Quick Sugar Cookies

In case you're sugar cookied out and tired of battling sticky dough on a wooden surface that you swear was floured thirty seconds ago, I present an alternative. These cookies were described as being 'crisps' because the dough was to be flattened but back to that whole battling sticky dough thing, that didn't work out.

So this is a bit of a drop sugar cookie that's lighter than your usual cookie dough. It is soft enough that a melon baller (or ice cream scoop) is sufficient in scooping the batter onto the cookie sheets. Sprinkled with a little red and green and you have a festive treat! This recipe makes a smaller quantity of cookies as well compared to other batters.

 

Butter and sugar are beaten together until creamy (only half a stick of butter is used!). Next comes the egg and lastly, the dry ingredients and milk (alternating). All of this sound familiar? You can top these cookies with crushed candy cane or sprinkles. Or you can leave them plain if you really want to.

Once they're baked to golden perfection, enjoy with your family or serve to Santa!

 

Recipe

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 Tablespoon milk
• 3-4 Tablespoons crushed candy cane or sprinkles

1. Preheat the oven to 350. 
2. In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add in the egg and mix to combine.
4. In a small bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour through nutmeg). Gradually mix into the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.
5. Using a teaspoon or melon baller, scoop dough onto cookie sheets, about 1-1 1/2 inches apart. These will spread as they cook.
6. Top with candy cane or sprinkles before popping in the oven.
7. Cookies will bake in about 10 minutes. Remove when golden brown.

Sugar Drop Cookies

I'm one of those people who cleans and organizes in times of stress. When I moved last year, I cleaned out  my spice rack, which was a Christmas gift complete with things like Pizza Seasoning and Italian Seasonings. I prefer to make my own seasonings so knew I would never actually use these. But I would use an abundance of sprinkles in my time in the kitchen.

And so, I replaced a row of my spice rack with shakers of sprinkles. Christmas sprinkles, Valentine's Day sprinkles, generic birthday colorful sprinkles and of course, Halloween sprinkles. I used them last year for truffles and cupcakes but this year decided to make some easy sugar cookies.

 

I feel as though I've found a solid recipe for cut-out sugar cookies with still a modest amount of patience and work required. But for simple drop cookies, I hit the books--no, really, I read through cookbooks instead of Googling. Crazytown.

This recipe is from the sage guide Joy of Cooking. There are a lot of recipes in this book but they're very concise and to the point. These drop cookies take about 4 inches of a page and you get a bunch of treats in return. Fair trade. They also have no butter in them so are perfect in a pinch when you decide at 9pm to make cookies for the next day and haven't softened any butter.

Instead, we whisk together sugar and vegetable oil in a large mixing bowl. Eggs and vanilla then added before stirring in a mixture of flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. I started with a whisk but graduated to a spoon as I added the flour because the dough got thick. The dough will also get a little shaggy but since we're rolling this stuff with our hands, you can pack it back together.

Similar to how we made the ginger snap drop-cookies, pieces of dough are rolled between your hands. You can roll these in sugar or in sprinkles. Dropping the dough into a pile of sprinkles was like a mini-ball pit. The more I tried to get the dough back out, the further it sank into the sea of sprinkles.

The last step is flattening the cookies. A glass is used to flatten the dough balls. You could leave them alone and they'll spread out but since I used sprinkles, I wanted to make sure they really stayed put.

Baked at 375 for 10-15 minutes, a golden brown and festive cookie emerges. I thought I was going to run out of sprinkles towards the end and considered adding food dye to make orange cookies instead. But in the end, had just enough for these spooky treats.

Recipe
Yields 36-40 cookies

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup of sugar
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Sugar or sprinkles for rolling

1. Preheat the oven to 375. Spray cookie sheets with non-stick spray (since we aren't using butter, I would recommend this just in case).
2. In a small-medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and vegetable oil until smooth.
4. Add the eggs one at a time to the sugar-oil mix. Then add the vanilla.
5. Slowly add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture. You may need to switch to using a spoon instead of a whisk.
6. Once the flour is completely combined, take a ping-pong ball amount of dough and roll between your palms. Dip in sprinkles (or sugar if using) and place on the cookie sheet.
7. Continue to fill the cookie sheet, leaving enough space between the dough to allow them to spread.
8. Before putting in the oven, use the bottom of a glass to flatten the cookies. You don't want to make them too thing but press down enough to make discs.
9. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
10. Serve warm or the next day!