Saturday, July 19, 2008

Traveling Sugar


We made a batch of sugar cookies to take on the beach vacation last week.

Classic Sugar Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
4 scant cups sifted flour
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
dash salt

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until fluffy.

Add vanilla, sifted flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well.
Cover and refrigerate. (Dough can be refrigerated for several days. In this case, I froze the dough for about a week.)

When ready to bake cookies, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour various colored sugars or sprinkles or what have you in bowls.

Pinch off dough and roll into balls. Roll in the colored sugar and place on a baking sheet.

The Child, who is six, enjoyed that part. Really enjoyed it.


Using a glass, smoosh the cookie dough down a bit to form disks.


Bake until done, about 9 to 11 minutes. Cool for a minute or two on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.


This was easy-peasy. When we finished and the cookies turned out so pretty and we all had such fun making them, I knew we'd employ this method again. So much so that when we visited the shops at Foley, we got an assortment of sprinkles with these very cookies in mind.
Can't you JUST SEE the autumn cookies - the sugar cookies rolled in sparkling pumpkin orange sugar and assorted fall-shaped sprinkles? Can't you?? BECAUSE I TOTALLY CAN.

Not that I didn't already have an abundance of assorted, seasonal sprinkles in the cabinet.
Now that I think about it that looks like an intervention waiting to happen.

Don't mind me and my obsessive tendency toward sprinkles. Enjoy the sugar cookies.


You can also roll out, cut out, bake, and decorate these cookies:

Working with a small portion of dough at a time, roll out on floured board until about 1/4-inch thick. Dip cutter in flour and cut out shapes. Place on ungreased baking sheets and refrigerate while working on the next batch; this will keep cookies from spreading, making their shapes more defined. (For best results, put cookies of the same size on each sheet.)

Bake cookies for 9 to 11 minutes, or until cookies are just beginning to brown on the edges.

Cool on pan for a minute or two then remove to wire rack to finish cooling.

Completely cooled cookies can be wrapped and frozen for weeks. Thaw cookies in packaging at room temperature before decorating.

Like these at Christmas.

Or these that made great Easter happies.

2 comments:

Joh said...

I love sugar cookies. I've been banned from decorating them in my mom's kitchen, though, because there has not been a year, since I was 7, that I haven't knocked over one of the containers of sugar, dousing the kitchen. A mess.

Also, I grilled pizza Sunday night. I'm not over the grill in general.... just over being forced to cook on the grill as a symptom of being forced to live in crap conditions for two weeks. But I like it now. :) So you can go right ahead and post your pics, because I'm excited and I need to buy more charcoal so I can have more grill fun!!! :)

Erin said...

I made the sugar cookies last night. They were delicous! I came up a little short on white sugar and added about a quarter cup of brown sugar to top of the second cup. Not sure how big a difference it made, but they were quite tasty!