recipe of the month

I realized the other day that I have never posted my sugar cookie recipe. I know sugar cookies aren't the most exciting thing in the world, but I have finally perfected a recipe that is always soft and chewy and the baked cookie holds up well for frosting, so to me it is exciting!

 

Soft Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

 

1 3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 cup pureed white beans (can be previously frozen, just thaw before using)

2 eggs

3 heaping tablespoons sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp lemon extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

 

In a medium bowl, add sugar to beans and butter; cream with a hand-beater til fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add sour cream and extracts and beat again. In a sifter combine flour, soda and salt and sift into butter mixture. Stir to combine. Chill one hour. The dough will be very sticky. Spread approximately 1/3 cup flour on counter or board and drop a baseball-sized lump of dough on flour. Top with a scant scoop of flour and use your hands to combine until you have a dough that is almost not sticky. Sprinkle a bit more flour on the board, roll dough out to 1/2 inch thick and cut with cookie cutters. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes, until bottom is just brown but top is not brown at all. Remove baking sheet from oven and allow cookies to cool on it for 5 minutes, then remove cookies to a cooling rack to continue cooling. Frost when completely cool.

 

It is important not to add too much flour, because that makes your cookie crumbly. Rolling cookies too thin can make them hard like crackers. It is also important to cook your cookies only until the bottom is just slightly brown and let them cool on the sheet as this helps them stay soft. The beans and sour cream also help them be extra-soft, so don't leave them out!

 

We had a fun time making cookies on Friday afternoon together.

 Jed is an excellent cookie helper! He loves to plunk the cookie cutters down any old place, so I end up rolling out a lot of dough, but I am okay with that. He used to not want to help at all, and I would much rather roll out dough and deal with haphazard cookie cutting and have his help. This time we cut out hearts and lips.

 Jed specifically asked that there be some cookies with no frosting. He really dislikes having sticky, slimy or wet hands and frosting just bothers him. So we put sprinkles on some cookies so they'd still look pretty and have a little extra sweetness to them. Sprinkles are best added before the cookies are baked.

 YUMMY!

Jed was so pleased with the lip cookies and had a great time putting them over his lips and laughing about his big mouth. He also discovered that when he bit off the side of the lip cookies, it turned into a fish shape. There are no more lip cookies because they were all turned into fish and then promptly devoured by a shark.