Rolled Sugar Cookies

I decided that I was going to bring some heart shaped cookies to work for Valentine's Day this year. My coworkers put in an amazing amount of effort each and every day, and I want them to feel some love. (The manly kind that does not make people uncomfortable!)

Cookies have the ability to make just about anyone happy, and sugar cookies are always a nice little treat, so I went for it. For some reason, I ignored the fact that I have my mother's traditional recipe, and looked this one up. It's pretty much your average sugar cookie recipe, minus the calls for lemon juice or zest, and felt familiar so I ran with it.

First warning, don't double this recipe! I did, because I have well over 100 people around the office that I want to give cookies to. I needed to double it, for the volume, but I should have made two separate batches. As one big batch... it's too big! 

The Recipe

It's linked above, but I'm going to write out my shorthand version, because I converted it to grams for use with my digital scale and now you won't have to!

Rolled Sugar Cookies

The Wet Goods

• 340.5 grams softened butter (room temperature)
• 400 grams white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 4.2 grams vanilla extract

The Dry Goods

• 625 grams flour (white for visual appeal on finished product, wheat if you are healthy!)
• 9.2 grams baking powder
• 6 grams salt

Making It

This one is quite easy. Using a hand blender cream the sugar and butter. I went for a very smooth cream, where you couldn't find the grains of sugar even if you finger tasted it. I like it super smooth. Once the sugar and butter are one, beat in eggs and vanilla.

After you have a nice consistency on the wet goods, simply add all the dry goods, stirring with a large wooden spoon, and fold it into a nice cookie dough.

Chill that dough for an hour in the fridge.

Remove the cold dough and roll it out to 1/4" thickness. Attack with a cookie cutter, putting the shaped cookies on a baking sheet and rolling the remnants back into the cold dough. Because I had so much to work with, I would take large sections of dough off the main, and put it back in the fridge to keep it cold.

After a baking sheet is full of cut cookies, decorate them with sugars if you like. This is a simple step that nobody ever told me, and it helps keep the sugar on the cookie after it's baked. The sugar can take the heat, and if you put it on after you bake it the sugar will just fall off. Then you have a sad cookie.

Bake the cookies at 350 for about eight minutes. The recipe as linked says 400, but I found that a few of the cookies were burning at that temp, and I really had to watch the oven like a hawk. Cutting the temp back a little will give you more time to think while you are rolling and cutting and baking. 

Plating

I didn't plate these cookies for visuals yet. I have them in a large container that will travel well to work. Making a nice plate would be pretty easy though, I used a very small cutter so I have a few hundred cookies, and my daughters helped me decorate them so I have all kinds of colors. It's not exactly Valentine's colors, but who's going to complain? Nobody in their right mind that's who!

We ran out of sprinkles about half way through, so my wife jumped in and made some cookie frosting using my mother's recipe. She added a twist to mom's standard (which is tried and true) and replaced normal vanilla extract with French vanilla extract, and the frosting gained a level. I'm not kidding, we had a guest over last night, and everyone was sneaking in cookies as fast as they could, especially the frosted ones.

I broke down and plated them anyway, for this picture. NOMM!

Afterthoughts

These cookies are awesome, my coworkers will probably gobble them up in a few quick minutes! That's my hope at least, because I like them a lot and do not need to eat a full double batch of sugar cookies all on my own! Next time I will go back to my mother's recipe for the cookie itself, but these are fantastic. The cookies are light, crisp, and melt in your mouth. They are full of sugar and butter after all. Your doctor will tell you these are bad for you, so will your nutritionist - and then they will both grab a few and run out the door.

Yes, it's been a while. I didn't stop making food, but I got too busy to blog. Whoops! Also, I need to give thanks to my eldest daughter, who put a lot of effort into rolling, cutting, and decorating the cookies with me. One day she's going to own the kitchen.