sugar cookie

That’s not a spaceship …it’s a sugar cookie?

Pardon the play on a Star Wars quote in the title… what can I say? I just love me some Star Wars. I generally keep this deep infatuation with the series a private love affair. Apparently though, others have figured out this fact about me because the other day my friend gave me a set of Star Wars cookie cutters! How could I not use them in my next baking adventure! This gift motivated me to find a recipe for sugar cookies that would keep their shape because the cookie cutters were extremely intricate and detailed. My mother always makes sugar cookies in the shape of Christmas trees for the holidays, but I wanted to find my own unique recipe for my endeavor!

After looking around Pinterest for a little while I finally stumbled upon a recipe that claimed to be able to do exactly what I needed. I liked this recipe a lot because it included almond extract which really bumped up the flavor of these cookies significantly. These cookies involve a lot of prep work. I’ve learned through my extensive sugar cookie research that chilling the dough for a few hours is essential in helping them keep their shape during the baking process. I also learned that when you don’t have a rolling pin, your roommates bottle of wine sitting on the counter is a perfectly acceptable substitution.

The cookies definitely retained their shape, and they were delicious! They didn’t dry out or taste too bland which were my initial concerns. The only changes I would make to the recipe in the future would be to add more sugar. However, I did not frost my cookies. I think if I had frosted them then they would have been more than sweet enough, but without frosting they were lacking in the sweet department.

Don’t believe me about these cookies? Well… I find your lack of faith disturbing…
…Sorry I had to!

SUGAR COOKIES

The Ingredients:
-3/4 cup softened butter
-3/4 sugar
-1 egg
-2 teaspoons vanilla extract
-1/4 teaspoon almond extract
-2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

The Method:
1. Beat the butter until creamed and smooth
2. Add the sugar and beat until combined
3. Add the egg, vanilla, and almond extract and beat
4. Combine the flour and baking powder together in a medium bowl
5. Add the flour mixture to the dough until thoroughly combined
6. Chill the dough for at least one hour, more if possible – SO IMPORTANT
7. Once chilled, preheat oven to 350F degrees
8. Roll out the cookie dough and cut into your desired shapes
9. Bake in batches in the oven for 8/9 minutes
10. Ice the cookies if desired
11. ENJOY!

One final hurrah – Chocolate Sugar Cookies

I’m pretty much an expert on saying goodbye. At least three times a year I bid adieu to my home, my family, my boyfriend, and of course, my cat. Now it is once again time for me to pack up and head down to school in New Orleans. Once again, I must say goodbye. Missing my loved ones is not something I have an easy time with, and now I have added one more beloved item to my long list of things I will miss irrevocably. My mother’s beautiful Kitchenaid electric mixer! They all but had to drag me kicking and screaming away from that magical machine. Baking will never be simple again without it in my kitchen.

However, before I left it all behind in New Hampshire I made sure to get in one last chance to use it. I decided that whatever my last baked good in my mom’s kitchen was going to be needed to be my best yet. This way, no matter what disasters await me in my ill-equipped and dangerously tiny kitchen at school, I would have one final delicious memory.

For this special treat I decided to put a fun spin on an old classic. Plain sugar cookies are some of the most wonderful tasting morsels that we can experience on this earth, add chocolate to them? Well, forget about it! People were swooning for these cookies (myself included) and it will not be the final time that I make them. I made mine pretty big, because I was not settling for any bite sized cookies. You could probably get more cookies out of this recipe by rolling smaller balls of dough and shortening the baking time by a minute or so. I recommend making them jumbo though, you’re gonna want to eat a lot at once anyways! Besides the fact that these cookies simply tasted amazing, they also had that chewy and soft texture that just makes cookies perfect. Seriously, I can’t brag about myself enough with these cookies. You’ll just have to try them for yourself and see what I’m talking about!

CHOCOLATE SUGAR COOKIES:

The Ingredients:
2 cups + 2 tbsp flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
¾ tsp salt
2 ½ sticks unsalted butter
2 cups sugar, plus 1/2 cup
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

The Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together
3. Using a standing mixer (#BAE), cream the butter and 2 cups sugar together
4. Add the eggs and vanilla to butter and sugar
5. Add the flour mixture in slowly until it is all combined
6. Roll dough into balls and roll balls in sugar
7. Bake for ~12 minutes
8. Enjoy!

Gotta catch ’em all! – Pokeball Sugar Cookies

Nostalgia. That sentimental feeling of remembrance for a time long in the past. Recently I experienced a great wave of nostalgia when I decided to bake these Pokeball cookies. These adorable sugar cookies were not for me, they were for a friend of mine who absolutely LOVES Pokemon. He refuses to outgrow the little Japanese cartoon animals and so I decided to make these special treats for him.

While I was making these cookies, I couldn’t help but remember Pokemon’s place in my own childhood. Every Saturday morning I would jump out of bed at an hour that seems obscene to me now. I would run downstairs and search endlessly for the remote until I could turn on the television to my Saturday morning lineup. This always included Power Rangers, Recess, Doug, and of course, Pokemon! I watched all of my shows and waited for my mom to come downstairs and pour me my cereal (frosted mini wheats of course!) These memories all came rushing back to me during the course of this baking adventure. Oh how I wish my life was still that simple…

Anyways, these cookies were a gift for my friend, but I can imagine they would also be good for a Pokemon themed birthday party, or if you also simply want to relive the simpler times… The process to make these cookies is a bit more involved than usual, but each step is important to achieve that perfect taste and texture! They tasted lovely and my friend was overjoyed with his present!

POKEBALL SUGAR COOKIES

The Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp water

The Method:
1. In a large bowl, mix together sugar and butter until smooth. Beat in vanilla and 2 eggs until smooth
2. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt till well blended
3. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture slowly one cup at a time to blend well. Once blended, take out half of the dough and set aside
4. To the remaining half, add red food coloring and mix until a deep red color is achieved
5. Cover both halves and chill dough for an hour
6. Once chilled, roll both into logs about the size you want your cookie
7. Place these logs into the freezer for about a half an hour
8. Make an egg wash by mixing one egg and water in a bowl
9. Cut each log down the middle, long side and match each red half with a white half
10. Paint the halves with the egg wash so they stick to each other and place back in freezer for 15 minutes
11. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
12. Take dough from freezer and cut into 1/2 inch thick cookies
13. Place cookies 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet and bake for 6 to 8 minutes
14. Cool cookies completely then take out your black icing and draw a line down the center where the red and white dough tough. Then in the center of the line, make a dime size circle, fill it in and place a white chocolate chip in the center of the circle
15. Enjoy!

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