Skip to main content

Day 281: Sugar Cookie Cutouts

This time of year is all about reconnecting with food memories.  Today, we are baking sugar cookies!

This recipe is from a magazine called Christmas Cookies 1992, and was faxed to me by my dad on November 29, 2004.  I recall making them in my first apartment after college, and many, many times since.  The sugar cookies of my childhood.

If we were home this year, we would bake cookies with my niece and nephew.  Instead, we are decorating via videocall this afternoon to carry on the sweet memory.  The dough is currently chilling in the fridge, and I think we'll just about make it in time!

Sugar Cookie Cutouts

From Christmas Cookies 1992, weights added by me.

1/3 cup     (76 g)        butter or margarine

1/3 cup     (64 g)        vegetable shortening

2 cups       (250 g)      all-purpose flour

3/4 cup     (150 g)      granulated sugar

1                                   egg

1 Tbsp       (12 g)        milk

1 tsp          (5 g)          baking powder

1 tsp          (4 g)          vanilla

 

Beat butter and shortening with an electric mixer about 30 second, or till softened.  Add about half of the flour.  Add sugar, egg, milk, baking powder, and vanilla, and a dash of salt. Beat till combined.  Beat or stir in remaining flour.  Divide dough in half.  Cover and chill about 3 hours or till easy to handle.

For cutouts, roll each half of dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness. Using desired cookie cutters, cut dough into shapes.  Place 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake in a 375 degree oven for 7 to 8 minutes or till done (Note: barely any color!).

Cool cookies on cookie sheet for 1 minute.  Remove cookies from sheet; cool on a wire rack. Makes 36 to 42.


Powdered-Sugar Glaze

Combine 1 cup sifted powdered sugar and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla in a small mixing bowl.  Stir in 1 tablespoon milk. Stir in additional milk 1 tsp at a time till icing is smooth and of drizzling consistency.  Spread on cookies with a small spatula, or brush on with a 1-inch-wide brush.  Makes about 1/2 cup.

 


NEW for 2020! 
Variations on a Theme

We have been watching, and inspired, by Sugar Rush on Netflix.  They mix up some very interesting flavors!  We made half a batch of classic cookies, then the other half smaller for some experimentation.  Ours, today:
  • Cannoli Sandwich Cookies- part skim ricotta, a dash of almond extract, powdered sugar, blitzed dark chocolate chunks.  Edged in chocolate chunk powder;
  • Raspberry Sandwich Cookie- Raspberry jam, lemon curd, and a twist of salt; and
  • Cinnamon Cardamom- Added the spices to the vanilla glaze, sprinkled on some chopped almonds.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Constructivist Crap

Reading this post was like deja vu for me! I took a class just like this as an undergrad... (surprise, surprise) in the education department. I made it through that semester by taking solace in two facts: (a) I was also taking The Sociology of Education in the soc department, with a professor who actually taught the material and (b) most of us in my little liberal arts bubble wouldn't end up teachers, thus wouldn't have an opportunity to inflict such pedagogical torture on kids who needed to actually learn stuff. It would appear that Newoldschoolteacher has neither of those to help her out. God save her. The professor in my class repeatedly insisted that we were a "democratic classroom" and that she wasn't any more of an expert on the material than us. WHAT? I paid good money for that course, money that employed her to teach me. I hope that she was more expert on the material than I was! Also, when I "took responsibility for myself" and said that ...
5 comments
Read more

Privilege of Being

Robert Hass Many are making love. Up above, the angels in the unshaken ether and crystal of human longing are braiding one another's hair, which is strawberry blond and the texture of cold rivers. They glance down from time to time at the awkward ecstasy-- it must look to them like featherless birds splashing in the spring puddle of a bed-- and then one woman, she is about to come, peels back the man's shut eyelids and says, look at me, and he does. Or is it the man tugging the curtain rope in that dark theater? Anyway, they do, they look at each other; two beings with evolved eyes, rapacious, startled, connected at the belly in an unbelievably sweet lubricious glue, stare at each other, and the angels are desolate. They hate it. They shudder pathetically like lithographs of Victorian beggars with perfect features and alabaster skin hawking rags in the lewd alleys of the novel. All of creation is offended by this distress. It is like the keening sound the moon makes sometimes, ...
5 comments
Read more

Singing Metro Man

This morning on the Orange Line train to work, Singing Metro Man made an appearance. If you ride the Orange or the Blue Line, you may know of him...I’ve heard from other passengers that he’s been around for years, though I can only confirm the last three. He’s an elderly Asian gentleman, well-dressed, who steps onto the train right before the doors close. Once the train begins to move, he clears his throat, says a polite but insistent “Excuse me,” and begins to sing a hymn from his songbook. The effect is eerie. The silent morning train, everyone still half-asleep before their first cup of coffee. The whoosh of the tunnel. The man’s gentle, earnest voice singing a capella (he’s not half bad) about how we should trust in Jesus. As he reached his crescendo this morning, I half expected the train to explode or something—the moment just felt very... cinematic. Luckily, life is not a movie, and after the song was done, he wished us all a good day, exited the train and moved to the n...
2 comments
Read more