Apocalyptic Sugar Cookie Stories

My mom started us making cookies at seven-years old. With five children in the family cookies didn't last long so we spent a whole day making ten batches or more and then packaging them for the freezer. My dad was a supervisor at Boeing and one of the ways he became everyone's favorite boss was the trays of cookies he brought in to work for all the guys and gals. Chocolate chip cookies weren't good enough at Christmas, you had to have a complete array. So given my forty years of experience as a cookie maker, you'd think everything would go smoothly when I set down to back a few sugar cookies with some interesting twists. I mean, after all, why just make a simple sugar cookie?

Problem 1:Cookie Cutter Calamities

I should have expected that Robert the Blasted Clean, my husband that removes everything that he doesn't use out of the house to have deep-sixed the cookie cutters after the debacle of the missing Thanksgiving lace tablecloths. But woe is me, nary a cookie cutter to be seen. This is after having shopped at Michael's and seen their huge array of everything one can buy. See picture 1.

Tip: If you're teaching young children to bake, the molded cookie trays sold at Michael's may be the ideal solution.

Tip: If you have no other cookie cutter, a glass will make a perfectly acceptable Christmas ornament.

Anyone that has made sugar cookies has run the gamut of sugar cookie problems. You roll out the dough and it sticks to your rolling pin and the counter like the Slime from Another World. You carefully cut the cookie, but it sticks to the cookie cutter. Your cookie cutter cuts perfectly, but when you go to put it on the cookie sheet, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer looks like roadkill. You get the cookie on the tray but after baking it it turns into Hoary the Nearly Headless Snowman.

Tip: Buy plenty of wax paper and roll your cookie dough between the two sheets.

Tip: Use cornstarch on your cookie cutter to ensure a smooth release.

Tip: Cut the cookies out on the wax paper, then turn the cookie over and place the cookie on the tray, peeling the wax paper off.

Tip: Don't roll the cookie dough too thin, make sure it's ¼" or more. ½" is better.

Tip: If all else fails, roll the dough into two-inch cylinder wrapped in wax paper, freeze it, and cut slices off the end.

Tip: If your perfectly cut cookie loses it's shape, play with the cookie dough like play dough, you know you're not Michaelangelo, but really, a tree and star aren't that difficult to ad lib with a knife. The dough doesn't bleed.

Problem 2: Dressings to Get the Looks that Kill or Things that Failed Gloriously

I get bored easily. So before I set out to make sugar cookies, I decided to get as exotic and interesting as I could. Michael's had tons of cookie sprinkles and other décor. Most of the grocery stores like QFC and Thriftway carried adequate supplies of colored sugar, sprinkles, food colorings and flavorings. See picture 2 for the supplies used. I found sprinkles and sugars to be ho hum. So the best place I found to find candy was at Bartell's. See picture 3.

Tip: If you want to try various looks and tastes, take a glob of dough and put it into a bowl and mix by the cookie.

Tip: Keep a sink full of soapy water to clean up the bowls for other tries and the messes you're like to make.

Candy Cane Cookies

I thought it would be fun to crush candy canes and then place a candy cane under the cookie so that I'd have a hangar for the Christmas tree. Sad news-candy canes look like the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy threw water on her when you bake them.

Tip: If you try this, only put crushed candy cane on top of your cookie.

Tip: Extract most of the cookie off the cookie sheet as quickly as possible, candy really sticks.

Tip: If you have candy stuck to your cookie sheet, place a wet cloth over the cookie sheet and let it set for a while. The sugar will melt and you won't slice up your cookie sheet.

Tip: Shaping the dough like a candy cane won't work if you use too much butter. Use half-shortening, half-butter in your cookies to have less spread during baking. Use plenty of space so any spread doesn't smear the cookies together.

Cherry Kisses

One year we baked a chocolate kiss in the center of a sugar cookie with tasty results. This year I tried the cherry cream centered kisses. These don't work as well. They melt into a puddle and fall through your cookie dough.

Tip: Make your cookie dough ¾" to 1" thick when using Hershey's Chocolate Kisses.

Raspberry and Blueberry Sugar Cookies

I thought adding real fruit to a sugar cookie might taste good and have extra health benefits. Bad news is the above fruits are priced consistent with delivery from Peru and comes with the likelihood of mold on some of the berries. Assuming you find some that work, they taste okay, but you might want to add bran, too, and make them really healthy. Be sure to drink prune juice with them.

Tip: expect to add extra flower as the fruit turns the cookie dough too thin.

Tip: Use a topping that adds extra sugar.

Peppermint Snowmen

This actually worked until I used cinnamon candies as the scarf around poor Hoary the Nearly Headless Snowman's neck.

Tip: Use frosting or egg wash to paint in his necklace/

Mad Scientist Experiments that Worked

See picture 4 for a quilt of some of the better results.

Cinnamon Ornaments

Take your cookie dough and dip both sides in cinnamon and sugar, then decorate with cinnamon candies.

Cashew Packages

Chop cashews into small pieces and add it to the dough. Decorate with egg wash and sugar sprinkles. Add whole pieces of cashew at the top as ribbons.

Tip: Kids can handle painting sugar cookies with egg yolk mixed with food coloring with ease.

Tip: Buy a good supply of paint brushes before you start.

Chocolate Wreaths

Take a cookie-sized dab of dough and sprinkle with unsweetened cocoa and mix into a swirl. Then turn it into a mini-loop and lay on the cookie sheet. Decorate with green egg wash, sprinkles and powdered sugar.

Tip: Egg wash helps to keep powdered and other sugars from sliding off the cookie.

Lemon Head Stars

Mix lemon peel, lemon juice or oil and yellow food coloring into the dough. Shape it like a star or use cookie cutters. Add a frosting made of powdered sugar, lemon juice and yellow food coloring.

Tip: Add lemon head candies after baking, otherwise they will fall through the cookie.

Craisin Stars

Craisins and I expect any other dried fruit mixes into the dough with ease and you don't need to add extra flower.

Tip: Cut the pieces small so they don't interfere with rolling out the dough.

Licorice Wreaths

Turn a dab of cookie dough into a rope and add several thin pieces of red licorice rope around them and then join them into a wreath. Make sure you make a large wreath.

Sugar Free for the Birds?

If you're like me and have to go to the gym and run 5 miles every day to keep the weight off, you might not want to actually eat your sugar cookies. One year we tried making suet cookies but the stench of melting the meat scraps down was a real turn off. Using sugar cookie dough sans the expensive sugar can provide a successful medium for holding bird seed as long as you keep the end result out of the rain. The following birdseeds worked well--thistle, no-waste corn and chopped sunflower mix, black sunflower seeds.

Tip: Coat both sides of the dough with seeds

Tip: Create a large hole at the top of the cookie using pencil or the end of a candy cane, so you can hang them.

The recipe for the dough:
For the cookies seen in Picture 4, I used cookie dough from Nestle. Normally I use Betty Crocker's Sugar Cookie recipe:
1 1/2 cups powered sugar
1 cup margarine or butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2/12 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar