Monday, August 23, 2010

The Hunt for the Perfect Sugar Cookie

Last week, and the week before, the theme at my daycare was baking!  Specifically cookies!  First we made peanut butter cookies, then it was time for sugar cookies, and finally decorating those sugar cookies! 

Confession:  I love cookies.  I am addicted in a way that if they are in my vicinity, I can not, under any circumstances, have just one.  It is impossible.  Usually at home I eat about 5, or more.

It's bad, and I know it.  This is why we rarely have cookies in the house anymore, it's just a bad idea.

That said, I am on the hunt for the perfect sugar cookie recipe.  I want to make a sugar cookie that tastes yummy and sweet even without icing.  I also want them to be sturdy enough to package/decorate/store without falling apart.

I know, I'm picky.

I've tried several sugar cookie recipes since last Christmas, and so far this is my favorite, but it must be tweaked!  I paid attention to the reader comments for the recipe and tried it two different ways, because I could tell be reading it that it was going to be just as boring as every other recipe I've tried. 

The kids and I made the first variation together.  The changes I made were: instead of just 2 C of sugar, I used 3, and I upped the vanilla to 2 tsp.  And chilled the dough for an hour.

Oh yeah, and there was my favorite suggestion ever!! instead of rolling them out and making cut-outs, we did this:

We rolled the chilled dough into balls...


Placed them on the cookie sheet...


Dipped a measuring cup in sugar, and squished them to about 1/4 inch thick

I don't know about you, but I hate the process of making sugar cookie cut-outs.  The shapes are fun and all, but I don't like having to re-ball up the dough and re-roll it out each time. 

This way was SO EASY!  Which is especially helpful when the kids stop helping after the first 2 trays are filled!

OH! Also, I baked the cookies for 8 minutes on my Air Bake sheet, or 7 minutes on the disposable sheet, and allowed them to cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes before removing them.

And then we each ate one because  I the kids couldn't wait until they were decorated.

The next day we decorated them!  I was going to make royal icing but never made it to Walmart to get the meringue powder, so what we did was this.  I mixed a couple heaping spoonfuls of powdered sugar, with about a teaspoon (I never measured it) of milk, and adjusted as needed for desired consistency.  I wanted it to be thick, but paintable.

Then I took out 4 brand spankin' new watercolor paintbrushes and put one in each bowl of icing, and let them "paint" the cookies!




The cookies sat and dried for several hours, and the icing hardened, and they tasted delicious!  Not quite the perfect sugar cookie, but very very delicious! 

The batch I made the other night was a different variation.  The only difference from the previous batch was I used 1.5 C of granulated sugar, and 1C of powdered sugar.  These cookies are not as sweet, and they crumble really easily. 

Back to the drawing board!

Oh darn :o)






2 comments:

Prairie Mother said...

I love the idea of rolling em' in balls and then flattening them. I don't make sugar cookies for the very reason of having to cut them out. I do have a good sugar cookie recipe from my gr.gr.aunt, I'll try to get it to you!

Mom said...

They looked great, why didn't I get one on Dr Quin Medicine Woman nite. Maybe next time.

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