick to the fork). 
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 165degC for 15min. 

He loved the colorful cookies, he kept on stealing from my baking tray. 

I'm linking this post to Cook and Celebrate: CNY 2015, organized by Yen from Eat Your Heart Out, Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe, and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids.