Sugar Cookies - Mom

With my mom visiting, I decided it was time to re-enact a mommy-daughter memory scene, not quite the same without my sisters here, but it had to be done.  Having claimed my inheritance of some fragile and grubby looking cook books, I searched out the recipe for sugar cookies and started making the dough.  My memories of making sugar cookies are primarily of decorating them, I can remember once or twice getting to help cut out the cookies but I can see how this would have been frustrating in the extreme for Mom, so I'm not surprised that we came home to baked cookies and were allowed to 'help' ice them.

Sugar Cookies

Beat together until fluffy:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar

Then add in
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla

While mixing measure:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 salt
and sift together

Add the dry ingredients alternately with
3 tbsp milk
Do 3 turns of flour mix and 2 turns of milk, starting and ending with flour.

Once all mixed, wrap it in plastic and chill for at least an hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 375^F (190^C)

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick and cut into shapes, try to get the shapes as close together as possible to get as many cookies from the rolling and transfer the cookies to an ungreased cookie sheet.





Two people cutting out the dough creates a lot of waste, one of us had to stop.
Gather the scraps and re-roll and cut again, then repeat but don't roll the dough more than 3 times - use a knife to cut the last rolling into shapes, or make one big plaque cookie.

Bake for 8 - 10 minutes, unless you have a fan assisted oven or rolled them slightly thinner than 1/4 inch (like me) in which case they could be done in only 5 minutes, they should have a light golden tint around the edges.

Once cool, they can be decorated.  Mom used to make a thick runny icing from just icing sugar and lemon juice with a bit of food colouring which we would smear onto the cookies with a knife then add sprinkles and silver balls.  At times we also got to use the icing squirter with some coloured butter cream icing (butter, icing sugar, and a few drops of water and food colouring, mixed to paste consistency) and pipe shapes to decorate.  Sadly, my cookie decorating skills have not improved much beyond the capabilities of a 7 year old, I think this may be genetic as Mom's skills are no better, but we had fun (when I wasn't snappy) and I now more than understand her frustrations when making sugar cookies.

A fluffy yellow bunny, a high-point in the decorating process (if you haven't seen coloured bunnies, please watch more cartoons).

A not so well dressed boy.

A grizzly bear that more closely resembles a morlock.