Please save your family from store bought refrigerated sugar cookie dough. These cookies turn hard as a rock within minutes of making them and they have no real flavor at all. Treat your family to some wonderful homemade sugar cookies and frosting. They will thank you for it.
The recipe I am going to share with you has been in my family for over 20 years. My aunt Kathy received the recipe from a co-worker. Kathy then gave the recipe to my mom. It has since become a tradition that each year at Easter and Christmas my mom makes 6 double batches of cookies. We spend many hours baking and frosting, but it is always a lot of fun and wouldn't be the same without them.
I had never made these cookies on my own, but this past week that all changed. LittleRoq had a Christmas party to go to and I volunteered to make the sugar cookies (so as to save the children from the horrible store bought ones!). LittleRoq joined in on the cutting out of the shapes. And then he frosted the cookies reserved for our house while I frosted the ones for the party. It was really neat to make a recipe with my son that I have been making at my mom's side for many years.
Over the years we have learned a few things about making sugar cookies.
- First: Make way more cookies than you think you will need because no one can get enough of these.
- Second: If you are going to ship them, use small shapes rather than large ones because the small ones are more likely to survive the trip intact.
- Third: Do not roll the dough into large balls and then refrigerate. This creates a lot of hard work for you later on. The best thing to do is separate the dough and flatten it into a few small slabs, wrap in plastic wrap and then refrigerate. This makes rolling the dough out much easier.
- Fourth: Use powdered sugar rather than flour to dust your rolling surface so as to not add too much flour taste to the cookies.
For many cookie pointers read the transcript of the Good Eats episode The Cookie Clause. Alton Brown has many great tips on cookie making in that episode. It is where I learned about the slabs of dough. Can you believe we never thought of that?
And FINALLY the recipe:
Kathleen's (Mary's) Sugar Cookies
1 1/2 c sifted powder sugar
1 c butter softened
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 c flour, sifted
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
Cream the sugar and butter. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and almond extract. Blend dry ingredients, stir into butter mixture. Refrigerate at least 3 hours.
Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Roll out dough a little at a time (if it gets too warm it gets sticky) to about 1/4 inch thick. Use cookie cutters to cut out.
Bake on un-greased baking sheets for 8 minutes or until lightly golden. Cool on wire racks. Frost with butter cream frosting.
Butter Cream Frosting
1 lb Powder Sugar (4 cups)
1/4 c milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 c butter softened
Food coloring
In a bowl combine sugar, milk, vanilla and butter. If a little thick add milk a few drops at a time until thin enough to frost with. Divide into bowls and mix in the food coloring.
Frost the cookies. Allow frosting to harden on the cookies then store in air-tight containers. (Place a piece of bread in with the cookies to keep them soft. When the piece becomes hard and dried out replace it with a fresh piece.)
Several years ago I found this recipe for Pinecone Cheese Spread in Kraft's food & family Magazine. This is another make-ahead recipe and is my favorite appetizer to make. LittleRoq loves it, too.
I prefer to serve this with Triscuit Crackers as they are more sturdy than Ritz. The Garden Herb Flavor is excellent. Also, rather than buying the Mexican Style cheese they suggest I use 1 cup of shredded Monterey Jack plus 1 cup of shredded Sharp Cheddar.
If you don't feel like forming this into the shape of a pinecone then you could just make a ball and pat the almonds around the outside of it. The pine cone shape is festive, but the taste will be great either way.
So yet again the EU crew chose a food category that I really have no experience with. Baklava and eating at the Mad Greek in Baker, CA once is the extent of my Greek food influence. So, I immediately began searching out desserts... this is my specialty, after all. I had about five different ones that I was tempted to try, but I narrowed it down to three. I chose two cookies and one milk pie. Let's start with the first cookie that I tackled: on Friday, with 4 kids running around, I began the process of making powdered sugar dome cookies, otherwise known as Kourabiethes.
These cookies were super easy to make. A little expensive, if you don't have a cognac drinker in the house as a bottle of Hennessy is $24 and you only need 1 1/2 tablespoons. As luck has it, Tele likes to drink a little Hennessy on occasion, so it all worked out. Now, it seems to me that most Greek recipes were designed to feed an entire army, so I had to halve this recipe. If I knew how to split an egg in half I would have sized it down further, but since I don't have a laser egg yolk/white splitter, I stuck to just half the recipe, which still produced 30 large Kourabiethes.
Apart from sizing the recipe down I did not make any other changes to the recipe except omitting the rose water as it was optional anyhow.
Now a photo journey of the process of making Kourabiethes.
Creamed butter and sugar.
1 1/2 tablespoons Hennessy.
Here is the Hennessy after the baking powder was added.
I had sliced almonds in the fridge so I just chopped them up and roasted them in the oven on 350 degrees until they just started to darken in color.
The almonds have been added into the creamed butter and sugar along with the cognac/baking powder mixture, eggs and vanilla.
The dough after about 1/2 of the flour has been mixed in and another bit has been added.
One more addition of flour to go.
The dough is now ready to be formed into little domes.
Start by scooping out a small mound of dough, such as this.
Then begin pressing the dough together into a ball.
Now use your palm to form the top into a dome shape and flatten the bottom of the cookie.
I found that for me the base of the cookie need to be about the size of the middle of my palm.
And that 2 of my fingers was about 3/4 of an inch tall so I used my fingers as a guide to get the proper dome height.
The cookies waiting to go into the oven.
Now that the cookies have come out of the oven, it is time to start coating them in powdered sugar. Up till this point the kids have only helped me out by being my photographer (and they did a great job of that, if I do say so myself), but now they are ready to get busy.
LittleRoq is the first one to jump on the chair and start the sugar coating process (this was of course after he thoroughly washed his hands. I am quite a stickler about this important kitchen rule. CLEAN HANDS always!).
Now it was time for JoieGirl to get in on the action. She ended up putting the first coating of powdered sugar on almost all the cookies. Such great cooking assistants!
And finally we have all 30 cookies coated in powdered sugar twice and put away in a container waiting for Greek Night.
