So Amber's project was to make Sugar Cookies and top them with crushed candy cane. Aunt Bethany's sugar cookie recipe was a perfect choice.
Want the recipe?
Cream 2/3 cups of butter and 3/4 cup of sugar. That is, put the butter and sugar in the mixing bowl and beat until it is smooth and creamy.
Next: Add 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and 1 tablespoon of milk to the mixing bowl. Mix until the ingredients are well blended.
Now place a flour sifter onto a plate and measure 2 cups of flour into the sifter. Add 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the flour. Sift about one fourth of the flour mixture into the mixing bowl of ingredients and stir until blended. Continue to add the flour mixture from the sifter and any that has accumulated on the plate. Stir until well blended after each addition of flour.
Divide the dough in half, wrap each half in waxed paper, and place in the refrigerator for twenty minutes or more. Chilling makes the cookie dough easier to roll out and handle.
While the dough is cooling there are some tasks to do:
1. Prepare baking sheets. We used silacone baking pan liners on the cookie sheets. These are nice because nothing sticks to them and cleaning up the pans is easier. If you use the cookie sheet without the liner, you could lightly grease the pan or use a spray.
2. Crush the candy canes. We used white candy canes with red and green stripes. The method Amber used to crush the candy was to break them up by hand and place them in a ziplock bag. She placed the bag on a cutting board and struck it with the wooden rolling pin until the candy was rather fine, but with a few small chunks remaing so the color pattern could be seen. The crushed candy was placed in a bowl so it could be spooned onto the hot, glazed cookies.
3. Prepare the glaze. We just guessed at the amount. We probably had about 3/4 cup of confectioner's sugar and added a tiny amount of water. Stir until smooth and a little more runny than you would want for frosting a cookie. We wanted it to just glaze the cookie and help hold the crushed candy cane onto it.
4. Get a surface ready to roll out the cookies. We used a cloth covered pastry board and dusted a small amount of flour onto the cloth. Otherwise, a small skim of flour placed on a section of the counter will work.
5. Lay out the cookie cutter, the turner, and any other equipment you may choose to use.
6. Turn the oven on with the temperature set for 375.
Now it is time to roll out half of the dough to about 1/4 inch thick or a little thinner. Cut the cookies with the desired cutter -- we just used a biscuit cutter, but various shapes could be used. Place the cookies on the pan liner or slightly greased pan. We put the cookies 3 across and 5 down on our large pan but not as many on our smaller pan. Roll out the second half of the dough and cut cookies as you are able (depending on the number of pans you have). Once the oven is heated, bake the cookies about 7-8 minutes or until the edges just barely begin to turn brown and the cookie doesn't indent when touched lightly with your finger.
Remove from the oven when done, spread with a thin layer of the glaze, sprinkle on some crushed candy cane, and remove the cookies to wire racks for cooling.
That's it! Amber is learning something new every time we cook.
