guitar picks & apron strings

Best Ever Sugar Cookies

I’m not a witch…

I prefer a sugar cookie with flavour over sweetness.  And for the love of pete, if we are planning to use cookie cutters, there had better not be any spread.  Nothing ruins a cookie making endeavor like SPREAD.  You know, you’ve spent hours making, mixing, baking, and icing only to hear “Oh, nice cookie, Susie.  Is that a kitty?”  No, you jackass, it is a bat wielding a pitchfork.

Aaaaaanyhow…  Here is my go-to recipe for cut-out cookies.  I adapted it from this perfectly fine recipe at Epicurious.  Feel free to swap out almond extract for the vanilla, add a bit of freshly ground pepper (seriously), switch out the citrus, and get freaky with the spices.  Top as you like, we used raw sugar this time around.

Boo.

Best Sugar Cookies (adapted from Epicurious)

  •  1 1/4 C AP flour
  • 1 1/4 C whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 t ground cardamom
  • 1 t ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1 1/2 C unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 1/4 C sugar
  • Freshly grated zest from 3 clementines
  • Juice from 1 clementine
  • 1 t vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg, room temperature
  • About 3 T melted butter
  • Raw sugar, cinnamon sugar, lemon sugar, OR vanilla sugar

Combine flours, spices, and salt and set aside.

Beat butter in large bowl until creamy. Gradually add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Stir in clementine zest, juice, and vanilla. Add egg and beat for one minute on high.

Stir 1/3 of flour mixture into butter mixture until just combined. Add remaining flour in 2 additions until all is combined.

Divide dough into four flattened discs, wrap each in cling wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.  You can leave dough in fridge for several days.

Preheat to 350°F. Roll out dough disc to about the same thickness you would a pie crust.  Cut out cookies, place on parchment- or Silpat-lined baking sheet.  Brush each cookie with melted butter and sprinkle with your choice of sugar. If you would prefer to ice the cookies, reduce sugar to 1 C plus 1 T.

Bake cookies until light golden brown, about 12 minutes.

 ~VARIATION~

 CHOCOLATE-DIPPED SPICE COOKIES

 Add 1/2 t ground cloves and 1 t freshly grated nutmeg.  Reduce sugar to 1 C. Instead of dividing into four discs, divide dough in two and roll each half into a cylinder about 2 1/2” diameter.  Wrap each log in cling wrap and refrigerate as directed about.

Slice into 1/4” thick circles and bake for about 14 minutes.  Let cool completely and then dip each cooled cookie into melted dark or bittersweet chocolate.  Let rest until chocolate is set and then devour.

 

Sixteen Miles…

My last three Google searches:

  • “how tall is that dude on GMA?”
  • “do decongestants cause constipation?”
  • “do cats fart?”

The answers, in case you are curious, are 6’4″, possibly, and yes.  The takeaway is that I probably need to use my brain a little bit more.

About five or so months ago I decided to take a break from the interwebs.  Not a total break, as evidenced by my depraved Google abuses above, but a break from blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  I just didn’t feel like blogging and was tired of reading my own whining.  Twitter was making my head spin.  And Facebook?  While I very much enjoyed being able to catch up with old friends and keep in touch with people who live far away, I couldn’t take another vaguebooking, overshare, screaming political atrocity, or REPOSTTHISORELSE bullshit from the assorted mini-muffin basket of chaos my feed had become.  Seriously people. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.

So yeah, I have *not* missed Facebook. But I have missed blogging.  Or, more accurately, I have missed feeling like blogging.  But I very clearly needed a break before things got all good and ragey.

It has been a long few months, but things are getting metaphysically sunny once again.  The bonitis is easing up, thanks to my daily shot of AwesomeGoo! and the Sad has been gonebabygone for many months now.  These days I am mostly just soooooo tired, but the doc says this will (hopefully) start getting better.  And I believe him.  Because he is a WIZARD.

But also because over the last month, I have been able to do things that I haven’t done in a while.  I can move my head like a normal person.  I can hike with the baby in the carrier without my hips freaking out.  And GLORY OF GLORIES! I can use my KNIVES again!  After months of not being able to dice up an onion, I finally have enough control of my hands to wield a giant chef’s knife.  So once again, my kitchen dojo is a sanctuary of light and sauteeing veg. And all this is thanks to my doc, who basically had to get all kinds of Serious with me and wouldn’t let up until I agreed to at least try biologics.  So I believe him when he tells me stuff.

And then one glorious day, I opened up Google, saw my search history and thought, for the first time in months, I MUST SHARE THIS WITH THE WORLD. And before I even knew what I was doing, I had opened up my admin page and clicked on “New Post.”  Of course, being me, I then spent a couple of weeks fritter-fretting about the theme and widget placement and colours.  But yeah, I felt like blogging again.

BEWARE.

Come backo the kitchen! Round Chef is lonely!

Come back to the kitchen! Round Chef is lonely!

Roadside Attractions…

Doing a little much-needed site maintenance. Will hopefully be back with new posts soon  xoxox ruby

Out and About

Out and About