Sugar Cookies

Originally from: http://www.beeinourbonnet.com/2011/03/basics-of-sugar-cookies-and-royal-icing.html

Ingredients:

2 cups of butter (room temp, set it out before you make)

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. almond extract

1 tsp. lemon extract

6 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

Directions:

Cream the butter and sugar first, add the rest of the wet ingredients.  Mix the dry ingredients in separate bowl, then add dry ingredients as you mix.

This is about as much as one kitchen aid mixer can handle.  

Now chill the dough for at least 4 hours in the fridge.  Overnight is best.

Now that it's chilled, take it out and set it on the counter for about 5 min before you work with it.

Now we are going to roll it out.  I cut off a nice chunk of my chilled, yet workable dough.

Generously flour your surface, then roll and cut as you please.

I love my straight rolling pin because of how wide an area it covers.

I also love my rolling pin bands that keep my cookies the same thickness all the way across.

Use sil-pat, non-stick baking sheets, and cookies just slide right off of them.

Bake in a (preheated) 375 degree oven for about hmmmm.  Cook time varies a ton with size, thickness and if you use a sil-pat (cuts baking time).  I say, start small.  For most cookies, I set the timer for 6 min, and add more time if needed.  You don't even really want them to be brown.  Maybe just touches of golden on a few corners, yet you do want them cooked all the way through.  Otherwise, they turn a dough-ey gray-ish color in the middle.

Question:  Should you use the scraps?

Answer:  For sure!  BUT... Be aware that each time you roll it out, you are working more flour into the dough.  More flour will make it stiffer, less tender (less tasty) and a little less smooth looking.  The first roll out also spreads/puffs a little more, while the last holds to the exact size that you cut it.  Therefore you will notice a considerable size difference between  the first and last roll out.  If your goal is for each cookie to be exactly the same size, you need to roll out from the same roll out number.  When you get a new chunk of dough, I consider it roll out one again.  Here is an example of the same cookie cutter, the same thickness of dough, but done in the first, through fifth roll-out.  Do you see the difference in how they look?  Slight, but noticeable to a cookie nerd, like myself.  I like to use the first and second roll-outs if I'm giving them/selling them.  I set the other scraps aside for making the "kids decorate pile."  

Hot Mama Cooks: So far, I have only gotten to the refrigerate overnight section.  Already I think that next time I will use 2 teaspoons of almond extract and no lemon extract.  Mostly because I do not like lemon!  Or 3 teaspoons vanilla and 1 teaspoon almond.  Also, instead of assuming that the kitchen aid mixer mixed everything completely, I will need to hand mix before putting it onto the saran wrap to make the "dough brick".  As it was, I started putting the dough on there only to realize it wasn't 100% mixed, and there was a floury powder section at the bottom of the mixing bowl that I then had to work into the dough already on the plastic wrap.  Which was a pain, though not insurmountable.  Next time I will know better!!  :)

Tomorrow, I will bake!  And the day after, I will royal ice - yippee! :D