Foodie, Formerly Fat

I know, I know, Christmas was last weekend. I get it, I’m late. But these are cookies so it doesn’t really matter, because you’re home this week with your kids and you need something to do. Besides, I was busy last week!

Ok, so you know the expression, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”? Well, what do you do if you can’t beat them OR join them? Well, I suppose you go in an entirely different direction. Let me explain. Have you seen my friend Susan’s Christmas cookies? No? Let me show them to you… riiiiiight… here.

So, now you understand. She is a goddess of baked goods. Thank goodness our children are in different classrooms at school because we both signed up to bring in cookies for the holiday party and there was NO WAY I was going up against those cookies. Talk about losing in a landslide. This would be more like an avalanche. So, I went with a simpler approach. My standard butter cookies with some colored sugar sprinkled on top in festive colors.

I think it’s worth mentioning here that there is a lot of marketing out there to make us think that baking cookies is a special all day affair of profound bonding with offspring. It really isn’t. (Unless you need to turn it into an event because you’ve been snowed in for 5 days and you need to find something else for the kids to do. Like last Valentine’s Day… but I digress.) Otherwise, it’s just cooking.

Yes, that's Andy's hand trying to swipe an uncooked cookie!

The day I made these, I got up and went to the Y, ran, and took a yoga class. After running a bunch of errands I came home, and mixed the dough for these cookies while I wolfed down a bowl of cereal. Then, I put the dough in the fridge while I took a shower and picked the kids up from school. Then it took about an hour to roll out the cookies and bake them while they ate dinner.

The more exciting part of these cookies is the colored sugar, which I made at home using food dye and evaporated cane juice. It took about 5 minutes and it was cheap. I hate buying those jars of colored sugar at the store for decorating. First of all, they are the lowest quality sweetener imaginable and then when you’ve used 1/4 of the jar you have to find some place to store it for a year until you need it again. Easier to just make it yourself, I say.

Colored Sugar (evaporated cane juice)

1/3 cup sugar (or evaporated cane juice)
6-8 drops food coloring

In a small bowl or cup mix the sugar and food coloring together with a fork. When the color is uniform spread the sugar out onto a sheet of tin foil. Leave it to dry for several hours or overnight. When dry dump the sugar into a plastic bag and seal. Crumpled up the bag to make sure the sugar crystals break apart and have a fine texture.

Butter Cookies

*I got this recipe from my sister, Jan, several years ago. She may have gotten it out of a book, so if I’m plagiarizing here, I don’t mean to, I just don’t know the origin of this particular ingredient list.

4 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 & 1/3 cups sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon vanilla
4 & 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

In large bowl of a standing electric mixer beat together the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy. Beat in one yolk at a time, then add the vanilla and beat until smooth.  Whisk the salt into the flour and slowly beat in the flour gradually until the dough just combines. Form the dough into hockey puck sized discs and wrap in plastic to chill in the refrigerator.

Makes about 3 pounds dough.

Let the dough harden in the refrigerator and use extra flour on the counters and rolling pin when rolling the cookies out. Roll out one disc of dough at a time and use cookie cutters of your choice. Line-up cookies on half sheet pan lined with silpat sheet for baking. Sprinkle with colored sugar.

(Personally, I dislike rolling out dough that has chilled, but I recognize how important it is to have the butter in the cookies get cold before baking. I sometimes compromise on this and roll out the dough immediately and cut into shapes. Then I line-up the cut cookies on the cookie trays and throw them into the fridge to chill before baking.)

Cook at 350 degrees for approximately 8-10 minutes depending on how thick the cookies are. Remove cookies to a cooling rack when they come out of the oven.