Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies rimmed with nonpareils 

Sugar cookies frosted for Valentine's Day 

I got this recipe from allrecipes.com who knows how long ago. I felt like making some sugar cookies today, and so I pulled this one out. The two most noteworthy things about this cookie, besides its tastiness, is the fact that it are not very sweet, and it does not spread very much when baked. There is only one and a quarter cups of sugar for three cups of flour, and if you bake cookies regularly, you know that's a pretty low sugar to flour ratio. I used some cream cheese instead of butter/Crisco because I've tried that with some other cookies, and I found that it helped curb the spreading and it made the cookies taste a little bit more like the Pillsbury cookies you make from the tube o' dough.
The first day I baked these, I used the nonpareils. Then I baked some more (I had frozen the dough) and frosted them cute for Valentine's Day. If you're interested in frosting like this, here's a link to some detailed instructions:


Sugar Cookies
--adapted from What the Fruitcake

Ingredients:

• 3 cups KAF unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1 cup white sugar 
• 1 stick butter 
• 1/4 cup Crisco 
• 2 oz. cream cheese 
• 1 egg, lightly beaten 
• 3 tablespoons half & half or cream 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• Rainbow Nonpareils 

Instructions: 

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder & salt. (I do this by putting them all in a large bowl and stirring with a whisk.) Cut in butter, Crisco, & cream cheese and blend with a pastry blender until mixture resembles cornmeal. Stir in lightly beaten egg, half & half and vanilla. Blend well.
• Take half the dough and form into a log on a piece of wax paper or freezer paper. Roll into a 1 1/2 inch diameter log and roll in wax paper. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Repeat with the other half of the dough. (You can also just roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface, to 1/8 inch thickness, at this point and cut with cookie cutters, but I did not do that.)
• Cut refrigerated log into 1/4 inch slices. Roll each cookie edge in nonpareils. Place 1 inch apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 6-8minutes, or until delicately browned on the edges and bottoms.

After blending in the butter, Crisco, & cream cheese, this is what you get. 

I used a sheet pan to help even out the log. It was too hard to explain how I did it, though. 

The nonpareils are a little out of control on the cookie sheet. 

Just having some more fun with frosting. These are by 8-year-old Ezra. 

More fun with sugar cookies & frosting.