Sugar Cookies

Two blog posts in one day, I am on a roll!

I just made cookies with the girls this morning, sugar cookies. I don't really like sugar cookies. I used to think that I really liked cookies as a food group, but I am finding out that I am not really into cookies unless they have some kind of chocolate involved. Those are the only kind worth eating.

However, sugar cookies are an important and basically necessary part of childhood Christmas. They are the most fun cookies for kids to make, from the mixing, to the cutting out shapes, to the decorating. These are kids cookies. So I make them every year. And most years I end up throwing most of them away because nobody wants to eat them - except the kids, and at least my kids don't eat that many cookies.



Anyway, after cheating last year and just buying the Pillsbury rollout dough - which was not impressive or tasty at all - I tried a new recipe this year. Even though it does not have chocolate in it, and I still don't love sugar cookies, it is pretty good. The best I have found so far.



So, cause I am such a nice person, I will share :)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

I halved the recipe, incase it wasn't good, and it made about 30 cookies.



I also tried some new icing because, let's be honest, adding milk to powdered sugar is almost like topping cookies with something that tastes like sweet dirt. This is much better. It's pretty tasty, Berlin couldn't stop eating it. Which might be why she is not napping right now.

Butter Icing
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk

Directions:
Combine confectioners' sugar butter, vanilla and milk, beating until creamy. Thin with a few more drops of milk (if necessary) to reach desired spreading consistency. Stir in optional food coloring. Spread frosting over cooled cookies and decorate with colored sugar, if desired.



The best part of making cookies was my disobedient child. The girls kept taking little bites of the dough and I kept telling them not to, with the raw eggs and all. So while I was transitioning some cookies to the oven I saw Berlin take a little piece of dough from the counter. She looked at it, looked at me, brought it up to her mouth, and took it back down. Then, so I "couldn't see her" eat the dough, she crouched down on her chair where she had been standing at the counter, put her face down by her knees, and slipped the little piece of dough into her mouth. I pretended I didn't see. It was too darn cute, and I was expending my energy trying not to laugh noticeably so that she wouldn't know that I saw. Oh, kids :)