"Sugar Cookies"

Front Range Frenzy Home : Sugar Cookies

Christmas Stained Glass Sugar Cookie

Sugar cookies come in great varieties, and most are easy to make. They can be crisp or chewy, soft or firm, moist or crumbly. We all have our favorites. Sugar cookies are a welcome dessert or snack, pack easily into lunch boxes and knapsacks, and look scrumptious piled onto a decorative plate when company comes. Keep a supply of fresh, homemade sugar cookies on hand for a quick pick-me-up.

Keep a roll of sugar cookie dough ready in your freezer for when you're looking for something to satisfy your sweet tooth. Just take the roll out, cut out into cookies, and bake for a few minutes. Your craving will be satisfied in no time. If you don't have cookie dough ready, you can still quickly make fresh sugar cookies for yourself, your family, and your guests. Just choose a drop-cookie recipe that can be stirred up in a few minutes, and baked for 8-10 minutes.

To entice your guests, throw a batch of sugar cookies in the oven shortly before they arrive. The fragrance will fill the house, and be a most welcome smell upon entering your home.

Cookie making leaves lots of room for creativity. Use the ingredients you like. If you prefer one extract over another--almond instead of vanilla, perhaps--use it. If a recipe calls for raisins and you prefer dried cherries, use the cherries. You can substitute whole wheat pastry flour for all-purpose, and vice versa. Bread flour will also work.

When baking, you can use whatever cookie sheets and pans you have on hand. It's helpful to know that the lighter the color of the sheets or pans, the less heat they hold--and, therefore, the more delicately browned the finished cookies will be. If you're shopping for new cookie sheets, consider buying insulated ones and line them with parchment paper when you use them. The cookies will have beautifully golden bottoms, and you won't have to grease the cookie sheets or the parchment paper.

(A Tasty Treat Any Time of the Year)

3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Crushed colored hard candies (about 1/3 cup)

1. Crush the hard candy.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar.
3. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
4. In another bowl, mix together flour and baking power.
5. Gradually stir flour mixture into wet ingredients until dough is very stiff. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill about 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll out dough to roughly 1/8" thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut out cookies using large cookie cutter to give them fun shapes. Transfer cookies to a foil-lined baking sheet. Using a small cookie cutter of the same shape as the large one, cut out and remove the dough from center of each cookie. Fill the center sections with crushed candy. Bake 8-10 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned and the candy is melted.

Sugar Cookie with Icing
THE FRAGRANCE OF HOMEMADE COOKIES JUST out of the oven or the sight of a freshly filled cookie jar is enough to bring joy to the hearts of both children and adults.

Stained Glass Sugar Cookie
We all have our favorites. Sugar cookies are a welcome dessert or snack, pack easily into lunch boxes and knapsacks, and look scrumptious piled onto a decorative plate when company comes.

Crisp Sugar Cookie
When we were not giving the cookies as gifts or inhaling them ourselves, we would sometimes sell them for 25 cents a dozen.

Best Tasting Sugar Cookie
Are you looking for the best tasting sugar cookie? Look no further...