I’m excited today to introduce you to a new guest, Andrea of I Was Here Designs in Toronto, Canada. Andrea loves design (of course!) but she also loves to bake, and we’re thrilled to have her as our resident baker-blogger at Inspired Design Daily.
Today’s topic is a fave of mine, but one that I rarely get to indulge in: Sugar Cookies. So for now I’ll be living vicariously through the blog as we all get virtually sugar high. Enjoy! ~ Linsi
I am an avid baker. I do not enjoy cooking, but I love the science of baking. I am not a professional baker, but that is because I am also not a morning person, and to be a baker…well, I would need to learn to love mornings. Instead, my husband and friends get to enjoy being my afternoon tasters.
My belief is that every amateur baker needs a few good cookie recipes in their rotation. I have chocolate chip, peanut butter, orange juice balls rolled in icing sugar, and these…sugar cookies. These are perfect for an early spring day (despite the fact that it was hailing while I made these). This is an amalgamation of a few sugar cookie recipes I’ve tried over the years.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup softened unsalted butter (the softer, the better – but not melted)
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tbsp milk
- Extra granulated sugar for sprinkling
- Cinnamon for sprinkling
Tools needed:
Measuring spoons, 1 small mixing bowl, one medium-sized mixing bowl, rolling pin, cookie cutters, spoon or fork, flour sifter, dry ingredients mixing cups, plastic wrap, cookie sheets.
I promise the wine and port glasses are not for drinking…this time.
Get Baking:
In the smaller mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt
In the larger bowl, cream butter and sugar. This may take some time, and if it’s looking more like scrambled eggs than cookie dough, don’t worry. It will come out creamy if you keep mixing.
Add the egg to the butter mixture. Once mixed, add in vanilla and milk. Make sure it’s well mixed together.
Gradually add flour in to butter sugar mixture. All this means is you add some of the flour, mix it in, then add more, then mix it in. The dough will get be pretty stiff. I usually mix in the flour in 3 parts. By the third part it goes much easier if you mix it by hand. Go on, baking is messy – that’s part of the fun!
Put the dough in a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Lightly flour a work surface, and a rolling pin. Place unwrapped dough and place it on the floured surface. Start rolling. Sugar cookies are usually pretty thin, rolled to approximately 1/8-inch thickness. I prefer to make mine a little thicker.
Once your dough is rolled out, you can start cutting out your cookies with your cookie cutters. In this case, I used a white wine glass and a port glass for different sized circles.
Once done, you can take the left over dough, knead it again, and roll it out and cut out more cookies. I can usually do this twice. After that, the dough has too much flour and it changes consistency.
Preheat oven to 375F (190C)
These cookies will puff out while cooking, so leave some space between them.
Sprinkle granulated sugar on top of the cookies before they go in the oven.
Bake them for 7 minutes.
Sugar cookie recipes will say anywhere from 8-12 minutes. I was told by a baker once to bake cookies for 1 minute less than what a recipe says. They come out just as tasty, and a little bit more soft and chewy. I have followed this advice ever since, and it has never let me down. The only exception is peanut butter cookies. Those I bake for 2 minutes less.
When done, take them out and let them cool. Pile them in a bowl, watch them disappear!