1-2-3 Sugar Cookies

My sugar cookie recipe and very simple, easy to remember. Oh yeah, and they are delicious, guess that is important. So why are they called 1-2-3... ? well have a look at the recipe and tell me if you can guess.... Just waiting for you to go have a little peek.... OK, I'll tell you. All of the ingredients start with a 1, a 2 or a 3. Make it easy to remember. I did see how many calories you the cookies are, but really, it depends on the size of the cookie cutter. I usually get about 2.5 to 3 dozen cookies from one recipe. For the entire recipe there are 3911 calories, so just divide that number by the number of cookies you get for the per cookie amount.

Cookies can be tricky if you don't know a few simple tricks. First off, cream your room temperature butter. Please don't cheat and put it in the microwave. Just trust me, cookies need the creaming process. After the butter is nice and fluffy, add the sugar and cream the two together.

When you add the dry ingredients, if you are really good you might even sift them together before adding them. That is what a real pastry chef would do :) ssshhh don't tell, but I didn't do that. Sometimes I do, but most of the time I don't.

The trickiest part of this recipe is getting the thickness just right. Start by lightly flouring the surface. Roll it out but make sure not to roll too thin. This is a big mistake made when it comes to sugar cookies. Have you ever had one? you know the ones that are quite thin, well browned on the bottom and hard as rocks? Yeah, don't roll them too thin, they should be a good 1/4" thick. If you mess up and get them too thin you can always roll them out again, but don't do it too much as the more flour you add to the dough, they harder your cookies will be. Once you get them to the right thickness, go ahead and cut out using your cookie cutter.

Carefully pick them up and place on a non-oiled pan. Make sure to leave enough room for them to grow. They will get bigger.

Bake for 8-11 mins. Don't you hate that. Just tell you the right time of how long to cook it, take the guess work out. Well, as nice as that would be, it can't happen as everyone's ovens are different. Plus the type of pan you use plays a huge roll in it as well. If you have the dark pans, throw them out rush to the store and get real pans, your cooking time will be much shorter than if you have real cookie sheets. They will brown a lot faster and if you have them, I actually don't recommend using real butter in your recipe as the butter will brown very fast on those pans. I just really doesn't work well. Personally I don't understand the purpose for those dark pans. Browning things too fast isn't, in MHO a good thing. Makes things too crispy, now if you are doing chicken with them, that is OK, but not cookies, softer is better. OK, getting off my soap box now.  But when I pull my cookies out of the oven, they are cooked but not brown. I baked mine for 11 mins.

I iced these cookies with just a simple icing. Didn't even use a recipe, but it was about 1/4 cup butter, 4 cups icing sugar and enough milk to make it very easily spread. It isn't a butter cream but has a small amount of butter in it. I think a true butter cream is too much for sugar cookies. I would love to try the flood icing, but when I read it was royal icing I got scared off. Royal gets so hard.... if anyone has tried it and can tell me what they are like to eat, I would love to hear it.



1-2-3 Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter (or marg. but I use butter)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3 tsp. baking powder
3 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar, add wet ingredients, mix well, add dry ingredients, mix until incorporated. Roll out to 1/4" thickness, cut with cookie cutter. Bake for 8-11mins. @ 350° F until starting to brown on the bottom (that will change if you have the dark pans). Unless you over temperature is very off, don't cook more than 12 mins. for a nice soft cookie.

Calories: entire recipe w/o icing has 3911 calories. Divide by the number of cookies you get out of the recipe to know how many per cookie.