My Sugar Cookie Adventure: From Monstrosity to Perfection
I learned something really important from my mom the other day. There is no way to make sugar cookies “healthy.” Duh, right? Ok, let me clarify. I knew that you can’t make them healthy. I wanted to use less butter for both lactose intolerance sake and for healthiness sake. So, I used this recipe (be sure to look at how cute their cookies are!) and substituted 1/2 the butter for apple sauce and half the flour for whole wheat flour. And then I got this monstrosity:
Are those not the ugliest, most deformed sugar cookies you have ever seen?! You can click on the photo to get a clearer view, giant air bubbles and all, if you dare. Apparently, you can’t use applesauce in sugar cookies because it bakes them into a strange bread-like texture. In addition to that, it creates a sticky mess that makes it almost impossible to roll out or cut. Trust me on this, you don’t EVER want to put applesauce in your sugar cookies! I spent a ridiculous amount of time on these, only to get the above sad result.
I asked mom for her recipe and tried again. (Side note- I bet the recipe above works just fine too . . . if you follow the directions.)
Viola! I don’t mean to brag, but these cookies came out perfect. Here is her recipe if you would like to try it yourself:
Ethel’s Sugar Cookies (with mom’s revisions)
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon flavoring. I have used strawberry, orange peppermint, vanilla anything works.
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder (in date, newer the better)
Mix butter, sugar, eggs and flavoring thoroughly.
Add flour and baking powder slowly. Chill at least 1 hour.
Heat oven to 400. Roll dough to 1/4 ( it calls for 1/8 but I roll mine thicker) on lightly floured board. Cut out cookies, place on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 6-8 minutes It says until they are a light golden color, sometimes they are over baked then. Just try one to see. That’s it!
This time I followed the directions exactly except that I used 1/2 cup butter and 1/4 cup shortening (soy free). Our oven cooks at the speed of light so I only left them in there for 5-6 minutes. And then I made homemade soy free vanilla frosting. I’d give you a link to the recipe, but I didn’t follow it. Basically I just put in a chunk of shortening and then started adding vanilla extract, salt, warm water, and powdered sugar until the taste and consistency was to my liking. After frosting the cookies, I dusted them with some sprinkles, of course. And here is the final product, just like mom used to make them:
We enjoyed these cookies Christmas evening with some hot cocoa after a brisk, but lovely stroll down Christmas Card Lane. And boy were they yummy. Hope you all had a merry and blessed Christmas too! 🙂
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