Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookie dough is the best dough to use when cutting out shapes with a cookie cutter. When you make the dough, you need a recipe that will make the cookie keep its form, and not rise or expand. *Important*: Do NOT use Pillsbury ready made sugar cookie dough if you want to cut your cookies into shapes. They will expand and lose their shape. You need a dough with more flour in it! I tried taking the short cut and found out the hard way. I cut out 30 cookies with Pillsbury dough only to find that the dough did not keep its form. This was for my best friend's bridal shower, and boy can you say I was stressed out. Good thing I started 3 days ahead of time.


Here is the recipe the cookie cutter shop gave me: (Check out their cookie cutters, they are amazing!)

Ingredients:

2 Cups Flour
1/4 Tsp. Salt
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 Egg
3/4 Cup Butter
1 1/2 Tsp. Vanilla


1. Combine flour and salt, set aside. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.

2. Add egg and vanilla, beat until well mixed.

3. Add flour, blend on low until combined, do not overmix.

4. Form dough into a log, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour until firm. If dough is too sticky or flimsy to form a log, stick it in a glass bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

5. On floured surface, roll dough out to 1/4" thickness. It may help to sprinkle dough on the rolling pin as well.

6. Cut dough with your favoritecookie cutters. The theme of the bridal shower was diamond rings and bling, so I used a diamond ring shaped cookie cutter.

The dough needs to stay cool while you work with it, or else it'll become too soft and flimsy to pick up off the counter and put onto a baking tray. Keep the dough in the refrigerator and take out a small portion at a time to work with. You need to be able to work fast before it starts getting too warm, so if you feel the dough is not solid enough, put it back in the fridge and take out a fresh portion.

7. Place dough onto ungreased cookie sheets. The cookie cutter didn't have a hole in the middle to cut out a hole for the ring, so I used a plastic medicine bottle cap of just the right size to cut it out. I cut out the hole after placing it on the cookie sheet, otherwise it would have been too flimsy to transfer.

8. Bake in a 325 degree oven for 12 -14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack immediately.

If you roll out the dough nice and thin, this recipe can make about 60 cookies. I made about 50 cookies for the bridal shower, and I used the rest of the dough to make football helmet shaped sugar cookies for football sunday. It was Eid, the Giants and Ravens won, and the men loved it!

Stay tuned for the next post: Icing Sugar Cookies!