Traditional Sugar Cookies!

Mother’s day just passed this weekend.  I went on a huge research through all my cookbooks to be inspired on what to make for my boyfriend’s mother.

So after some research and debate between what type of cookies to make, I came to the final conclusion of simply making Sugar cookies.  Why? Because I have never made them before. The second reason that pushed me to do it more was I wanted to use my  new cookie cutters.  One set I had bought in Toronto on my last trip which were cupcake cookie cutters, and another two, I had found yesterday at Walmart in the shape of a rabbit and the other, a tulip.

One thing I did learn yesterday was that its very important to start centralizing all the baking utensils around the house because I think that was one of the reasons that I ended up making lopsided cookies.

Here are the cookies:

Traditional Sugar Cookies

I took this from a recipe book that I got as a gift from a friend, called Cookies, Biscuits & Bakes 500.

RECIPE (as in book):

Makes 36

Ingredients:

12oz/350g/ cups plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting

5mL/1 tsp baking soda

10mL/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of grated nutmeg

115g/4oz/ cups butter, softened

225g/8oz/ cups caster (superfine) sugar

2.5mL/0.5 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

125mL/4 fl. oz milk

colored sugar for sprinkling

Instructions:

1. Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and nutmeg into a bowl.  Set aside.

2. In a bowl beat together the butter; caster sugar and vanilla extract until the mixture is light and fluffy.  Add the egg and beat well to mix.

3. Add the flour to the butter and sugar mixture in batches, beating well after each addition, and alternating the flour with the milk.  Stir to make a soft dough.  Wrap the dough in cling film (plastic wrap) and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 mins, or overnight.

4.  Preheat the oven to 350F/180C

5.  Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 3mm.  Stamp out rounds using a cookie cutter.  Gather together the trimmings and roll and stamp out cookies until the dough has been used up.

6.  Transfer the cookies to ungreased baking sheets.  Sprinkle each with sugar.  Bake for 10-12 mins, until golden brown.  With a metal spatula transfer the cookies to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

MY BAKING EXPERIENCE

My batch was a half as I only had half the butter that was needed for this recipe, so I ended up halving all the ingredients.  This was what caused some problems I think because the dough became a bit too soft so I had to add more flour to the mixture.  I”ll probably give this recipe another shot using the full amount of ingredients and make the suggested 36 cookies to see if it will turn out better than this one.