12 Days of Cookies – The Great Sugar Cookie Debate
Sugar cookies are the classic holiday cookie. Everyone seems to have a great sugar cookie recipe. I personally only have the patience for sugar cookies at the holidays. Even though I have about 40 cookie cutters, they barely ever get used. Occasionally I’ll use them for things other than cookies (like cake or bars).
I think it’s because I don’t have a great sugar cookie recipe. Don’t get me wrong I love the recipe that came from my Aunt. The problem is that it poofs so sometimes the cookies lose their shape. They don’t have crisp edges like some sugar cookies. So I decided to test three sugar cookie recipes to come up with a favorite.
The first recipe will be my Aunt’s recipe that I grew up eating. I’ll use it as a baseline to compare the other recipes to. Second, I’ll be trying a Dorie Greenspan recipe. Funny thing is that both Cookie Carnival AND Tuesdays with Dorie are doing Dorie’s sugar cookies this month! The last recipe comes from Ashlee’s blog (and Katie uses this recipe too). Her cookies always look perfect.
I decided that we needed to come up with a way to use up all of these cookies. Our friends offered to host a cookie decorating party. I brought the naked cookies and all my decorating supplies and they provided snacks and beverages.
These are pictures of some of the cookies we brought home with us. It was a lot of fun to decorate cookies with a group of friends.
One cookie cutter that I have never really liked is the Santa cookie cutter. My mom had one growing up and the only way it looks like a Santa is if you decorate it properly. I don’t think I’ll use the cookie cutter anymore. We did have fun trying to decorate the shape into things other than Santa. Hubby made a convincing bird and another friend made a cute penguin mother and baby. Here’s a pic of my Santa and hubby’s bird.
I was trying to be organized while I was baking, so I went ahead and measured everything out at the beginning including labeling each measured ingredient with post it notes. It turned out to be very useful when I started mixing the dough.
So now on to the verdict. Is it possible that one of these new recipes is going to replace my go to sugar cookie recipe? The recipe I grew up loving turned out soft and a little puffy as expected. It’s also somewhat difficult to work with because you have to work quite a bit of flour into the dough prior to rolling it out. Dorie’s recipe held it’s shape well and the batch was small, which was refreshing. It was also very easy to roll out and work with. Ashlee’s recipe had a nice hint of lemon. I enjoyed the lemon when they weren’t frosted but I thought it was a big overpowering when they were frosted. These also help their shape quite well and again were easy to work with. So I would definitely make any of these recipes again. I guess it would depend what I was looking for.
For super soft roll out cookies – I’d make my aunt’s recipe.
For cookies that hold their shape really well – I’d make Ashlee’s recipe.
For a simpler sugar cookie that yields a smaller batch – I’d make Dorie’s recipe.
And now on to the recipes.
Sugar Cookies – from my Aunt Deanne – I got 5.5 dozen cookies
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs beaten
1 cup lard
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
4 cups flour
sour milk (1 cup milk mixed with 1 tsp. vinegar and 1 tsp. baking soda.)
In a large bowl, mix sugar with eggs. Add lard, baking powder,
vanilla, milk, and flour. Mix each ingredient one at a time to the
other. Roll out and use cookie cutters. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.
Watch closely, top does not brown only bottom.
Sugar Cookies – from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from my Home to Yours – to see the entire recipe, check out the TWD member who chose it, Ulrike of Küchenlatein – I got 2.5 dozen cookies
As you can see the Dorie recipe made a very small amount of dough. This is nice though because sometimes making sugar cookies is overwhelming. Also, I didn’t rechill my dough between rolling it out. I just rerolled and went with it.
Sugar Cookies – from Katie, originally from Ashlee – I got 5.5 dozen cookies
1 1/2 c. butter
1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. powdered sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 Tbsp lemon zest
5 c. flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Powdered sugar, for rolling
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cream butter and sugars in a mixer for 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly. Add vanilla, almond, and lemon zest.
Sift in flour, baking powder, and salt a little at a time. Do not over mix, this process should take about one minute.
Chill dough for up to a week in the fridge, or roll out and cut right away. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and bake cookies for 7-8 minutes. Wait until cookies are cooled before icing.
Frosting
1 stick of butter, softened
1/4 cup Crisco
6 cups powdered sugar
Water or Milk to reach desired consistency
Food coloring
Beat butter and Crisco until light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar slowly. Add water/milk (I used whipping cream) until desired consistency is reached.
My 12 Days of Cookies:Day 1: Lumberjacks
Day 2: Peppermint Sandies
I’m submitting this to Food Bloggas Eat Christmas Cookies blogging event. Check this link to participate in the event. Or check here to see the roundup (gets updated as entries come in).
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I always loved fig newtons too 🙂 I have never thought of making my own. Now I know where to find a great recipe 😉
I am going to have to make these. As well as making them with some blackberries.
These look amazing and waaaay better than the store bought brand.
My husband loves fig newtons – just added this to my ever growing list of things to make!
I liked Newtons until they messed with the recipe…Maybe this version will be yummier.
I love the idea of making these at home! I still buy Newtons from time to time…they’re so nice and wholesome.
You are so creative! My family loves Fig Newtons….can’t wait to make these!
My boyfriend and I were just talking about fig newtons this evening! I was saying how much I loved them but hadnt had them recently.. and heres a way to make them myself!
I moved to the US when I was 15 so I didn’t grow up eating fig newtons but I liked them at my very first bite. I’m sure the homemade version is so much more gourmet 😉 Your pics make it look like raspberry filling which I bet would be amazing!!
These bring me back to my childhood! Only, these look infinitely more delicious and decadent. The Blue-Eyed Bakers must make these soon!
They look fantastic, and I’ve never actually been that much of a Fig Newton fan. Love the polka dot background for the pics too.
I love fig newtons. Hopefully, I can find my figs around here so I can try these.
http://www.lindaslunacy.blogspot.com
Congratulations on making one of the top food blogs!
Jonathan
Gluten Free
I was always a fig newton-lover as a kid too! Glad I wasn’t the only one and these homemade ones look fantastic!
I did make these and loved them! I did just what you suggested and used a little less of dough for that amount of filling and just made some grape jam filled ones with the rest of the dough. They came out perfect! Thanks for sharing!
http://ouritaliankitchen.blogspot.com/2010/10/fig-newtons.html
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
When you say scoop out the seeds and pulp–I am assuming you mean, use the seeds and pulp and discard the skins? Recipe looks good. I’m planning to make these tomorrow!
Laurel, Mikey & Quinn – Yes, scoop out the flesh and seeds and discard the skins. Let me know how they turn out!
Thank you for posting this! Great recipe and I want to try with different fillings. I used strawberry for mine – yummy!
In response to the dough ratio, I made it the way you posted but ended up with very thin dough once it was rolled out to 12×16 inches. I think you should leave it doubled.
Hi, I want to make raspberry newtons and am finding it very hard to get an easy recipe online… think I could use this dough with raspberry jam?
beantownbaker — May 16th, 2013 @ 8:41 am
You could definitely use raspberry jam for the filling!
I made them with 3 different fillings: strawberry jam, blueberry pie filling and vanilla cream. All came out very tasty, and also last freezing nicely.
A few comments:
1. The dough was not easy to deal with, even after cooling. It was sticky and fell apart easily.
2. With the first roll I made, I sliced it to cookies and separated them on the baking pan before baking. All of the Jam oozed out. The other ones I sliced but didn’t move the pieces, and it came out well.
3. I think in order to taste like real newtons they lack some oats/cereal. Any Idea of how to add some to the dough?
beantownbaker — June 10th, 2013 @ 1:10 pm
I would think you could grind up some oats and replace some of the flour with the ground up oats. If you try it, I’d love to hear how they turn out!