Impromptu parties are my favorite kind of party. And when they are held at a friend's home with a beautiful pool and most comfortable outdoor furniture, I am the first to jump at the invitation. With husbands' out-of-town and a hot summer evening, a burger and hot dog barbecue was an ideal opportunity to get together for an evening of swimming and eating.
After a quick morning phone call with the invite from my friend/hostess and talk of the menu for the night, I decided to bring a tortellini salad loaded with red and green peppers, cucumbers, olives, pepperonis, and cheese tortellini and The Perfect Sugar Cookie as my contributions to the festivities. The menu was rounded out with bacon and cheddar burgers, a pile of grilled hotdogs, and still crispy sour cream potato chips - even on a humid night.
The Perfect Sugar Cookie is my "go-to cookie" ever since I made 8 dozen of the buttery, sprinkle laden treats for a middle school event earlier this year. I have deemed this cookie perfect for a number of reasons.
1. 99% of the time I have all the ingredients on hand for the recipe.
2. It takes about 5 minutes to mix up the batter.
3. The cookies are "drop" cookies which means no rolling and cutting out.
4. They are the same size every time - a whopping 3 inches across.
5. The sprinkles cover the whole cookie after they are baked.
6. They are delicious.
7. The cookies come out perfect every time.
One young party guest proclaimed the The Perfect Sugar Cookie as the best cookie he had ever had. The next morning as I was unloading my cooking supplies and groceries for my Thursday personal chef client, I noticed that he even "wrote" a note on my not-so-clean rear window of my car thanking me for the cookies.
That was the best thank you note I have ever received. And even more testament that this is The Perfect Sugar Cookie.
The Perfect Sugar Cookie
adapted from this recipe
makes about 22
2/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
jimmies/sprinkles
for decorationPreheat oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Fill a shallow bowl with about 1 cup of the jimmies.
In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream together the butter, shortening and sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in bowl and gradually blend into the creamed mixture until dough comes together, about 2 - 3 minutes.
Use a 2 tablespoon scoop
or roll dough into golf ball sized balls. Flatten slightly and dip in jimmies. Place 6 cookies on a baking sheet about 2 inches apart.Bake cookies 10 to 12 minutes. Only the bottoms should be light brown. Remove cookies from baking sheet and cool on a piece of parchment paper on the counter.
13 comments:
Thanks for the great recipe. I know my family will love these, and as you said, I have everything on hand.
Love the new color/look of your blog.
Happy Summer!
Martha
Amy - these look fantastic! I just am curious why they include both butter and shortening, and if you think I could use all butter? I try, overall, not to cook with shortening (I still keep some around for my grandmother's recipes for fried bread dough and squash flowers). What do you think?
Thanks Martha!
liska02 - I try to not use shortening also, but every once and a while I say what the heck. I have found that cookies with all butter tend to spread more. The shortening helps give the cookie a little puff. I say give all butter a try. I am sure they will still taste great.
Sounds like a great sugar cookie! This will be going on my must try list :)
Sugar cookies have always been a favourite around here.
Love the jimmies all over these! I enjoy going to cook outs too and the fun part is trying to figure out what to bring- sure I have my tried and true but I love to mix it up. Will have to try these very soon!
Yum! This will help me get rid of all of the miscellaneous sprinkles that I have in my baking cabinet! Just curious, have you ever tried using this recipe to make cut-out cookies for holidays? Thanks!!
Angela - I have not tried these cookies as cut-outs. The dough is a little soft but I think if you refrigerated it for an hour or so it may work.
I already have a recipe for (what I think is) the perfect sugar cookie, but may have to try these.
anonymous - I would love to give your perfect sugar cookie a try. care to share the recipe?
These cookies were delicious! My dough never came together but didn't seem to make a difference in the taste. Everyone I made them for said they tasted better than the ones you get from a bakery!
These cookies were perfect! I signed up for cookies for my kids class and I got tired after my first batch of rolled cookies and these were soo easy and they are so cute and fun! And easy to make seasonal with seasonal sprinkles!!! Although this batch I did with the rainbow sprinkles as you did.
To the poster that didn't want to use crisco -spectrum oils has a non-hyrdogenenated crisco substitute that I have used with success in the past!
One think though - I only needed 30 or so and I stopped after 30 cookies (using a 2tbs cookie scoop) and I had a TON of dough left over - If I had to guess I think I'd get closer to 50 cookies from this.
Great Recipe! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing! They are the PERFECT sugar cookie.
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