Sugar Cookies

Every now and I again, I need some sugar. Though I've been busy lately, I knew I had to make some time to make something sweet.  When thinking of the next dessert I wanted to make, I realized I had never made one of the most common (and arguably one of the best) varieties of cookie--sugar cookies!


 I found some recipes, and found that most of them required an hour or so of refrigeration before being rolled out and cut with cookie cutters. I wasn't feeling quite patient enough, so I tracked down a different recipe that required just mixing the ingredients and heading straight into baking.  Of course I had to squeeze in some brown sugar per EmilyCanBake protocol, so I swapped out a bit of the white sugar for brown.  I also exchanged the shortening in the original recipe for butter.

I started by beating the butter and sugars together in a large mixing bowl until they were a creamy consistency.

Next I added in some vanilla extract and an egg.  In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and baking powder, then pour into the dough and continue to mix.

I poured some sprinkles on a plate, then used my cookie dough scoop to form the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls and rolled them around in the sprinkles to coat all the sides.

After rolling them in the sprinkles, I used my hands to flatten the dough out a bit and put the cookies on a pan lined with parchment paper.

I let them bake for 12 minutes, until I could see them browning around the edges.

Look at how cute they turned out!  Sprinkles make everything adorable.  And they tasted great!  I handed a few out at work and got thumbs up all around.  I'll have to try the cookie cutter variety next time (it's just changing around a few ingredients and refrigerating the dough for a while) when I get into my hardcore holiday baking, but now have a standard for an easy go-to sugar cookie recipe.  I made some sizeable cookies so I ended up with 20 altogether.

Sugar Cookies Recipe

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

Add butter, white sugar, and brown sugar to large stand mixing bowl.  Beat for 2-3 minutes until creamy in consistency.  Add in vanilla and egg and mix well.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda and mix.  Gradually pour into the mixing bowl and mix well.  Scoop with a cookie dough scoop and roll in sprinkles.  Flatten with hand and bake for 10-12 minutes.