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These Amish Sugar Cookies are by far the BEST sugar cookies I’ve ever eaten! Soft and pillowy perfect cookies.
Welcome to day 1 of the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies here on Something Swanky! ????
No, you’re not crazy. Yes, you did the math right. No, I’m not going to have time this year to fit in all 12 days of cookies. I’m pretty bummed about it actually. But this year is all about surviving the craziness of moving + the holidays at the same time, and you know what? If we manage to squeeze in 3 or 4 days of Christmas cookies, I think I’m going to be okay. I just loved doing this last year so much, I had to at least get in a little mini version this year!
But you just wait for Christmas 2017, I’ll be pulling out all the stops. Guaranteed.
Ok, let’s get to the star of the show today: these Amish Sugar Cookies. Since we’re not getting in the full 12 days of cookies this year, I’m only sharing the best of the best. And, trust me, these cookies are the cream of the crop.
In fact, I can get a little overexcited about these cookies. I feel like I should warn you up front in all fairness. But just stick with me to the end, and you’ll see why I can’t stop gushing about this seriously amazing recipe!
A little backstory before the gushing starts:
I’ve spent this year trying to come up with fun “family history” activities for my family. I know that might sound a little strange, butwe have had a really great experience with our kids learning about our family’s ancestors and the countries they originated from. My favorite activities, of course, have been the ones that involved food. One time we did a dinner with lots of different foods from many of the countries where our ancestors lived (brats from Germany, macarons from France, empanadas from Mexico, etc).
In preparation for one of these activities, I discovered that my husband has an ancestral connection to the Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish! Of course, I immediately dove into the world of Amish recipes. Expect many more to come, but for today I am sharing my absolute favorite so far: Amish Sugar Cookies.
These cookies are UNREAL. They are so, unbelievably good that I just don’t even have the words to do them justice. Considering there’s not a morsel of chocolate in sight, that is high praise indeed coming from me!
I’m a texture gal, and I typically like a lot ofstuff in my cookies. You know. M&MS and chocolate chips and butterscotch and oatmeal and nuts. That’s normally my cookie happy place. But not this time!
These cookies are remarkably plain. But they’re also remarkably soft. Pillow-likesoft. And deliciously buttery. With delicately crispy edges and a crackly sugar coating, you will absolutely not be able to stop at just one.
I’m also obsessed with how versatile these cookies are! For a festive holiday cookie plate, you could roll them in colored sugar sprinkles instead of plain granulated sugar. You could stick a Hershey Kiss on top (yum, the Candy Candy Hershey Kisses would be amazing) for a holiday blossom cookie.
You could even mix in some M&MS or chocolate chips if you wanted.
But these cookies don’t need it. You’ll fall in love with them just the way they are, I promise. If you only make one of my cookie recipes this year, make sure it’s this one. You won’t regret it!
Amish Sugar Cookies
Yield: 2-3 dozen
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
These Amish Sugar Cookies are by far the BEST sugar cookies I've ever eaten! Soft and pillowy perfect cookies.
Ingredients
1 cup softened butter
1 cup oil
1 cup sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
4 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
granulated sugar for rolling
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375ºF.
Using an electric mixer, beattogether the butter, oil, and sugars until light and fluffy.
Mix inthe flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Scoop dough by 2 tbsp and roll into a ball in the granulated sugar until coated. Place cookie dough balls on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 8-10 minutes (err on the side of underdone to keep these soft, they should not be brown on top at all). Remove to a wire rack immediately to cool.
Notes
Tip: the vanilla really stands out in this recipe, so use a high quality one! I love this vanilla crush.
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The sugar cookie is believed to have originated in the mid-1700s in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. German Protestant settlers created a round, crumbly and buttery cookie that came to be known as the Nazareth cookie. Jumbles are the earliest form of sugar cookies.
This is a common baking mistake, and it's easily fixable. Adding too much sugar to cookie dough can result in a number of issues, such as making the dough too sticky, causing it to spread too much during baking, and making the final product overly sweet.
To make sugar cookies keep their shape, follow these tips: Chill the dough: After mixing the cookie dough, chill it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out. Chilling the dough will help it firm up and make it easier to cut into shapes without losing their definition.
A teaspoon or two of extracts will noticeably boost flavor when blended into your sugar cookie mix. Vanilla is the obvious choice. For a more intriguing flavor, add both vanilla and almond extracts. Rum, maple and anise are other delicious varieties to consider.
McRaven describes the experience of Navy SEAL trainees who are subject — often randomly — to a punishment where they are directed to get wet and sandy on the beaches. By the time they are finished the trainees, covered in sand, look like “sugar cookies.”
If you've ever tried to frost a cutout cookie neatly and smoothly, you know that bakery-worthy results require more than just spreading on icing with a knife. The proper technique is called flooding, and it allows you to apply a smooth layer of icing to all or part of the cookie.
Over-working the dough yields a tough cookie, which is not at all what you want. The very best sugar cookies are soft and tender. → Follow this tip: One of the keys to great sugar cookies is mixing the dry ingredients only until they're just incorporated, and not a second longer.
Unless you want extra-crispy cookies, avoid overmixing your dough. "Overmixing your dough will result in flatter, crispier cookies," Cowan said. If you overmix, you will end up aerating (adding air to) the dough, which causes the cookies to rise and then fall, leaving you with flat cookies.
One way is to add in some extra fat, such as more butter or even an extra egg yolk (which contains fat) — this will make the dough easy to work with again. Another way to fix the problem is to add in a bit of extra liquid, such as milk or water, which will help get the dough back to the consistency it needs to be.
The ideal thickness to roll out your sugar cookie dough is about 1/4"--that way, they'll be tough enough to be handled and decorated, but thin enough to stay a little crunchy.
1. Cookies. Cornstarch does kind of incredible things to cookies. I mean not only does it give them soft centers, prevents them from spreading, and makes them somewhat thick (in a good way), but it also contributes to the chewiness factor, which, in my opinion, is the most important cookie attribute.
Refrigerating the dough allows the flour to fully hydrate and helps to make the cookie dough firmer. Firm dough prevents the cookies from spreading too much, which is why chilling the dough is a crucial step for cut-out and rolled cookies.
BAKED SUGAR COOKIES + MELTED CHOCOLATE + SPRINKLES
Combine the classic sprinkle candy with baked store bought sugar cookie dough for the ultimate in sugar cookie treats. Just roll inch dough balls and then press them into circles with a cup. Bake and then dip one side in melted chocolate and nonpareil sprinkles.
Add powdered milk. Sprinkling about 2 to 3 tablespoons of powdered milk per cup of cookie mix may seem kind of unconventional, but it is the best hack! ...
Hack #1: Chill your cookie dough before baking to make it easier to work with and to control spread. How does it work? Cookies can spread when baked and lose their shape. To fix this, let your cookie dough rest in the refrigerator for an hour before you roll it out and cut out shapes.
She found a delicious recipe for gluten-free “Jesus cookies.” My daughters call those really puffy, soft sugar cookies with lots of icing and sprinkles you find in the grocery store “Jesus cookies” because they seemed to get them during Sunday School A LOT.
Where one is to roll in the sand or dirt while PT-ing, then continue PT-ing to look like a sugar cookie themselves. There's also a sand hill named after this term in 29 Palms, for this same reason.
The cookie is especially popular around, and usually associated with, Christmas in communities with a strong Moravian background such as Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which still maintain the two largest Moravian communities in the United States.
Introduction: My name is Kelle Weber, I am a magnificent, enchanting, fair, joyous, light, determined, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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