I always start with the same Better Homes and Gardens recipe I discovered a few Christmases ago in my grandma's BHG Cookbook. I'm pretty picky about my sugar cookies and used to think I didn't really like any sugar cookie, but I loved these right away. (I omit the grated orange peel for a simpler vanilla cookie flavor.)
 |  |
Note: I'm typing out the ingredients for you (minus the orange peel) just as you see them in the photo from the cookbook, but I'm going to give you my directions. In case you're wondering - as I was - ingredient lists are not copyrighted, but the directions may be. I am obviously giving all attribution but I wanted to make sure I wasn't violating any laws; this Washington Post article explains this within more scenarios.
"Cooky-jar Sugar Cookies
2/3 Cup shortening
3/4 Cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
4 teaspoons milk
2 Cups sifted enriched flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt"
*Optional: 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
Notes on Ingredients: I have always used shortening (Crisco) in this recipe, so I can't recommend butter or anything else, but as always, feel free to experiment. This time, I used butter-flavored shortening simply because that's what I had on hand; I think in something like chocolate chip cookies, it can be nice, but I've generally become hesitant to use any artificial flavors if I can help it. Also, for the sake of experiment, I used all whole-wheat flour in this recipe. I'm always looking for ways to increase fiber and overall healthfulness in a recipe, but whole-wheat flour can really mess with texture. My initial impression was that the cookies tasted nuttier and were much crispier, and I prefer a soft cookie, but once the cookies were iced and absorbed some moisture from the icing, they were pretty good. That being said, I do prefer the softness of the cookie made with a more refined flour, and if they are a special occasion treat and not an everyday thing, maybe a few simple carbs aren't so bad. TIP: For a special Autumn treat, I added a teaspoon of "pumpkin pie spice." This is a premixed spice blend you buy where you buy the rest of the spices, and since spices are usually racked alphabetically, it actually appears at "P" for "pumpkin." Every brand is probably different, but any basic pumpkin pie recipe calls for some combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and clove, so you can bet that's probably what the premixed blend is. Or, you can always mix your own. When I'm in a seasonal mood, I add it to everything from cookies to hot chocolate.
1. Cream the shortening, sugar and vanilla; preheat oven to 375ºF. Creaming simply means "beating for a while until it's creamy." I've taken a picture of the mixture as it progresses; the top is right after it was combined, the middle was a few minutes in, and the bottom is the consistency at which I
stopped. (It's tinted yellow because of the butter-flavored Crisco, but normally would be white.) This is going to take at least five minutes, but will depend on the speed and power of your mixer. Hopefully you have a stand mixer so you can set it going and be able to walk away; I use this time to assemble my dry ingredients. TIP: The longer you beat it, the smaller the sugar crystals become. If you don't beat it long enough, the sugar crystals stay too large, and when baked, melt into bigger pockets which make your cookies spread out more. (Ever had chocolate chip cookies that looked like a puddle? You may not have creamed the sugar long enough.) If you beat it too long, your sugar crystals will get too small and your cookie will be crispier than it is soft.2. Combine the dry ingredients. While the sugar is creaming, get the flour, baking powder, salt, and any spices into a bowl and set aside. TIP: If you don't have a stand mixer and have to attend the sugar and shortening the entire time it's creaming, combine the dry ingredients as Step 1, then start the sugar and shortening.
3. Beat egg into shortening mixture, then stir in milk. TIP: 4 teaspoons is also 1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon; if you have Tupperware's old standard measuring spoons and ever wondered for what you would use that biggest, 4-teaspoon measure, this is that recipe!
4. Add the dry ingredients. Stir in the flour mixture in a few parts until well-combined.
5. Refrigerate. Split the dough in half, shape each into a disc, and wrap in waxed paper or plastic wrap. The original recipe says to refrigerate for at least an hour. TIP: I often pop the dough into the freezer for 20 minutes to speed up the process.
6. Roll the dough, cut, and bake. Roll out to 1/8" thickness on a floured surface, and carefully transfer to a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. TIP: I used to be of the persuasion that parchment paper was a luxury item used by the likes of Martha Stewart. But once you've stopped using spatulas because you can simply lift your cookies off the paper, and you find washing your sheets requires little more than a soapy rinse, you'll be sold. TIP: You can reuse the parchment for an entire baking cycle; I use it a few times on each side and then flip it over for a few more. TIP: Thinner cookies will be crispier, but will better retain their shape than a thicker cookie that will spread out more, if you're doing an intricate shape like snowflakes or flowers. Bake for 6-8 minutes, until edges just begin to show color underneath. Allow to cool for a minute or two on the baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack or a plate. Cool completely before icing.
 |  |
Notes on Dough: I tried a few different things, for the sake of experiment. Here you can see I have rolled out the dough and cut circles, used a dough scoop, and rolled balls with my hands. The dough didn't expand much at all, and needs to be in basically the same shape before baking that you want it to be after baking. If you're in a hurry and don't mind the shape, you could always cut some dough into cubes, roll them in your hands, and smash with the floured bottom of a drinking glass, but the edges will feather.
 |  |
Icing Sugar Cookies
If anyone is familiar with royal icing, they know it looks pretty, holds up well, and will even hold up a gingerbread house. It does not, however, taste very good. And flow icing looks great, but only in one sweeping base coat, and doesn't hold up well enough to use it for decorating. So, I compromise. I make a base icing of powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk, and then decorate with royal icing.
Flow Icing
Powdered sugar
Milk
Vanilla (clear)
There are no units of measurement, because I don't use any - sorry! (Some things are okay to do the old fashioned way.) Start with 2 cups of powdered sugar and a few tablespoons of milk, plus 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla. You can simply stir this together with a spoon, and then lift the spoon to see what the consistency is like. You want ribbons to lie on top of the icing as it falls, but not for too long. If no ribbons form, it's too thin and needs more sugar; if the ribbons lie on top for 10 seconds or more, you want a little more milk. TIP: A very small amount of milk goes a very long way.If you'd like to use more than one color, transfer a portion of your icing to a smaller, color-safe container (like a clear glass bowl or a disposable plastic tub), and add glycerine cake coloring a small amount at a time with a toothpick. Dip your toothpick in the coloring and swirl it through the icing, and then discard. TIP: THIS STUFF STAINS. Be very careful when working near cloth, natural wood or other porous and stainable surfaces. (Ask my grandma about two-year-old me finding the navy blue cake coloring right after she bought a new rose-colored rug and light blue recliner.) TIP: I used the Sunday funny pages to protect my workspace, and then I could discard my used toothpicks in a pile and not have to worry about where to put them; I also used disposable paper plates. TIP: Wilton's cake colorings are usually under $2 each, and every season and holiday bring with them special boxed sets of appropriate colors. They are widely available at superstores and craft stores, but look through holiday aisles for special colors; there are often holiday baking displays in with other seasonal decor and supplies.
Insert your icing into a prepared pastry bag. TIP: If you aren't used to working with these, they can be a little tricky. The decorator consists of a bag, a tip, and a two-piece coupling. The large part of the coupling slides into the bag. (See photo below left.) The tip sits on the coupling outside of the bag. The coupling ring goes over the tip and screws down, holding the open part of the bag down so no icing leaks out. TIP: Use a basic round tip for this project.
 |  |
Hold the smallest part of the bag (with the tip) in your hand and fold the top (widest) part of the bag inside out around your hand to easily fill it. Be careful not to let the runny icing
come out through the tip at the bottom yet. Or, sit the bag point-down in a drinking glass and fold the wide part down around the glass; that way if any leaks, it's inside the glass (see photo above right). Once you have the icing in the bag, fold the wide part back up and twist it closed; practice will let you hold that twist closed inside your thumb and forefinger (see photo right). TIP: If you want help, grab a twist tie and tie it closed. I've used pastry bags with children whose small hands aren't coordinated enough to do this, and icing inevitably leaked out of the back of the bag - and that's a disaster.
The easiest shape to start with is a circle - just trace the inner edge of the cookie. Then go back and forth across the cookie to fill it in. You can see here (above right) that the lines haven't all filled together yet; I just swirl the tip across those lines and they all blur together. TIP: If you get that much icing on the cookie and then add more to fill in those lines, you will have one very sweet cookie. I try to use as little as possible and swirl it together. If you drag your tip cross-wise through those lines and they still won't blur, your icing may still be a little too thick. At that point you can either squeeze it back into the bowl and add more milk, or grab a spreading knife to smooth the lines.
Another shape you can use for flowers - and I use this method with snowflakes as well - is a basic star pattern. To maintain some symmetry, I start with two dots opposite each other, and then fill in with dots on each half of the cookie, 3 or 4, however many you want. Then I go from one dot to its opposite and back again. You can see the flow icing sometimes flows together in the center on its own; you can fill in the points or leave them open. Then allow the icing to dry for a while. It can collapse if it isn't set, and is easily crushed until it has completely dried out, which can take hours (or overnight), so dry them in a single layer. But it has usually set up enough by the time I've made the royal icing, at least for me to start on the initial cookies I had iced. (I.E., I iced purple, orange, and yellow cookies in that order, and by the time I've finished the yellow ones and made royal icing, I should be okay to start adding royal icing to the purple cookies.)
Royal Icing
1 egg white
1 Cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2-3 drops clear vanilla flavoring
Beat all ingredients together for 10-15 minutes, until it holds stiff peaks. TIP: I beat mine for 10 minutes for this recipe; at Christmas with gingerbread houses, we use a larger recipe and beat for 15 minutes.
Again, color your icing and get it into an icing bag. TIP: Knowing your color wheel will greatly enhance your ability to make your own colors without buying every shade of cake coloring available. To make an ochre yellow, I knew I needed to add a little brown to a lot of yellow. I started by making my white icing light tan with a tiny bit of red and green (which are a good combination for brown), and then added a golden yellow to make it ochre. TIP: Always start small. You can always add color; if you add too much, you can't take it out and may find yourself wanting to throw it out and start over.
To create mums, I piped petals around the outside, and then filled in with another layer inside. TIP: You can use the star-point system here again, making dots for guides if you'd like, but don't make your dots too large, because this icing doesn't absorb into itself as easily as the flow icing. TIP: The key to this is to move smoothly and quickly. It's a first instinct to think you should start slowly, but the icing will look smoother if you can increase your speed a little. The best advice I can give you is that practice makes perfect - before icing any cookies, put a few uncolored spoonfuls into your pastry bag and simply practice, on a piece of waxed paper or a paper plate. It gets easier the more you do it.
My favorite part of sugar cookies? The ease of variation. You can make one tray of the exact same cookie if you like, but I love the look of a tray filled with many different designs. Above right, I added candies to the center. Below left, I deviated from my mum theme to make a few sunflowers for my mother; those are dried allspice berries in the center, which look pretty but will taste very spicy. Below right, you can see the difference between simply varying pointed or rounded petals.
Et voilà! It looks like an entire bouquet of Autumn, and with a little pumpkin spice in them, they taste like Autumn too. Think how wonderful this tray would look at a Harvest party, served alongside apple cider and pumpkin pie.
 |  |
The easiest shape to start with is a circle - just trace the inner edge of the cookie. Then go back and forth across the cookie to fill it in. You can see here (above right) that the lines haven't all filled together yet; I just swirl the tip across those lines and they all blur together. TIP: If you get that much icing on the cookie and then add more to fill in those lines, you will have one very sweet cookie. I try to use as little as possible and swirl it together. If you drag your tip cross-wise through those lines and they still won't blur, your icing may still be a little too thick. At that point you can either squeeze it back into the bowl and add more milk, or grab a spreading knife to smooth the lines.
 |  |
Another shape you can use for flowers - and I use this method with snowflakes as well - is a basic star pattern. To maintain some symmetry, I start with two dots opposite each other, and then fill in with dots on each half of the cookie, 3 or 4, however many you want. Then I go from one dot to its opposite and back again. You can see the flow icing sometimes flows together in the center on its own; you can fill in the points or leave them open. Then allow the icing to dry for a while. It can collapse if it isn't set, and is easily crushed until it has completely dried out, which can take hours (or overnight), so dry them in a single layer. But it has usually set up enough by the time I've made the royal icing, at least for me to start on the initial cookies I had iced. (I.E., I iced purple, orange, and yellow cookies in that order, and by the time I've finished the yellow ones and made royal icing, I should be okay to start adding royal icing to the purple cookies.)
Royal Icing
1 egg white1 Cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2-3 drops clear vanilla flavoring
Beat all ingredients together for 10-15 minutes, until it holds stiff peaks. TIP: I beat mine for 10 minutes for this recipe; at Christmas with gingerbread houses, we use a larger recipe and beat for 15 minutes.
Again, color your icing and get it into an icing bag. TIP: Knowing your color wheel will greatly enhance your ability to make your own colors without buying every shade of cake coloring available. To make an ochre yellow, I knew I needed to add a little brown to a lot of yellow. I started by making my white icing light tan with a tiny bit of red and green (which are a good combination for brown), and then added a golden yellow to make it ochre. TIP: Always start small. You can always add color; if you add too much, you can't take it out and may find yourself wanting to throw it out and start over.
 |  |
To create mums, I piped petals around the outside, and then filled in with another layer inside. TIP: You can use the star-point system here again, making dots for guides if you'd like, but don't make your dots too large, because this icing doesn't absorb into itself as easily as the flow icing. TIP: The key to this is to move smoothly and quickly. It's a first instinct to think you should start slowly, but the icing will look smoother if you can increase your speed a little. The best advice I can give you is that practice makes perfect - before icing any cookies, put a few uncolored spoonfuls into your pastry bag and simply practice, on a piece of waxed paper or a paper plate. It gets easier the more you do it.
 |  |
 |  |
Et voilà! It looks like an entire bouquet of Autumn, and with a little pumpkin spice in them, they taste like Autumn too. Think how wonderful this tray would look at a Harvest party, served alongside apple cider and pumpkin pie.
