Sugar Cookies

Together, my Mom and I have tried countless sugar cookie recipes. This one (from Alton Brown) is by far the best recipe. Sugar cookies are so cute and fun to make (and eat) around the holidays. However, they can be a little difficult to make. Sometimes they spread too much and lose their shape. I’ve found that if the dough is too thick, the cookies can look a bit puffy. It is also really important to let the dough chill before rolling it out. I roll out the dough on our marble countertops and use a marble rolling pin (see links below) which help keep the dough cool. These cookies hold their shape well, which make them pretty and even more fun to decorate. I for one, LOVE a good cookie decorating party. Cookie decorating just reminds me of my childhood. My Mom used to make dozens or sugar cookies around Christmas and we would listen to Christmas music, drink hot chocolate and decorate the cookies. We actually still do this today! There are tons of great frostings to use but we always decorate with melted chocolate. There is a great specialty baking store near us (here is their website) that sells chocolate in pretty much every color. I stock up on all my favorite holiday colors along with fun sprinkles. I use an electric skillet (see link below) to melt the chocolate. You could use the microwave, but decorating takes time and unfortunately the chocolate hardens so you need to keep it warm for the entirety of decorating. So we place each color of chocolate in a coffee mug or ramekin and onto the electric skillet until we are finished decorating all the cookies.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp milk
• Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough

Directions:

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add in the egg and milk and mix again. Slowly add in the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until fully incorporated. The dough will become a large ball. Remove dough from the bowl and divide into 2. Form 2 disks with the dough and wrap each in parchment paper and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Once dough has chilled, preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sprinkle a large clean surface such as your countertop with powdered sugar. Use a rolling pin to roll out the chilled cookie dough. Roll out the dough until it’s about ¼ inch thick. Then use your favorite Christmas cookie cutters to cut into your desired shape. Then place on a lined baking sheet. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes until the edges just begin to brown. Remove from oven, allow to cool and then decorate!

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