GOOD cookie recipes that can take an imprint

I drew my brother for Christmas. He is impossible to buy for. I have asked if he has any ideas, not yet. So. That leaves what's in MY head.  (NEVER a safe thing!!)

I was at a thrift store recently, and bought two cookie cutters that make an imprint, the camel and the elephant from the first picture here. I have wild ideas (see below!) but I HATE sugar cookies. I'm not a fan of sugary stuff.

I'm looking for cookie recipes that actually have FLAVOR, not just sugar, that will work with this kind of cookie cutter.

The ideas are to decorate the cookies with things like beet juice dyes etc, make pretty cookies that are tasty and more healthy. I have fresh basil in  the freezer to chop up to flavor the cookies, I'm just not finding good base recipes to work with that look like I can make those cutters work with them.

The type of cutters, I have the elephant and the camel:


Elephants!


Camels!


I'm thinking make them elegant like this since I can't do as many colors if I am not using dyes:

OK, first of all in full disclosure, I'm not a baker!  However I've been known to eat with great gusto plates of cookies.  I'm waiting now for my yeast mixture to do its magic thing before mixing my next batch of bread.

For your cookies, how about a good old ginger cookie with cream cheese piping?  Or maybe sweet potato?  Or pumpkin?  Or maybe the greatest of all time peanut butter?

Hope this may help.

Peace

The first thing I look at in this situation is the ratio of sugar to flour.  My "Old Fashioned Pepparkakor" cookie uses 3 1/2 cups of flour, but only 3/4 cups of sugar. Most cakes, now a days,  have either equal sugar to flour, or sometimes *more* sugar to flour (and I immediately dump them in the dumpster).

The spices used are ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, so I'm not sure that would go with basil?? However, it is a rolled and cut recipe. Personally, I use the non-imprint style of cookie cutter, as I've always been disappointed with any imprint ones that I've tried - more finicky to not stick to the dough, and much of the imprint is lost when the cookie is baked.

I also have a Chai-spiced Tahini shortbread recipe, but I don't recall ever trying it as a cut cookie.  It has you roll the cookie into a log, refrigerate for a bit, and then slice. The sugar ratio is also higher, but the tahini adds nutritional value. My notes don't *say* I reduced the sugar, but there's a good likelihood I did and that it still worked fine. Spices are ginger, cinnamon and cardamom.

I grind cardamom pods just before using, and use micro-planed fresh ginger and both of those actions increase the flavor in my opinion.

Yes, I've never found a sugar cookie that didn't disappoint me...

Maybe this recipe by Judith:

https://permies.com/t/43740/Springerles-cookies-wooden-molds

When I think of stamped biscuits (cookies) like that, I think of shortbread. My standard sweet recipe doesn't have a huge amount of sugar (something like 2 Oz to 8 0z flour/rice flour) but I also found this savoury cheese and herb one online that looks fun:

savoury shortbread wheel

source

½ cup room temperature butter
1 tsp fine-grain sea salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp powdered sugar, unsifted
1 cup all-purpose flour, unsifted
1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves
3 Tbsp grated Parmesan (optional)
Zest of 1/2 lemon (optional)

The recipe just uses plain flour rather than rice flour, so the dough would probably need gentle handling. It is designed to be baked in the tin, so you may need to experiment with cut out cookies.

i also went directly to shortbread or gingerbread.

most of the biscotti recipes i have used are basically shortbread and are also pretty solid.

i am not sure about how i feel about frozen basil. dried spices are one thing, but the leaves may add more moisture and cause the cookies to crumble (I think i've only used fresh leaves in something like a biscotti-size slab or a scone, not something as fine as these cookies will be. I often come across this problem when I use fresh ginger rather than ginger powder, for example, even if I squeeze the ginger dry). I think I would personally put the basil in something else and use dry spices for this.

An aside- those cookie cutters were the bane of my childhood. I think you have to flour the begorra out of them, or else use cooking spray or whatever it is we were too poor/stubborn/etc to have, i just remember the dough ALWAYS being stuck in them.....

I think of those “embossed” cutters as being for springerle, which has a different texture than American sugar cookies:

German Springerle Recipe in German

Springerle Recipe in English by purveyor of Swiss springerle molds

Oooh, Springerles look like what I want! I'll try a batch soon. :D
Thank you!! That link to Judith's thread gave me a post that was full of recipes! I'll print them out and read through it all.
I think I can work with that one.