We put some serious effort into baking these stylish cookies for White Day, which is a Japanese holiday on March 14 for men to give gifts to the women whom they received chocolate from on Valentine's Day.
"Sunshi" (寸志) is a small gift of appreciation given without reference to a specific occasion. "Noshi" (熨斗) is a decorative element, often a strip of white paper, attached to a gift. A "noshibukuro" (のし袋) is a folded paper envelope used to enclose gift money.
They're harder than usual so that the stamped letters appear distinctly. They have a crispy texture rather than crunchiness. You don't have to follow this recipe but can try with any kind of cookie that you like! You should probably decide what size of cookie to make based on what bag you intend to wrap them with. Or you could skip the letter stamps and just write everything on the wrapping!
Recipe (8.5cm x 5 cm, makes eight)
1. Add 30g of salted butter and 75g of condensed milk to a heat-resistant bowl and warm in a microwave (600w) for about 1 minute or until the butter melts.
2. Sift 55g of cake flour and 55g of corn starch into the bowl
3. Mix thoroughly and roll together.
4. Spread to a thickness of about 3 mm and chill.
5. Cut to your desired shape. If you make large shapes, the cookies may bulge while baking. You can prevent this by opening air holes with a toothpick or skewer.
6. Press cookies with a stamp. (If you dust the stamp with flour, it won't stick to the dough.)
7. In an oven preheated to 160°C, bake for 10 minutes before lowering the temperature to 150°C and baking for 10 more minutes. Remove before cookies become too brown and chill.
8. Wrap your cookies.
9. Give your cookies to the recipient. If you have a lot of people asking you "What's 'sunshi'?" you can say "It's a thank you gift." We used cookie stamps that weren't compatible with vertical writing, so I felt like stamping them one at a time would be really annoying.
いつもどおり真面目に不真面目な妄想グルメ、シャレの利いたクッキーを焼いてみました。小さな文字スタンプでも、くっきり見えるようにいつもより かためのクッキーです。サクサクではなくポリポリとした食感になります。このレシピにとらわれず、お好みのクッキー生地で作ってみてください。ラッピングの袋に合わせてクッキーの大きさを決めるとよいと思います。クッキースタンプを使わずに全部ラッピングに書いちゃう！っていうのもありかも。寸志とか熨斗（のし）袋って外国の人に伝わるかな？
*レシピ*（8.5✕5センチ 8枚）
１．耐熱ボウルに有塩バター 30gと練乳 75gを入れ、600wの電子レンジで約1分加熱して、バターを溶かす。
２．薄力粉 55g、コーンスターチ 55gを合わせてフルイ入れる。
３．混ぜ合わせ、ひとまとめにする。
４．3ミリほどの薄目の厚さに伸ばす。冷ます。
５．お好みの大きさに型抜きする。大きめの場合は、部分的に膨らみが できやすいので楊枝などで空気穴を空けるとよい。
６．スタンプを押す。（型やスタンプは、薄力粉をつけると抜きやすい。）
７．160度に予熱したオーブンで10分、150度に下げて10分、焼き色がつきすぎないように焼く。冷ます。
８．ラッピングをする。
９．あげる。“すんし”ってなに？となるメンバーが多い場合には“おれい”にするといいです。縦書き対応のクッキースタンプじゃなかったので、ひとつひとつ押すのがすごくイライラになりそうでした。
