American Dessert
SUGAR COOKIES
INGREDIENTS
3 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
½ cup white chocolate flavored cocoa, or an extra ½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Makes 55 cookies. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
cookie gun (optional, it’s faster without it)
cookie sheet
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Preparation is easier if the butter is already soft. You can accomplish this by simply taking the butter out of the refrigerator an hour before you’re ready to start. (Or you can pretend you’re Rocky Balboa getting ready for a big fight and batter those butter sticks into submission with your fists of steel.)
Use whisk to blend flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. Set aside. Place butter, sugar, flavored cocoa, egg, and vanilla extract in another mixing bowl. Mix with hands or electric beater set on “cookies.” Gradually add in the blended flour mixture. Again, blend thoroughly. If you have a cookie gun or cookie press to make shapes, great. If not, roll dough into little balls 1″ wide. (Keep dough covered until ready to use in a batch.)Place dough onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand on cookie sheet for 2 minutes and then cool on wire racks for faster cooling. If you don’t own a wire rack, either let the cookies cool for a long time on the hot sheet or transfer them with a spatula to a cold plate. And who says you have to wait until the cookies are completely cold to eat them? Just as long as the cookies aren’t hot enough to burn your fingers or your tongue.
TIDBITS
1) Don’t try to go through airport security with a cookie gun. I just have a bad feeling about it. Does airport security like doughnuts as much as local police?
2) Britain invaded Afghanistan in the 19th century. Russia invaded it in 1980. Both countries got kicked out. Neither nation’s army carried chocolate doughnuts. However, America there in 2002 with 100,000 soldiers armed to the teeth with chocolate doughnuts. We’re still in Afghanistan.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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