Monday, December 24, 2012

Easy Sugar Cookies


 If you ask me what the quintessential Christmas cookie is, I'd say it's a tie between my Mom's Butter Cookies, and straight up classic sugar cookies. The only problem with sugar cookies is that, often times, you have to wrap up the dough and chill it for an hour or two, then you have to roll it out and cut it into various shapes with cookie cutters, then chill the leftover dough, reroll it, and on and on. Well, frankly, I'm not that patient. I want to be able to throw together a quick batch, pop 'em in the oven, and be done. Well, this recipe lets you do just that!
 It's PERFECT! No chilling, no rolling, no cutting. You just mix it up, drop them onto cookie sheets, sprinkle with sugar and boom, you're set! And they taste EXACTLY like how you'd expect a good sugar cookie to taste. Awesome vanilla flavor and perfectly sweet. You should definitely add this one to your repertoire!

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, then roll in colored sugar and place onto ungreased cookie sheets. Or you can roll into balls, make a dent on the top of each one, and then sprinkle colored sugar over the top. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

Tips:
Use a small cookie scoop when dropping the dough onto the cookie sheets. (it looks like a miniature ice cream scoop) It makes the job so much easier and it also insures that all of your cookies will be the same size.
Usually, when I bake cookies, I like to under bake them slightly, just to make them a little more chewy. With these cookies, however, I like to bake them for the full 10 minutes. They're still chewy, but they get just a little crispy around the edges. LOVE that.







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