Vanilla Sugar Cookies

vanillasugarcookies Here’s a classic: the sugar cookie. But not one of those way-too-sweet, only-take-a-few-bites sugar cookies you can find at almost any bakery. These (admittedly enormous, at four inches wide) sugar cookies have nutmeg and vanilla bean paste in them, which means they’re just delicious without being too sugary and have a more mellow flavor. These treats also have great texture, with a crispy edge and soft middle.

One caveat: be careful not to overbake these. Pull them from the oven when the middles are still puffy and look just a bit underdone but the edges are golden, as they’ll continue to bake while they cool.

Ingredients

12 tablespoons butter, slightly softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar for coating

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper. Place 1/4 cup sugar in a small bowl; set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat butter on medium speed for about 1 minute; add sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and egg and beat until well combined. Add flour and beat to combine.

Using a 2-inch cookie scoop, scoop dough, roll into balls, and dip in sugar to coat completely.

Place cookies at least 2 inches apart on baking sheets; they will spread some when baking. I put 6 cookies per sheet, and that worked well.

Bake for 10 minutes, until edges are barely beginning to brown and centers still look puffy. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature. Makes 22 four-inch cookies; you can use a one-inch cookie scoop if you’d like smaller treats and a bigger batch.

Sparkling St. Patrick’s Day Sugar Cookies

sparkingstpatrickscookies This weekend I stood in the baking aisle of my local craft store, staring at the “sorry, we’re out” tag hanging from the rod where the green sanding sugar should have been. To the left were dinosaur sprinkles; to the right, some type of “cactus mix.” And while I’d love to bake with dino and cactus sprinkles someday, I really needed plain old green sanding sugar for my sparkling shamrock cut-outs. To the grocery store I went, only to meet the same fate.

And so I returned home, consulted the internet, and made my own colored sugar. You could probably use regular granulated sugar, but I used the larger crystals known as sanding sugar that you can get at baking supply and craft stores. I had a bottle of white, so I placed about a half-cup in a glass container, added a few drops of green gel food coloring, and shook the container until all the granules were coated. I’m very pleased with how it turned out; the light shade of the shamrocks goes well with the gold coins, all of which are on their way to my favorite young ladies in Maryland, Mo and Margo.

Ingredients

½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons vanilla
Green and yellow sanding sugar

Preparation

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Add vanilla and about half the flour mixture, beating until combined; beat in remaining flour. If necessary, add 1-2 teaspoons of water for a less crumbly dough; you’ll need a more pliable dough to roll and cut later.

Form dough into a disc and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until just barely firm, about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper, then place green sanding sugar on a plate; place yellow on another.

Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into shamrock shapes, then press the tops of each cookie into the green sugar to coat. Repeat with a small round cutter for coins and press into the yellow sugar. Place on baking sheets about 1-2 inches apart – they don’t spread much when baking, but you don’t want to crowd your baking sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until just golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool on cookie sheets for 2-3 minutes before carefully transferring to wire racks to cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days; if shipping, pack between layers of waxed paper. Makes about 3 dozen 3-inch cookies.

Sparkling Under the Sea Cookies

sparklingundertheseacookies Do cookies ship well? I certainly hope so. I send them around the country to various friends and family members, and I sincerely hope they all arrive in one piece. Some cookies, like sugar cut-outs, are more conducive to shipping if you coat them in sugar instead of frosting them. Especially in summer, I wouldn’t trust frosted cookies to fare well through the mail.

These treats are for Mike’s friend Jackie, who lives in Maryland and has been perusing my blog with her little boys. Enjoy, Jackie and family!

Ingredients

½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons vanilla
White, aqua, light blue, dark blue, and orange colored sugar
Miniature chocolate chips, for eyes

Preparation

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Add vanilla and about half the flour mixture, beating until combined; beat in remaining flour.

Note: if your dough is too crumbly, you can add just a bit of water or another ¼ teaspoon of vanilla.

Knead just slightly until dough sticks together, then flatten into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until just barely firm, about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes – I used crabs, whales, sharks, octopuses, and starfish and chilled my dough a second time after I cut my shapes, because it’s quite humid here today and the dough was more fragile than usual.

Place colored sugar on a plate and carefully dip each cookie into the sugar, pressing so the sugar sticks (this provides better coverage than sprinkling the sugar on top, but you could do that too if you prefer). I used dark blue for the crabs, light blue and white for the whales, aqua for the sharks, and blended aqua and light blue for the octopuses. Carefully place cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets and add chocolate chip eyes.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until edges are just golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheets for about 4-5 minutes, then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Quantity varies based on the size of your cutter; this batch yielded about 24 cookies because the crab, whale, and shark cutters are fairy large. I also recommend baking similar-shaped cookies on each baking sheet – for example, crabs on one, whales and sharks on another, starfish on another – to keep them from browning at different rates.

Sparkling Sugar Hearts

sparkingsugarheart For some, Valentine’s Day brings the opportunity to go all out with romantic gestures and elaborate plans, while others grumble that it’s a made-up holiday meant to sell cards, candy, and flowers. For me, Valentine’s Day usually means baking something heart-themed, and this time it was a simple batch of sugar cut-out cookies coated in sparkling red sugar for my favorite Maryland girls, Maureen and Margaret.

Sugar cookies are one of my favorite things to bake, though they didn’t used to be. I found them a challenge until I came across a good recipe, the one below, and have adapted them for many a holiday using a range of decorations. I usually top sugar cookies that will ship somewhere in sugar, instead of frosting, for durability. I also find that pressing the cookie into the sugar, rather than sprinkling the sugar on top, provides a more even coating and allows the sugar to stick better.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons vanilla
1-2 teaspoons water
Red sanding sugar

Preparation

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and beat well. Add vanilla and about half the flour mixture, beating until combined; beat in remaining flour. If necessary, add 1-2 teaspoons of water for a less crumbly dough; you’ll need a more pliable dough to roll and cut later.

Divide dough in half and knead each just slightly until dough sticks together. Form each half into a disc and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until just barely firm, about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper, then place red sanding sugar on a plate or in a shallow dish.

Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into heart shapes, then press the tops of each cookie into the sugar to coat. Place on baking sheets about 1-2 inches apart – they don’t spread much when baking, but you don’t want to crowd your baking sheets.

Pumpkin Patch Sugar Cut-Outs

To some people, frosting dozens of cut-out cookies might be stressful. But for me, it’s Zen time; this endeavor allows me to be completely focused on one task. And that task, when complete, will bring joy to others. It’s a win-win for my mental health, I’d say.

Yesterday I baked a batch of pumpkin-shaped cut-outs for Halloween and decided to frost them with various shades of orange, along with green and white. They turned out really well, and Mike will take them to work tomorrow for his colleagues to enjoy. Granted, I’m keeping a few back for us – I think the green ones are my favorites.

For the cookies

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons vanilla
1-2 teaspoons water

For the frosting

3 egg whites*
9 tablespoons shortening
Dash of salt
6 cups powdered sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
Orange, yellow, red, moss green, and brown gel food coloring

Preparation

Divide dough in half and knead each just slightly until dough sticks together. Form each half into a disc and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until just barely firm, about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes; I used large, medium, and small pumpkin-shaped cutters. Be sure to bake like-sized shapes on one sheet – otherwise you’ll have an uneven bake.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until just golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool on cookie sheets for 2-3 minutes before carefully transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

For the frosting, combine egg whites, shortening, salt, and 2 cups powdered sugar in a mixing bowl. Beat on low speed until combined, then increase speed to medium, then high, and beat for one minute.

Add additional cup powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high speed for one minute. Add vanilla and almond extracts. Beat on high speed for one or two minutes, until very well combined.

Check the frosting’s texture; it should be like very, very soft peanut butter and very easily spreadable. If necessary, you can add one to two teaspoons of water to thin the frosting and beat well to combine.

Tint to your desired shades; I used a very light orange with just one drop of orange coloring, then darker shades that blended yellow, red, and brown into the already-orange frosting. For the stem colors, use brown for some and moss green for others; the green pumpkins are tinted with a generous amount of moss green coloring.

Frost to look like pumpkins, using your knife to make the ridges. Allow icing to set before storing cookies between sheets of waxed paper in an airtight container. Makes about 5 dozen, depending on the size of your cutters.

Under the Sea Cookies

under the sea cookies Aquarium-inspired baking continues with these under the sea treats. Mike’s coworkers actually asked if there would be treats this week, and indeed, there will. A variety of whales, octopuses, crabs, sand dollars, starfish, and sea life motifs that feature kelp, anemones, and jellyfish will join Mike in the office tomorrow.

These cookies took me forever to ice, but it was nice Zen time, which I greatly needed. Although my whales look a bit crusty (I suppose whales actually are a bit crusty?) and my sand dollars (not pictured here) left a bit to be desired, I’m quite pleased with how they turned out. I hope Mike’s coworkers enjoy them.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons vanilla
Triple batch Zella’s icing
Royal blue, pale blue, teal, copper, brown, and moss green food coloring
Miniature chocolate chips (for eyes)

Preparation

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Add vanilla and about half the flour mixture, beating until combined; beat in remaining flour.

Note: if your dough is too crumbly, you can add just a bit of water or another ¼ teaspoon of vanilla.

Divide dough in half and knead each just slightly until dough sticks together. Form each half into a disc and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until just barely firm, about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees; line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes; I used a crab, whale, star, octopus, and two round cutters (small to make sand dollars, large to make the sea life motifs). Place on baking sheets about 2 inches apart; for the starfish, gently bend the tips of the star to make them more like a starfish.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until just golden brown at the edges. Remove from oven and cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

To ice, divide the icing into six portions: royal blue, pale blue, copper, green, and brown. You’ll need two small plain tips for the white and brown icings, a small open star tip for the green, and a small closed star tip and plain tip for the copper.

For the crabs, use royal blue icing and add miniature chocolate chips for eyes. For the whales, use a base coating of pale blue, then add royal blue and swirl – don’t wait to long to add your coating of royal blue or your whales will turn out crusty like mine! Add a circle of white and a miniature chocolate chip for the whale’s eye. Combine the blue icing portions and add some teal for the octopuses, then pipe on suction cups with white and use miniature chocolate chips for the eyes. For the starfish, use copper and pipe on white details. For sand dollars, use white, then pipe on pale brown details (mine didn’t turn out as well, so I didn’t include a photo of them). For the large round cookies, frost the base with the remaining blue/teal icing, then pipe on kelp using a small star tip and the green frosting, add anemones using a closed star tip and the copper frosting, and add jellyfish or other sea life with a plain tip with the copper frosting. I realize now that I should have made my jellyfish white, but that’s okay. I can always make these again.

Allow icing to set before storing in between sheets of waxed paper. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Sparkling Sea Life Cookies

sparking sea life Mike and I visited the National Aquarium in Baltimore last weekend after a family party. I love an aquarium – the serene sharks and stingrays gliding through enormous tanks, the colorful tropical fish, the varieties of coral. I don’t scuba dive, but aquariums make me want to. Actually, I always just want to hop into the big tank and swim with the sharks, but I realize such behavior is both a) frowned upon and b) likely dangerous.

This weekend’s baking is inspired by our aquarium visit in these travel-friendly sparking sea creatures, which are basic sugar cookies in aquatic shapes covered in sparkling colored sugar. Easy to make and ship, these treats are on their way to Maryland for Maureen and Margo along with some books. Although the pink ones were supposed to be starfish, they didn’t quite turn out the way I’d hoped – but fortunately, they could be any kind of interesting aquatic plant.

Ingredients

½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons vanilla
Pink and blue colored sugar

Preparation

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Add vanilla and about half the flour mixture, beating until combined; beat in remaining flour.

Note: if your dough is too crumbly, you can add just a bit of water or another ¼ teaspoon of vanilla.

Knead just slightly until dough sticks together, then flatten into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until just barely firm, about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes – I used crabs and what were supposed to be starfish, as I bent the tips of the stars a bit, but actually look more like some kind of aquatic plants. Place colored sugar on a plate and carefully dip each cookie into the sugar, pressing so the sugar sticks (this provides better coverage than sprinkling the sugar on top, but you could do that too if you prefer). Carefully place cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes, until edges are just golden brown.

Remove from oven and cool on baking sheets for about 4-5 minutes, then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Quantity varies based on the size of your cutter; this batch yielded about 20 cookies because the crab cutters are pretty large.

Evergreen Sugar Cut-Outs

Evergreen trees frightened me as a child. No, really – I thought they looked sharp, like they’d pierce your skin if you got near them. Fortunately my Grandma Zella recognized that if I could see the pine in front of her house as pretty, I might be less intimidated by it. Thus she tied a ribbon around its trunk and helped me see that its needles were in fact soft. I’ve loved evergreens ever since, including the enormous pine at the side of our house. I’ve often told Mike that if the evergreen someday needs to come down I’m just going to sell the house and move, rather than see it felled.

These evergreen sugar cut-outs were originally intended to be fully decorated Christmas trees. But after I piped them and stood back, I liked how pretty they looked plain, like a little forest on my table. And so they remained, a plain little forest for our Christmas cookie dessert.

Ingredients

1 batch sugar cut-outs, made with 2 additional teaspoons vanilla extract
Double batch Zella’s icing
Moss green and Kelly green gel food coloring

Preparation

Prepare dough and cut out with a tree cutter; bake cookies for about 9 minutes, then remove from oven and cool on wire racks completely before frosting.

Prepare Zella’s icing and add small amounts of moss green and Kelly green food coloring to reach your desired shade of green. Moss green is a muted shade while Kelly is a bright green, and combined they make a nice tree color.

Fit a piping bag with a small star tip and pipe icing onto each tree, moving your tip back and forth to create branch-like shapes.

Allow icing to harden before storing; store in an airtight container between sheets of waxed paper at room temperature. Cookies will stay fresh for about 4-5 days.

Makes about 40 cookies.

Patriotic Sugar Cut-Outs

Sugar cookies are easy to embellish, and this time I chose to add some princess cake and cookie flavor into my standard dough. The results were delicious; these cookies tasted more like bakery-style sugar cookies, with a rich vanilla flavor and just a hint of citrus. I think this is going to be my go-to sugar cookie flavor from now on.

To make these cookies patriotic, I whipped up a double batch of my grandma Zella’s icing and swapped out the almond extract for more princess cake and cookie flavor, then tinted one-third each blue and red. I’m not much of an artist when it comes to piping, so I went with some basic stars. Once your cookies are frosted, let them stand for a few hours so the icing can set before storing them between sheets of waxed paper. The designs might smudge a bit, but no one will remember once they take a bite.

Ingredients

½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons princess cake and cookie flavor
Double batch Zella’s icing, with 1-2 teaspoons princess cake and cookie flavor substituted for the almond extract
Red and blue food coloring

Preparation

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Add vanilla, princess cake and cookie flavor, and about half the flour mixture, beating until combined; beat in remaining flour.

Note: if your dough is too crumbly, you can add just a bit of water or another ¼ teaspoon of vanilla.

Refrigerate until just barely firm, about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line three baking sheets with parchment or foil.

Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into circles. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until just golden. Cool on a wire rack before frosting.

Make Zella’s icing and divide into thirds; keep one portion white, and tint the others red an blue. Frost and decorate as you like, then allow the icing to set before storing between sheets of waxed paper in an airtight container.

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen.

Christmas Sugar Cut-Outs

Per usual, I went a bit overboard with Christmas baking. Gingerbread and shortbread for colleagues, pear tart and spice cake for Christmas day dessert, and these sugar cut-outs and some Russian tea cakes for my trip to Deep Creek to see my cousin Barb and her family this past weekend. I’ve eaten an inordinate amount of sugar in the past few weeks, even for me.

These Christmas sugar cut-outs may be a bit over the top, but seriously, how can you resist a cookie that looks like this? I also made some trees and stars, but the houses pictured here were my best creations. I used a gingerbread house cookie cutter and decorated them to look like little village houses, complete with snow-covered rooftops and evergreens.

Ingredients

For the cookies

8 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons vanilla

For the frosting

1/4 cup shortening
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons water
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
Red, green, yellow, and black food coloring (gel coloring is best)

Preparation

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Add vanilla and about half the flour mixture, beating until combined; beat in remaining flour. Form dough into a ball, then flatten out into a square; refrigerate until just barely firm, about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

Roll dough to about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes; I made stars, trees, and houses. Place same-shape cookies on each baking sheet to ensure even baking. For example, make all the stars on one sheet and all the houses on another so you don’t burn the stars while the houses are still baking.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until just golden. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the frosting, in a mixing bowl, combine shortening, vanilla extract, water, and 1 cup powdered sugar. Mix on low speed, then increase to medium-high and beat for 10 minutes, until smooth. Add remaining powdered sugar and additional teaspoon of vanilla extract, beating until smooth.

Reserve a portion of untinted frosting for snow, windows, and doors of houses. Divide remaining frosting into small portions for your other colors; I used yellow for my stars, green, yellow, and red for my trees (which featured stars and garland), and red, white, green, and black for my houses. Fill piping bags and decorate as you like; I used a star tip to make the snow and evergreens on my houses above and plain tips to pipe the windows, doors, and window/door outlines.

Allow frosting to set before storing cookies between sheets of waxed paper in airtight containers at room temperature. Makes about 2 dozen, depending on cutter sizes.

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