Coooookkkiieeessss!

Sugar Cookies

Theres just something about the word ‘cookies’ that makes me want to shout it out loud and drawn out. So ‘Cooookkkiiiieeeeessss’ seemed the appropriate title to this blog post.

I felt in the mood for baking cookies although I’ve not made a single cookie since I was in primary school. Yes, really! For some reason, I thought I had Christmas cookie cutters. I was wrong! 🙁 All I had was a snowflake cutter that I bought from a local cake wholesalers (man, I love that shop), and a star that was in a set. I seriously thought I had a Christmas set. Well, that was a minor let down. I thought I’d just carry on with the stars and the snowflakes.

I used a sugar cookie recipe from Cake Central. I liked the fact that the recipe is in american cups as it was easy for me to measure the cups rather than weigh and when I was finished, the dough was lovely. I followed the recommendations on rolling out the dough on baking paper but the cookies were incredibly hard to cut and lost their shape if I tried to move to the baking tray so I chilled the pre-rolled dough in the fridge for a few hours and tried again. They came out alright but I did find it difficult to move the shapes from the baking paper onto the baking tray (with a layer of baking paper too). A few did crack and broke off.

All in all, they baked beautifully and are delicious. When I try this recipe again (which I definitely will) I will roll on baking paper again and when chilled I will transfer onto a dusted surface for ease of transferring.

I even put about 20 of these cookies into a zip-seal bag and put them into the children’s stockings. Hehe.

NFSC – No Fail Sugar Cookies Recipe

This recipe is GREAT when using complex cookie cutters. The dough holds its’ shape and won’t spread during baking. Make sure you let your oven preheat for at least 1/2 hour before baking these or any other cookies.

Ingredients:
6 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
2 cups unsalted butter
2 cups sugar (white granulated)
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract or desired flavouring (I like almond myself)
1 tsp. salt

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Mix dry ingredients and add a little at a time to butter mixture. Mix until flour is completely incorporated and the dough comes together.
2. Chill for 1 to 2 hours (or see Hint below)
3. Roll to desired thickness and cut into desired shapes. Bake on ungreased baking sheet at 350 degrees F (176 C) for 8 to 10 minutes or until just beginning to turn brown around the edges. This recipe can make up to 5-dozen 3″ cookies.

Hint Rolling out dough without the mess:
Rather than wait for your cookie dough to chill, take the freshly made dough and place a glob between two sheets of parchment paper.

Roll it out to the desired thickness then place the dough and paper on a cookie sheet and pop it into the refrigerator.

Continue rolling out your dough between sheets of paper until you have used it all. By the time you are finished, the first batch will be completely chilled and ready to cut.

Reroll leftover dough and repeat the process! An added bonus is that you are not adding any additional flour to your cookies.

I didn’t ice my cookies but then they were delicious without. The next time I will be making these, I think I will be replacing 50g of flour with 50g of cocoa to make chocolate cookies. Happy baking, enjoy! 😀

Technorati Tags: baking, butter, cookies, biscuits, cutters, sugar cookies