Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Grandma's All Occasion Sugar Cookies

This was a fun week for me ( other than the fact that I have been struggling with this post for over an hour now ). I so love decorating cookies and this was the perfect opportunity for me. I am always looking for excuses to decorate and make cookie bouquets and treats.
First I tried the recipe in the book "Baking:From My House to Yours" by Dorie Greenspan. The cookies came out tasty enough but I wasn't too thrilled with the texture. Too soft for me- I like a crunchier sugar cookie- just my personal preference. I have dozens of sugar cookie recipes as I continue to search for the ultimate recipe that suits me. As I continued to look , I came across two more of Dorie's recipes, one for chocolate roll-out cookies and one for vanilla both on Epicurious.com.

I really enjoyed working with the dough and the cookies are delicious. Then the real fun part came ( actually I am still in the middle of the whole project, but I took some pics of the first ones to be finished)- the decorating. I use a combination of my own ideas and pictures from books and online. The trick is getting the frosting just right. This time I used both rolled fondant and a glace icing from a recipe by Toba Garrett. This is the recipe she uses on most of her amazing creations in her book Creative Cookies.

Glace Icing by Toba Garrett

1 lb. (454 gr.) confectioners' sugar
3/8 c. (90 ml.) milk
3/8 c (4.5 oz. or 126 gr.) light corn syrup
Flavor options: 1 tsp. concentrated extract, 1 Tbsp. alcohol or liquer, or 2-3 drops concentrated candy oil
In a mixing bowl, thoroughly mix the sugar and the milk first. The icing should be very soft and have a heavy-cream texture before you add the corn syrup. Add the corn syrup and mix just until combined. Divide the icing into several bowls. Flavor if you if you want. Add gel food coloring as desired to each bowl. Make sure you cover the bowls with plastic wrap to keep the icing from drying out.You can add more confectioners sugar as need to make the icing thicker.

Lots more baking has been going on in this house since my daughter is coming home from the army for the weekend and I want to spoil her with all kinds of goodies. Made some of her favorites like Half-Moon cookies ( or black and white, depending on where you come from) and alfajores.



That's about it for now! Back to cookie decorating!











1 comment:

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear from you!