a better cookie

Look no further if you want to make the perfect sugar cookie. Cookie baking is an art form and if you follow all of the rules in the book your cookies will look marvelous dahling! I actually change the recipe up a bit to make it my own, but any sugar cookie recipe will do. Just make sure that you don't use too much flour or the cookies will become too dry and crack. This book, Cookie Craft, will give you all of the help that you need. Justin gave it to me two years ago for Christmas and cookie baking has never been the same! The following recipe is from Karen's Cookies and seems to work very well.

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar, processed in a food processor or blender for 30 secs

(this really works!)

1/2 tsp. salt

1 large egg

1 egg yolk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

(or lemon, almond, peppermint, etc.)

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes with mixer set at medium speed. Add yolk, beat well. Add whole egg, vanilla and optional almond extract and beat until well-incorporated. Add flour; beat at low speed just until flour is mixed in; do not overmix. Divide dough in halves or thirds and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, at least one hour and up to 2 days.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Dust work surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll dough to 1/4" thick, sprinkling with additional flour as needed to prevent sticking. Cut into desired shapes and place on parchment or silicone-lined pans. Bake in preheated oven until cookies appear dry on the surface and are light golden brown on the edges, about 10 minutes (very large cookies may take up to 12 or 13 minutes). Remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks and cool completely before decorating.

My advice: when the dough is ready to go, take it and pull it into two different pieces. Take each piece and wrap loosely in seran wrap, then gently roll with a rolling pin and flatten it out just a bit. It should look like two little packets. Put in freezer so each piece can get really firm. Remember, you do NOT want to put soft dough in the oven or it will rise out of shape. Next, take the dough out of the seran wrap and roll out as best as you can on a parchment lined pan, then put back in the freezer. I'm serious when I say it needs to be cold! When it is really, really firm use metal cookie cutters and cut out the shapes. This makes the edges very smooth. Any leftover dough from cutting out the shapes needs to, you guessed it, go back in the freezer. It doesn't need to be frozen solid, just very firm. I know this is really anal, but if you want the perfect cookies you gotta work for them!

I won't even start on royal icing right now. Maybe for another post. Royal icing is no joke! It takes a lot of practice, but it's worth it. Just read about it in Cookie Craft or this article on Martha Stewarts website. Below are some of the cookies I've done. I am by no means a professional, but with lots of practice they start to become much better looking!