It's Snowing inside and out!!

A few months ago I received a surcie, a surprise package, from my friend Marigene and included in it was "Cookie Craft" by Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer. It is an excellent book full of ideas for decorating cookies and I've read the entire book, cover to cover. I love baking fancy cookies, so there could not be a more perfect book for me! I've been unable to make any decorated cookies since my surgery, but due to an early Spring blizzard, I thought I might try doing a bit of simple cookie decorating today and bring some of the snowflakes inside!! And oh boy did I have fun!



I am experimenting with sugar cookie recipes and choose 2 different Sugar Cookie recipes for my Snowflakes. I've had the first 2 recipes for a long time now and I have no idea where I found them. The 1st recipe was actually pretty good, but I did not care for the 2nd recipe and won't be making it again. So far my favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe is one from Martha Stewart and I will post it below.


Sugar Cookie #1

1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon red food coloring

Place butter in mixer and beat until light and fluffy and add vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and powdered sugar. Slowly add the flour and sugar to the butter, mixing on low. With all the flour and sugar added, the dough won't completely come together in the mixture, so you will need to finish it off by hand. Pull together the dough and form into a ball, pounding the dough with the palm of one hand. Once the dough is a consistent ball, use a knife to divide the dough in half. Return one half of the dough to the mixing bowl and add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of food coloring—your hands will stain less if you do the initial mixing of coloring in the blender. Run the mixer for a minute to help incorporate the coloring. The dough will crumble, so finish kneading by hand until color is more uniform.Wrap each dough half in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Don't over chill or else the dough will crumble and you will need to warm it by kneading.


Sugar Cookies #2

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Add flour mixture. Roll out to about
1/2" thick and cut into shapes. Bake for about 15 minutes.


My Favorite Sugar Cookie
Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat until combined. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture; mix just until combined (do not overmix).

Cookies can be rolled out and cut or rolled into a ball and crisscrossed with a fork.





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