I had some frosting left over from a previous batch of cookies, and I promised some treats to my taekwondo students for the last class of the summer, so I thought I would look for a plain, sugar-cookie type recipe. But where to get the recipe? First I checked the dessert recipe book that I put together when I lived in London, as a fundraiser for the local American Women's Club, but they were all fancy cookie recipes. Then I remembered I had a couple of church recipe books given to me by relatives—I guess cookbooks are popular fundraisers—and there I hit paydirt. From a 1988 Centennial cookbook created by my aunt's church in the UP, I found this recipe for "cookie cutter cookies," and I was intrigued because it contained corn syrup, that most American of ingredients. So here it is:
1 cup butter or oleo (do they even make oleo anymore?)
¾ cup sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or ½ t. flavor extract
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
Mix all ingredients together. Shape into ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350F. Use one-third or less of the ball at a time, and keep the rest in the fridge. Roll dough to a ⅛- to ¼-inch thickness. Cut out. Place one inch apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes. Grease the sheet for each batch. Frost when cool.
Funny thing about these "cookie cutter cookies": they didn't really hold their cut shapes very well. I started out trying some nice animal-shaped cookie cutters, but as I tried moving the cats and elephants to the cookie sheet, they lost their ears and trunks and ended up looking like some kind of crazy mutant creature. I didn't want to scare my poor students, so I re-rolled the dough and grabbed a cup. If a plain circular cookie got a little warped in the transfer from rolling sheet to baking sheet, it wouldn't look so crazy. You can see from the picture to the right that the dough was kind of shiny and gooey.
So what would happen after I baked them for ten minutes? I wasn't sure, and not just because the dough was kind of gooey; for most recipes, I end up needing one or two extra minutes to get cookies nice and golden. But after ten minutes, I had a nicely done tray of cookies:
All that remained was to get my frosting, top them off, and give them a try. And while the gooey nature of the dough made it difficult to cut out, it resulted in a really light, chewy cookie that was still lightly crispy on the outside. Not only was the texture enjoyable, the flavor was very tasty, especially with the frosting.
So my final verdict? I have to subtract one because as "cookie cutter cookies" they didn't quite cut it. That gives a rating of nom nom nom nom (four of five noms).
1 cup butter or oleo (do they even make oleo anymore?)
¾ cup sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or ½ t. flavor extract
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
Mix all ingredients together. Shape into ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350F. Use one-third or less of the ball at a time, and keep the rest in the fridge. Roll dough to a ⅛- to ¼-inch thickness. Cut out. Place one inch apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes. Grease the sheet for each batch. Frost when cool.
All that remained was to get my frosting, top them off, and give them a try. And while the gooey nature of the dough made it difficult to cut out, it resulted in a really light, chewy cookie that was still lightly crispy on the outside. Not only was the texture enjoyable, the flavor was very tasty, especially with the frosting.
So my final verdict? I have to subtract one because as "cookie cutter cookies" they didn't quite cut it. That gives a rating of nom nom nom nom (four of five noms).
Remind me to give you the recipe I used to use to make cookies with the kids at Cheney. It uses sugar and cream of tartar, and holds its shape. And best of all, doesn't get tough or hard (when baked) no matter how many times you roll it.
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