Sugared Sugar Cookies

So, in following suit with the previous post ( Jam Sammies ) and using Alton Brown's Sugar Cookie recipe as a multipurpose  holiday cookie recipe, I whipped up another batch. This time I used the drop method. I dropped scoops of dough into colored sugar (homemade by my dear daughter), rolled them to coat,  and then placed on a cookie sheet and baked.

AB's recipe has the oven temp at 375° for 7 - 9 minutes, so that's what I did here.  Afterwards, I read a few other sugar cookie recipes and I think the oven temp is too high for this type of cookie. Next time, I'll lower the temp to 350° and bake a bit longer.

Again, a complaint I've found in reviews of Alton Brown's recipe is that the cookies produced are a bit dry. My remedy for that is using superfine sugar. This is easily made by processing the sugar in a food processor.

And that is the final cookie posting of this season.

Jam Sammies

In "The Cookie Clause" episode of Good Eats, the topic is sugar cookies. Alton Brown notes that this is a sort of multipurpose recipe.

The thing about Christmas cookies is you want to come up with just one kind of batter that can make a whole bunch of cookies, okay?

That way you can roll 'em and cut 'em, or make little balls, drop cookies, icebox cookies, make 'em a log and then saw 'em into pieces. And the most versatile cookie dough I know of is sugar cookie dough.

I pondered whether or not I should post these. Technically, they are not listed as an 'official' Good Eats recipe. That being said, I followed the official recipe and only veered by adding the jam filling and sandwiching two cookies together.

For the jam filling, I found a new jam I'd not seen before at Costco: Cherry-Raspberry-Rhubarb. I took a cup of the jam and reduced it for about 20 minutes. I that ran it through a strainer and let it cool.  And there you go.

Classic Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies are a staple of holiday baking. And, since I'm attempting most all of the Good Eats recipes I decided to add Alton Brown's sugar cookies to my 12 Cookies of Christmas list. Having made these in the past and not being a huge fan of how they turned out I made one small change. I took the sugar and ran it through the food processor. The superfine sugar made the cookies much more tender.

The royal icing also had a modification. The icing ended up being too thick to do much of anything with. I couldn't spread it or pipe it. I added a small amount of milk and that made all the difference. Also, while AB suggests using powdered food coloring, I could find none. At least not locally. But, Wintons has a set of gel colors that worked out quite well.

I do need to add a few more cookie cutters to the mix to get some variation. Not pictured are: Christmas Trees, sleigh, reindeer, man, woman, snowman







Recipe Link - cookies

Recipe Link - royal icing

Chocolate-Peppermint Pinwheels

This Alton Brown's variation on his own All-In-One sugar cookie dough. I love the idea behind these cookies but I don't think they've turned out right yet. The very first year I made these cookies I had so pulverized the candy canes that when the cookies cooled they were hard as a rock.

This year's mistake was to change the chocolate. I felt that the unsweetened chocolate gave an ever so slight bitter taste to the cookies. I figured I'd change it up a bit and use semi-sweet chocolate instead. The problem with that is the semi-sweet chocolate was not quite chocolate-y enough so the peppermint overpowers the chocolate flavor. Back to the drawing board.

Recipe Link

Ginger Snaps

I really had intended to do a Twelve Cookies of Christmas list, but got a late start. Looks like it'll be more of a Half Dozen Cookies of Christmas instead.  I wanted to add something new to the Christmas cookie list this year. so I decided to give Alton Brown's Ginger Snaps a go.

These are crisp on the outside and slightly chewy in the center with a nice bit of  heat and have little bits of candied ginger in them.

I think they are a little on the small side, though. Next time I will try to make them a bit bigger and see how they turn out.

Recipe Link