Adventures with Sugar Cookies

And 3 Divas too!

Turns out baking sugar cookies with 3 Divas is a two day event!  I have been slaving for the last two days to get cookies made and decorated.  The recipe I used was a bit tedious but the cookies turned out wonderfully and they taste wonderful too!

Sugar Cookies

1 C Butter (or hard margarine( softened
1 C Granulated sugar
2 Egg yolks (large)
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 1/2 C All-purpose Flour
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Salt

Cream butter and sugar in a bowl. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Beat until smooth.

Combine next 3 ingredients in a small bowl. Add to butter mixture in 2 additions mixing well after each addition until no dry flour remains. Divide dough in half. shape each half into slightly flattened disc. Wrap with plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.

Roll out dough and cut into shapes. Bake in 350 F oven for 6 – 8 minutes (my oven required 14 minutes and I use pampered chef stoneware) until edges are golden. Let stand on cookie sheets for 5 minutes then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Let the cookie sheets cool between batches. Repeat with remaining dough.

We did this in, oh, about 5 hours! I kid you not. In between feeding kids, changing bums and putting Divas down for naps, it took me the better part of the day to get all the cookies cut and baked! Not to mention, that sometimes help from the Divas really isn’t much help but we had fun and they filled their tums with dough. We saved the decorating for today.

Cookie Glaze/Icing

(In my humble opinion, this is what makes the cookie!)

3/4 C Icing (confectioner’s sugar)
1 tbsp Milk
2 tsp Butter (or margarine), softened
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract.

Liquid (or paste) food colouring. I recommend using the paste! It makes your colours pop and if you want Red, you get Red (and not a form of Pink). So splurge and get the paste. You don’t need much of it so it will last you quite some time. I am also going to insert a confession here (and in my defense, I was doing this with the 3 Divas) but I totally forgot to add the Vanilla Extract to my glaze and it still turned out wonderfully.

Beat the first 4 ingredients (or stir quickly if you have a Diva napping and don’t want to wake her with the noise of your beaters) in a small bowl, adding more icing sugar or milk if necessary. The icing should be a barely pourable consistency.

Add the food colouring 1 drop at a time, stirring well after each addition, until you get the desired colour that you are seeking. Decorate those cookies! Add sprinkles too!

It was quite a bit of work for me this year, but this is what the Holidays are all about for me. I’ve been baking for the holidays since I left home for University. I love doing this kind of stuff with my girls and they love it too! The enjoyed the decorating quite a bit more than the rolling out of the dough. We started decorating our cookies at noon today and we didn’t finish until after 3:00! The girls did such a great job and I made sure that they washed their hands a lot! After all, they intend to take their cookies to day care on Monday to share with their friends.

*The cookie and glaze recipe that I use is taken from the Company’s Coming Most Loved Festive Baking by Jean Pare.