Melting Moments cookies are the most popular cookies on every festive occasion. We make it for every Christmas and Chinese New Year and pack it in small boxes as a present to people and friends. There was once we even made some extra to sell.

Our melting moment consists of only five simple ingredients. It melts in the mouth, full of buttery flavor, crumbly and addictive. Unsurprisingly, whoever has tried it can finish eating the whole box while watching their favorite TV program.

Have you decided what cookies you make for the upcoming celebration? Include melting moments in your list! This recipe guarantees you will get praise and compliments from friends and family with minimum time and effort.

It is best to bake it early and store it well in the freezer.

Let’s take a look at how to make these melt-in-the-mouth cookies.

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1. Mesure all the ingredients

Measure the following ingredients before we get started:

380g of butter, cut into small cubes, 130g icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar), 330g cake flour, 140g cornstarch, 5g fine salt.

a. Butter

The flavor of the cookies depends mostly on the butter. I am using the Anchor brand butter from New Zealand, which yields an excellent result.

Never substitute the butter wholly or partially with margarine. Choose the best butter or at least one with decern quality.

Cut the butter into small cubes. Cutting the butter with a sharp knife is easier before it turns soft. Unwrap the butter and cut it on the wrapping paper into 16 small cubes. Transfer it to the mixer bowl to clean and tidy your working table.

Butter can be salted or unsalted. I prefer unsalted butter because I can adjust the saltiness without restriction. You have to omit the salt in the recipe using the salted butter.

b. Sugar

I use icing sugar to make my melting moments.  I will sieve the sugar before adding it to the mixing bowl if the icing sugar clumps together. You can use either a flour sifter or a wire mesh sieve.

How about castor sugar or granulated sugar? I have not made melting moments with either one, as I worried that it would affect the result. For now, I will stick to icing sugar before I am willing to risk sacrificing a batch of my melting moments for testing.

c. Flour

The recipe has two types of flour: regular cake flour and cornstarch. All purpose flour can be used too,

Cornstarch is the ingredient that makes the melting moments so crumbly and light. The cookies will become more crumbly and crispy with more cornstarch. However, the melting moments will become too dry if the cornstarch is too large. The cookies will also shatter easily and be difficult to handle.

The amount in this cookie recipe is just right after years of fine-tuning.

d. Salt

As I mentioned above, omit salt if you use salted butter. If not, always use the fine salt (table salt).

There was once I wrongly used the coarser salt for cooking, and we got complaints from our customers that they bit on salt granules.

Note: I do not use vanilla extract, lemon juice, and custard powder, as they are unnecessary.

2. Mix all the ingredients

I like to add the butter first, followed by the icing sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Lastly, add the cake flour on top.

I have a reason to add the cake flour last.

The icing sugar and cornstarch are fine, flying into the air and dirtying your kitchen when you turn on the machine. This incidence can happen especially with an open-ended electric mixer

Therefore, I purposely added the cake flour last, which is much coarser and dense. This way, all the ingredients will combine well without flying up the air that much.

How long it takes to combine

It takes about half a minute to mix all the ingredients. The exact time depends on how soft the butter is and how small the butter cubes are.

Once the biscuit dough clumps together, it will no longer stick to the mixing bowl. That is when you should stop mixing.

You can use a mixer or a food processor if the ingredients are well mixed. If you use a stand mixer, choose a flat blade to mix the dough. A dough hook is unsuitable as it is best for making bread, while a wire whisk attachment may not be strong enough to incorporate the butter well.

3. Prepare for baking

• Preheat the oven to 190°C, both top and bottom heat.
• Cut a large piece of baking paper to the size of your baking tray.
• Apply some oil to the paper with a bakery brush.

Shape the cookies

You can do one of the following:

1. Use a small amount of the cookie dough to form small balls with your hands. I made some small melting moments, about 12g each, but you can make bigger cookies.  Place the balls separated from each other on a large sheet of parchment paper. Press it down with the tines of a fork to form a pattern.
2. Otherwise, you can also pipe it onto the baking paper.  Choose a piping bag nozzle to create the pattern that you like.

Note: Keep the cookie dough in the refrigerator for a while if it is too soft to handle. The dough will turn soft if you leave it at room temperature during summer or in a tropical country like mine.

4. Baking

Bake at 190°C for 18 minutes for the cookies weighted 12g each until golden brown. Use a kitchen timer to keep track of the baking time.  You need to increase the baking time at the same temperature for the larger melting moments.

Please note that many ovens’ temperature indicators are not very reliable. You can use an oven thermometer to confirm the accuracy of the temperature setting. Please test my recommended temperature setting with a small quantity, then adjust accordingly when you make a larger batch.

If unsure, set the baking time to two minutes shorter than the intended total. Open the door of the oven partially to have a quick peep at the cookies. This way will ensure you will not overbake the cookies.

5. Cooling and packaging

Cool the cookies on the baking tray. I do not recommend transferring it to cool on a wire rack because it is very fragile.

You can arrange it in a small container with bubble wrap or plastic wrap as the separator. The only downside of these melting moments is that they are so fragile that I wouldn’t advise shipping them.

Seal it up with cellophane tape in an airtight container. These delicious cookies can remain crisp at room temperature for at least two weeks. The melting moments have the advantage of freezing well. Keep it frozen if you want to make it in advance.

The Melting Moments Recipe