Seriously, how precious are these?
Ok back to what's really important... the cookies. I found a recipe for soft sugar cookies because I just hate hard crunchy cookies. Sugar cookies are usually pretty thin so it can be easy for them to be crunchy. This recipe is right on the money. 24 hours later, the cookies are still soft and chewy.
Ingredients
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
+1 cup all-purpose flour for rolling the dough
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Combine the flour, baking powder, & salt in a bowl. Easy. In a separate large bowl, combine the butter and sugar with a mixer until it is all creamy or something. The recipe said light and fluffy... sorry but my understanding of butter and sugar does not lend itself to being light and fluffy. So make it creamy! Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla extract, and then add the flour mixture slowly. Mix well. Or else.
Combine the flour, baking powder, & salt in a bowl. Easy. In a separate large bowl, combine the butter and sugar with a mixer until it is all creamy or something. The recipe said light and fluffy... sorry but my understanding of butter and sugar does not lend itself to being light and fluffy. So make it creamy! Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla extract, and then add the flour mixture slowly. Mix well. Or else.
Oh and preheat the oven to 400. Unless you want to go by the recipe, in which case you will need to chill the dough for 2 hours. What these lame-os don't realize is that there is this great invention, the freezer, which did the job for me in about 15 minutes. Haha, suckers.
This next part requires some finesse. I hope you have a rolling pin. You'll need a clean flat surface to roll the dough out. Sprinkle a handful of flour on the surface and drop 1/4 of your dough on it. Knead the dough and sprinkle some more flour over your dough until it's no longer sticky. Roll out the dough until it is only 1/4 inch thick. If the dough sticks to your rolling pin, sprinkle some flour on and rub it in like you are waxing a car.
Once you have rolled out your dough, start cookie cutting! Try to utilize as much of your dough as you can by putting the shapes close together. Make sure you press down with your whole palm so they cut all the way through.
My workstation
Ok! So now you need to grease up some cookie sheets. I put a dab of butter in the pan and then rub it around with a paper towel. There should be a thin layer of butter coating the pan. To get the cookies up, I find it is best to get a spatula under each cookie and lift it without disturbing the other cookies. Pull away any dough that sticks to the cookie, then grab the cookie and put it on the cookie sheet. I tried to arrange them extremely closely together to get as many as possible on a single sheet.
Put the cookie sheet into the oven for 6 minutes. It's so fast! Use this time to whip up some icing.
Put the cookie sheet into the oven for 6 minutes. It's so fast! Use this time to whip up some icing.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk
food color (optional)
sprinkles (optional)
sprinkles (optional)
Mix the first 4 ingredients together. I'm sure it can be done by hand, but why would you? Psh. Once you have a big bowl of white icing, you can separate it into smaller bowls and make different colors.
The first batch of icing I made was a little funky looking. It looked like it was trying to separate on me, so my instinct was to throw some more powdered sugar in there. It worked.
The rest is all up to you. Some people have nifty little guns and whatnot to apply the icing, but poor little old me just used the bottom of a spoon. I find it easiest to hold the cookie in one hand and apply with the other, rather than trying to ice the cookie while it is laying on a flat surface. Also, make sure you put any sprinkles on before the icing has time to dry. If you are lucky, your cookies will look like mine because my cookies are da bomb.
This is the spot where the photo of my cookies should appear. This photo is supposed to make you froth at the mouth because it looks so delectable. Well my macbook decided to suck and deny me my pictures. I will figure out this error and put up a picture of the finished product.
Happy baking!
Cookie recipe & icing recipe - both from AllRecipes.com.
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