Mom made these cookies all the time. The 3 of us girls (later 5 of us since my other 2 sisters were born 10 years later) would all gather around the table with our Betty Crocker Frosting bowls ready for these cookies to cool. These are a soft sugar cookie if you like that kind of thing. Personally, I like soft cookies better than the crispy ones. If I want a crispy cookie, then it has to be shortbread. But if you do like a crispy sugar cookie, Martha Stewart makes one that I have tried and it is very good, too. The cookie doesn’t puff up like the soft versions, so the details show up much better.
Mom’s Sugar Cookies
yields about 14 – 3″ cookies
Sift:
2 cup AP flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
Cream:
4 oz. (1 stick/8T) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar (I used my new vanilla sugar the last time! Yum!)
1 egg, room temperature
2 Tbs. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1. Have your dry ingredients sifted in a medium bowl and set aside.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. About 1-2 minutes. Add the egg. Scrape the sides and add the milk and vanilla. Beat until combined.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix to combine.
4. Take the clump of dough and shape it into a large disk. Wrap this up in saran wrap and stick in the fridge for at least an hour.
5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove the cookie dough and roll to 3/4″ thickness. If you want to be exact or uniform, try these nifty rubber attachments. Use any shape cookie cutter you like. Tip: keep the same size cookies on each cookie sheet or the small ones will burn before the big ones are done.
6. Place cookies on silicone or greased cookie sheet. Bake for 5-7 minutes – but that really depends on the size. Small 1″ cookies – about 6 minutes. Large 3″ cookies took me about 9 minutes. They should not be turning brown. Press the cookie gently and it should resist your pressure – then it is done.
Cool and frost!
Now frosting… well, I always use buttercream. So, I thought I would try to do something different and use cream cheese frosting. Blah! It was edible, but not great. Please stick to buttercream. Usually I just put some room temp butter in a bowl and add powdered sugar until it looks good. Then add some vanilla and maybe some milk if it is too thick. But if you want a recipe, here is one from King Arthur Flour.
