My sister-in-law and I decided on Thursday of last week that we were going to throw a holiday party on Sunday. We would invite our girlfriends over to decorate cookies and exchange baking themed gifts. 3 days til go time, I started researching the best sugar cookie recipes. The Pillsbury roll of pre-made dough just wasn't going to cut it for this party. We needed a recipe that would taste good, but would hold its shape in the oven.
After a bit of research, I decided Sweet Sugar Belle's recipe would be the best for our experiment. The cookies on her website are unbelievable! She has a serious gift. It's going to take more than one cookie party for me to get on that level. It may have taken 3 batches and a bit of modification, but I ended up with great results!
Ingredients:
- 1 Two sticks of real unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 tsp of vanilla (Sweet Sugar Belle likes Almond extract, I prefer vanilla)
- 2 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
Instructions:
- In a large bowl, combine together softened butter and confectioner’s sugar
- In a separate small bowl, whisk the egg with the vanilla
- Combine the egg/vanilla with butter and sugar in large bowl
- In a third bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt
- Slowly add the flour mixture to the bowl of butter, sugar, vanilla and egg. I did 1/2 cup at a time, stirring between until it was completely mixed. It shouldn't be too sticky at this point.
- Roll out onto parchment paper to about a 1/4 inch thick (NOTE: Do NOT use wax paper in the oven. You WILL smoke out your house....oops)
- Use your cookie cutters to make the shapes
- Bake for 5 minutes at 400 degrees.
Bake time will differ depending on your oven, so just watch carefully. My first batch caused the whole house to smoke after just 3 minutes because of the wax paper. Seth and Soldier actually had to leave, but I was committed. I left the second batch in for 6 minutes, as suggested by Sweet Sugar Belle. They were black on the bottom. By the third, I had hit the spot. 5 minutes at 400!
All my ingredients separates into bowls!
These cookies on the wax paper didn't see what was coming ... :(
Not a bad ratio in the end!
After a solid 3 hours, I was satisfied with my results. The icing holds best when they sit for a day before icing. So on the counter they sat...until Soldier came along.
I'll end this post with the picture below picture. See the two empty plates, and quite a few candy canes missing off of a third? This is what happens when you leave a 6 month old golden retriever home alone with 12 dozen cookies. I didn't even know the pup could reach that high. I found out. And then I cried. And then I rushed to make another batch before the guests arrived!
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