This past Friday was the girls’ joint birthday party. Even though we try to limit our guest list to my and Adam’s immediate family (occasionally one or two friends may get invited) that is over 20 people who come to the girls’ parties. It is a HUGE blessing to have so much family close by, but it is also a big thing to feed all of these people. We generally just do desserts, but it can still be a lot of cake or cupcakes.

This year I suggested cookie decorating and the girls thought that would be a great idea. I always want to make everything myself from scratch and often end up overwhelmed and in tears trying to get everything done. This year I told my husband that he was in charge of making sure that we bought any mixes we needed or anything store bought that we should get in order to keep me from making myself and our family miserable trying to do everything myself. I don’t know if really thought I could handle everything, or just forgot his job when we were grocery shopping, but we did not buy any pre-made cookie dough or mixes, although I did buy pre-made icing.

In an effort to keep from overwhelming myself or the family, I decided that since I WAS making everything from scratch to make some cookies each day since I wanted at least two different types of cookies to decorate. The first ones I tried were 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies and they turned out really well!! So well in fact, that I ended up having to make another batch on Thursday to make sure we still had enough for the party on Friday! The next ones on the list were sugar cookies. We had to have sugar cookies since they are the quintessential decorating cookie. The tricky thing about sugar cookies in our family is that they are my husband’s favorite cookie. That means he is pretty particular about them. I knew the recipe I picked was a winner when he tried them and said they were good. I even probed further to be sure, and asked if they were good as in I shouldn’t worry about serving them or if they were actually good. He said they were actually good. They were a little hard when he tried them, but that was because I was storing them in the refrigerator to keep them fresh. I took them out of the ‘fridge a couple of hours before the party, added half a slice of bread to the air tight container to add moisture and they were soft and chewy for the party. The other thing that makes this recipe a winner for me is that they were simple for me to make. I used my food processor for ease. It also helped since I was late getting my butter out of the refrigerator and didn’t want to have to wait forever for it to soften. I was super nervous after I got them mixed up and read the rest of the directions or commentary in the recipe. I often find myself in a predicament like this where I just start mixing looking just at the recipe, without reading all of the directions through. THis time the concern was that it said not to over mix your butter. I certainly did over mix my butter by using my food processor in comparison to the stir in directions from the recipe itself. Fortunately, despite my over mixing, my cookies did not rise in the oven and then fall when they came out. I linked the original recipe above if you want to follow their mixing directions for safe outcome purposes. I am sticking with my food processor mixing technique myself, since the cookies turned out so well and ease is always something I am looking for as long as it doesn’t sacrifice the quality! Here are the ingredients and directions for how I made these sugar cookies.

Sugar Cookie Recipe:

1 cup Butter

1 1/2 cups Granulated Sugar

1 large Egg

2 1/4 cups All-Purpose Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract (optional, I left it out of mine because I didn’t have any at the time, but I do think it would enhance the flavor to include it)

1/4 cup Granulated Sugar (for rolling scooped cookie dough in before baking)

Sugar Cookie Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Place butter, sugar and egg in food processor and mix until completely combined
3. In a separate bowl mix together flour, salt and baking powder
4. Add about 1/3 dry ingredients to food processor and blend until combined. Repeat twice with the remaining two thirds of dry ingredients.
5. Add vanilla if using and mix final time until fully incorporated
6. Place remaining 1/4 cup of granulated sugar in a shallow tupperware container
7. Use a small cookie scoop and scoop dough into balls
8. Roll cookie dough balls in sugar and place on an ungreased cookie sheet 1 1/2-2 inches apart(you can choose to flatten the balls if you would like, the cookies in the picture above were not flattened prior to baking)
9. Place cookie sheets on two separate racks in the center of your oven
10. Bake for 5 mintues
11. Switch the trays to the opposite racks and bake an additional 5 minutes or until the bottom edges of the cookies are starting to brown
12. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes
13. Remove to a cooling rack to finish cooling, store in an air tight container.

As you can see I really, really mixed my cookie dough A LOT. But the cookies turned out really, really well!! Although sugar cookies are Adam’s, my husband’s, favorite cookie, I am not generally a big fan of sugar cookies. These however, have a buttery, sugary goodness that I cannot resist! I hope you find them equally delicious and easy to make!! I look forward to hearing how making them goes for you! Please be sure to comment below if you try this recipe. Let me know if you use the recommended vanilla!