Sugar Cookies

I was nominated to make sugar cookies for the kids to decorate at the annual Alley family Christmas party. I did some test baking to pick the recipe I wanted to use. As it turns out, some sugar cookie recipes are best for dipping in milk and some are best for making cookie cut-outs.

The first recipe I tried was from the big yellow Gourmet cookbook. It's more of a dipping in milk and drinking with sweet tea kind of sugar cookie.

Makes about 5 1/2 dozen

Bake at 375 degrees

1 cup granulated sugar, plus additional sugar for shaping a sprinkling cookies

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

4 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, whisk together granulated sugar and confectioners' sugar. Whisk in oil, eggs, vanilla, salt, baking soda and cream of tartar until combined. Add flour and stir until dough forms; dough will be dry and crumbly. Form level tablespoons of dough int balls and arrange about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet. Flatted balls with bottom of glass dipped in granulated sugar (edges of cookies will crack). Sprinkle cookies with more sugar.

Bake cookies until set but still pale for chewy cookies (about 8 minutes), or until pale golden for crisp cookies (about 10 minutes).

I ended up using a more cut-out appropriate cookie recipe for cookies to decorate. This recipe comes via Matthew's mom, but the recipe credit really goes to Matthew's first grade teacher, Judy Pickering.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 c. sour cream

3/4 c. butter

1 tsp. soda

scant tsp. baking powder

1 egg

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. vanilla

--enough flour to make dough easy to roll

Cream together sugar and butter. Add in egg, vanilla and sour cream, baking powder, soda and salt. I used about 4 1/2 cups of flour.

Chill cookie dough for about 30 minutes. Remove dough from freezer, roll dough on pastry sheet covered with wax paper. Sprinkle wax paper with flour to prevent sticking. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes.