Ok, so my nephew doesn’t exactly call me “Fun Aunt Amy” so much as just “Amy”, but hey, its my blog and I’ll write what I want! These past 3 days, hubby and I have had the pleasure (and at times, a nice new form of birth control) of having our nephew (my sister’s kid) come and stay with us before he has to go back to school in the fall. I thought it would be a nice “last vacation” for him, considering our apartment has an awesome pool, we have a Wii, lots of fun games and puzzles, and then there’s the fact that “Fun Uncle Joel” lives here (forget “Fun Aunt Amy” – when Joel walks through the door, “Fun Aunt Amy” could dance around with underwear on her head and would go completely unnoticed!). But alas, Uncle Joel has to work during the day, so it was up to “Fun-at-one-time-but-starting-to-get-a-little-dull Aunt Amy” to do the entertaining.

This kid has an undying love for sugar cookies – forget chocolate chip or even brownies….its always sugar cookies. Everytime. So I decided making cookies would be a fun activity for us to do together. Naturally, I turned to my baking Bible – Baking From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan. And lemme tell ya – these cookies rocked! I don’t even like sugar cookies – but these were nice and chewy (mainly because I sliced them pretty thick instead of rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters) and had a great flavor. Needless to say, my nephew loved them (which I had been a little worried about – he’s a bit of a picky eater!) – he polished them off pretty quick!

He was in charge of the sugar sprinkles – don’t they look pretty?! I think they gave them the perfect touch of sparkle! (And I have to say, the dough was pretty tasty in itself – we helped ourselves to a few little “scraps” along the way!)

Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies
-Baking From My Home To Yours

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 stick plus 2 tablespoons (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar (I used half white, half light brown)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Sugar or cinnamon sugar, for dusting (optional)

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.
2. If you are making roll-out cookies, working with one packet of dough at a time, roll out the dough between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper to a thickness of 1/4 inch, lifting the plastic or paper and turning the dough over often so that it rolls evenly.
3. Lift off the top sheet of plastic or paper and cut out the cookies — I like a 2-inch round cookie cutter for these. Pull away the excess dough, saving the scraps for rerolling, and carefully lift the rounds onto the baking sheets with a spatula, leaving 1 1/2 inches between the cookies. (This is a soft dough and you might have trouble peeling away the excess or lifting the cutouts; if so, cover the dough, chill it for about 15 minutes and try again.)
4. After you’ve rolled and cut the second packet of dough, you can form the scraps into a disk, then chill, roll, cut and bake.
5. If you are making slice-and-bake cookies, use a sharp thin knife to slice the dough into 1/4-inch-thick rounds, and place the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 1/2 inches of space between the cookies.

YUM! These were so good, and SO easy to make – it took no time (of course, I did have help making these!)!!

And here we go (drumroll, please!) my nephew took this last picture himself!! Aren’t you impressed?! I know I certainly am! Looks like we have a photographer in the making!

Share:

 

 Tweet