The Perfect Sugar Cookie

The task:  Decorating sugar cookies for a baseball team’s banquet.

The secret:  Having the perfect sugar cookie recipe, which makes the best chewy, perfectly round and sweet sugar cookie.  Pure perfection.

To make it even better:  The best icing to be used to decorate each cookie.  It’s art in sugar form!

Step #1 is baking the best sugar cookie!

Whenever I need a great sugar cookie recipe that works both on it’s own and even better when paired with icing, I think of my “chewy sugar cookie recipe."  I was looking through my recipe book and I found the orginal recipe that I had printed off in 2004 from the Food Network website. I have featured it in my family cookbook that I made three years ago, and today, six years since I discovered the recipe, it is still my go-to sugar cookie!  I have tried dozens of recipes over the years, and I have never seen one quite like this one!! So that just proves it’s a keeper.

CHEWY SUGAR COOKIES

• 2 ¾ cup flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 ½ cups white sugar
• 1 cup butter (unsalted=add ¼ tsp. salt)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3-4 tablespoons buttermilk

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

-Sift (or whisk) together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.  In a mixer, beat butter and sugar until smooth then add egg and vanilla.  Gradually blend dry ingredients and then add enough buttermilk to soften the dough but not make too wet.

- Either refrigerate until you use it.  Or just make into small balls on a cookie sheet.  Flatten a little and brush with buttermilk and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just starting to become golden brown on the edges. Don’t overbake!  Take out and let cool on sheet then put on rack to cool completely…

After you have all of the perfect cookies cooled….you can either eat them just like that.  or you can icing them.  Either way they are amazing.

My next step for this batch is my favorite part.  DECORATING!  And that will come tomorrow :) :) ……For now, I will place them on a cookie sheet, cover with plastic wrap and freeze until it’s time to decorate.