mmmm chocolate chip cookies...

About a year ago I discovered the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. The only downside to it is that it requires 2 different kinds of flour and 24 hours chilling time before you can bake and eat it. Indeed it makes a very good, chewy, not-too-sweet dark chocolatey chip cookie. But it is very rare that I have the patience to allow the dough to chill and to always have cake flour and bread flour on hand. I am an unbleached all-purpose flour gal. I have yet to be the hard-core baker that can taste the differences among the different types of flour or keep 3 or more different flours in the pantry. I've been tinkering around with the recipe to simplify it a bit and adjust the sweetness. I thought I had it but tried the new version and was underwhelmed to say the least. Fail! I'm not sure what happened but I think I did not let the butter come up to room temperature for proper creaming resulting in a curdled dough before I added the dry mix. The actual cookie ended up being very crumbly and not chewy at all. Back to the drawing board. Until then make the New York Times one, you won't regret it!

Cut out cookies for preschoolers

So a few weeks ago I was surprised at how tricky cutting out butter cookies can be. Chilling the dough and cutting them was much more effort than I thought it should be. After some searching, my 4 yo daughter and I found the best cookie recipe that is essentially foolproof especially under preschooler conditions. I mixed the dough and then she took over as the leader. It's not too sweet, rolls out perfectly, no chilling required, easy schmeasy. Best of all, it even tastes good to both kids and adults.

Roll out cookies (based on a recipe found on the back of a cookie cutter packaging)

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup plus 1 tbsp white sugar (I decreased the amount of sugar by almost a 1/2 cup)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 tsp almond extract

2 3/4 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400F. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs and extracts. Mix rest of ingredients in another bowl. Add flour mixture to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. No need to chill dough. Divide dough in half and shape into a ball. Roll each ball to 1/8" thick, flouring board and rolling pin as necessary. Cut out cookies and bake until lightly browned (~ 10 minutes).

Cookie Glaze

1 tbsp cream cheese

3/4 cup icing sugar

enough milk to reach desired consistency. I start with 1 tbsp and see how it looks.

food colouring

Mix all ingredients and frost cookies with whichever tool you like. 

Nothing says spring like pink duckies

My daughter and I baked some butter cookies today. We called them spring cookies to welcome back all the birds and the ducks that show up in the weirdest places. Of course they had to be frosted with pink icing. I'm not much of a cookie baker especially cut cookies. I was surprised how difficult it was to manage the dough and producing good looking cookies. What's the secret? colder dough? more patience than a 4 year old? Maybe I'll stick with the drop cookies. 

GO DUCKS!