Must be marmalade! Finished, and fine (not perfect, but I have yet to achieve that--although my sister Hannah managed on her first try. Seriously?!)
It's delicious--the boys were hungry before bedtime last night and asked for toast with marmalade (yay!) and Phin actually said, "I love marmalade, mom." Who knew? I finally found someone(s) who will enjoy it with me!
And on that note, Traditions III is right around the corner...
Come one, come all to the cookie decorating party tomorrow night!
It's the 9th (10th?) annual Bonner Cookie Decorating Party, and if you're in town, you're welcome to come (as long as you're female and over 6)! Bring your baked sugar cookies and come visit.
I'm so looking forward to it--it's so much fun!
I decided that last night would be the best time to get my dough made and so I decided to time how long it took me to make it, since I was already 10 minutes past the bedtime I'd hoped to achieve. It took me 24 minutes to make 4 batches of sugar cookie dough, rolled out and in the refrigerator to make with the kids this afternoon. It's so helpful sometimes to realize what you can get done in 15 minutes or so--I have the kids time their jobs every once in a while, and it's amazing how fast that dishwasher gets unloaded. :)
Anyway, I've had some requests for a recipe and some tips that I've learned over the years, so you, too, can whip out your batch tonight after the little ones are in bed...!
I've been using the Rich Rolled Sugar Cookie recipe in The Joy of Cooking for years now, and I think it's great--I double this just about every time.
Here goes, with my comments on how to do this with your little ones:
Beat on medium speed until very fluffy and blended:
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2/3 C sugar
Add and beat until well-combined:
1 large egg
1/4tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla (or more, I just dump a bunch in)
Stir in until well-blended and smooth (not too much, though):
2 1/3 C white flour
Divide the dough in half. Place each half between 2 large sheets of wax or parchment paper. Roll out to a scant (what does that mean?!) 1/4 inch thick, checking the underside of the dough and smoothing any creases. I then stack my flat dough disks on a cookie sheet in the refrigerator until I'm ready to cut them out. If you're doing this with little ones, do everything above ahead of time. :) You can wait 20 minutes or so, but I wait a day until I'm really ready. I get all the cookie cutters I want them to use out and ready, aprons on, and we dive in! The recipe says, " Working with 1 portion of the dough at a time (leave the other refrigerated), gently peel away and replace 1 sheet of paper. Peel away and discard the second sheet. Cut out the cookies and transfer them to cookie sheets (with parchment paper, or greased, or with silpat mats). Roll the scraps and continue the same process until you've cut all the cookies out. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, just until the cookies are lightly colored on top and slightly darker at the edges, 6 to 9 minutes; rotate the sheet halfway through baking for even browning (I never do this). Remove the sheet to a rack and let stand until the cookies firm slightly. Transfer the cookies to racks to cool."
I then wait to decorate the cookies until a different time (day)! Cutting them out is enough of a fun time with kids, and waiting to let them cool just takes too long.
When we're ready to decorate, here are the things I always do:
Cover the table with a disposable plastic tablecloth. It's worth it.
Make Royal Icing (using the recipe on the box can of Meringue Powder from Michael's) and split into lots of plastic cups, and mix in gel food coloring (also at Michael's) with plastic spoons.
Take off everyone's shirts (just kidding, but I definitely get our paint t-shirts and aprons on all of them).
Put a small amount of sprinkles in a couple little bowls for each kid. DO NOT give them the sprinkles container with the shaker top. If you haven't already learned the hard way, you'll have one very sprinkled cookie and not much more. And then the fight to eat that one ensues...you can imagine, I'm sure.
Plan on each little one decorating about 4 cookies, and eating about 4. Then you need to STOP what you're doing, remove them from the table, wash them off, and put them in front of the TV for one episode of Curious George while you finish decorating the extra cookies and clean up by wrapping all the cups and extra sprinkles and spoons and mess into the tablecloth and throwing the whole thing away.
I have found this to be really fun with all the ages I've had and so encourage you to try this with yours!
