sugar cookies

I loved making these as a kid!  All the different sprinkles and decorations!  We had little silver balls that we used as ornaments on our cookie trees (I think they stopped making those because they found out they caused cancer. sigh.) I always make small sugar cookies because once you put icing and decorations on them, it’s a LOT of sugar!  And you might be thinking it’s cheating, since I got almost 300 cookies out of a double batch of dough.  But I did still have to decorate them.  Luckily,  I had some helpers with me, which made it much more fun.  Even if they did eat almost all the cookies they decorated. That’s what you get for using 4 year olds as cookie decorators.

sugar cookies

ingredients

for cookies:

• 3 c. unbleached flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 c.(2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 & 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

for each color icing:

• 2 to 4 c. confectioner’s(powdered) sugar
• 1/2 to 1 c. milk(more or less)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. light corn syrup(to make icing shiny)
• food coloring(optional)

Whisk together flour, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.  Set aside.  In an electric stand mixer, combine butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Add egg, then vanilla, bating well after each addition.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Turn mixer to low, then slowly add the flour mixture.  Split dough in half, form into balls, and flatted into disks.  Wrap in plastic, and chill for 1/2 hour in the refrigerator.

When ready to bake the cookies, put your oven racks in the top and bottom 1/3rd positions in your oven.  Preheat oven to 350°.  Roll out dough on a well floured surface, and use cookie cutters to cut out shapes.  Gather up leftover dough and roll out again.  You can do this a few times until the dough is too stiff to work with.  Place cookies on  ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake 2 sheets at a time, switching positions of sheets on racks halfway through.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, until cookies edges start to turn brown.  Let cookies cool on racks for 1 minute, then transfer to wire racks to cool the rest of the way.

When ready to ice cookies, mix 2 c. powdered sugar with vanilla, corn syrup and 1/2 cup of milk.  Whisk together.  Icing should be fairly stiff.  If you are using food coloring, add it now.  Put icing in piping bag.  Trace the outline of your cookies, about 1/4″ in from their edge. Return leftover icing to bowl, and mix in more milk to make the icing more viscous. Depending on how many cookies you are decorating, you may want to add more sugar to increase the volume of icing.  Add more food coloring if necessary to match the piped outlines on your cookies.  Return icing to piping bag, or use a spoon to fill the inside of the cookie outline.  Use the back of a spoon to push icing to the edges.  Use as little icing as you can to cover the cookie, so they will dry quicker.  Put on any decorative sprinkle or candies while the cookies are still wet.  Allow to dry on wire racks.

297 made, 1,135 to go.