Hi beautiful bakers!

I was speaking with a friend recently about making some sugar cookies for her soon to be daughter in law wedding shower. For her, I totally don’t mind helping her out with the treats. She’s had a rough few years with her daughter passing away and the fact she is even considering throwing a party means she has come a long way since the accident. I’m so incredibly proud of her. So very proud.

When we were discussing the beach themed cookies I realized I’ve never given you guys a good sugar cookie recipe to decorate into a million of different shapes. Especially if you have Disney cookie cutters. If you have visited a Disney Parks recently than you have probably seen the set of three cutters they sell: mickey head, Mickey’s hand, and star. They sell them everywhere. The cutters are a perfect start to a Disney cookie cutter collection. Or am I the only crazy one that has one of those?

In future blog posts, I’m going to post step by step guides to using Royal Icing to create your favorite characters. They may look terribly complicated but if you just take it slow and follow the steps its pretty easy. You can do it. It just takes some practice.

Today let’s just learn the basic rolled sugar cookie. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and it was posted by Jill Saunders. Like most allrecipes.com recipes, you never really know if they made it up or where they got it in the first place. In my head I imagine their great-grandmother teaching them in some antique kitchen in the countryside. It just sounds better than they just found it on the back of the package of sugar or something.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened

• 2 cups white sugar

• 4 eggs

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 5 cups all-purpose flour

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp salt

The amount of cookies this recipe will make really depends on how you cut the cookies. A small cookie cutter obviously allows for more cookies than a large one.

The cookies should take about 20 minutes to make, but because of the chilling process, it will take about 3 hours to make them. Super easy but just time-consuming. They are incredibly worth it though. Please don’t skip the chilling process either.

Instructions,

1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. If you have a stand mixer then use a paddle attachment. You can let these mix for a long time. The lighter and fluffier the better. I like to leave it for 6 minutes.

2. In the same bowl, beat in the eggs and the vanilla.

3. In another large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt together.

4. Combine both bowls together and beat well until completely mixed.

5. Wrap and chill the dough for at least one hour. The longer you leave in to chill in the refrigerator, the easier it will be to roll out later on. It will make the world of difference.

6. Preheat your oven to 400F degree.

7. On a floured surface, roll out your dough to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into your desired shapes.

8. On an ungreased baking sheet, place the cookies at least 1 inch apart. The recipe calls for an ungreased pan but I sill place them on parchment paper just to make sure they don’t stick to it while baking.

9. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes in your preheated oven. Always adjust the time for the size of the cookies you made. A smaller cookie needs less baking time.

10. Let cool completely before decorating. They need to be 100% cool or the icing will not set on the cookie completely.

Stay tuned for some character cookie designs coming super soon.

Happy Baking Disney Friends!