"SugarCookies" news and stories

Cornmeal Sparkle Cookies. Photo: He Cooks She Cooks/Flickr.

How can anyone not smile at the sight of these cookies? There's just something so positive about a little mound of sweet goodness, especially when it's homemade. Add to that a topping as fun as sprinkles or, better yet, whimsical sparkles of sugar, and all your troubles will melt away.

A simple recipe adapted by He Cooks She Cooks, this batch of sparkle cookies was made with flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, butter and sour cream, all rolled in an extra cup of sugar for that shimmery coating!

[Via Flickr]

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The holiday season can be a hectic and overwhelming time of the year, but it's always nice to take a couple of hours to make up a batch of roll-out butter cookies. They're a little fussy in the making, but frosted with a quick powdered sugar glaze (powdered sugar dissolved in a little water and flavored with a dash of vanilla extract), they make an elegant addition to a holiday table and are sure to delight anyone you give them to.

I posted my favorite sugar/butter cookie recipe last year and it's the one I use for these types of cookies. I like to use smaller cutters for cookies that I'm going to give away, because them mean that you can get more cookies out of each roll and they look more delicate and appealing. To glaze, I make a small bowl of the frosting I described above and then quickly dip the top of the cookie into it. Let the glaze harden completely before stacking, otherwise they'll stick together and will lose the beauty and elegance you've worked so hard to create.

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Gail Gibbons' book Things To Make and Do For Halloween has been a constant in my life since I was in kindergarten. My mother picked it up at a thrift store when I was four years old, in the hopes that it would provide my sister and me with a few fun Halloween-themed activities. I think it goes to show how much we both loved it that I still have it in my book collection.

It's a book that combines food and craft activities, including how to make a Halloween mask, how to make a pointy witch hat and a recipes for Halloween treats. When I was younger, I'd start to pull this book of the shelf sometime in August and badger my mom until she relented and let us make the cookie recipe on page 34.

It's just a standard sugar cookie recipe, written to include the correct number of food coloring drops to make the dough a bright orange. Just before baking, you use small chocolate chips to create a mouth, nose and eyes and poof, jack o' lantern cookies! It's an easy recipe to whip together and the decorating step is simple enough that even the youngest kids can play along. Check out the recipe after the jump.

At Eleni's NY, you can get these polished, super-posh iced sugar cookies that look so cute, you'll want to just sit and admire them instead of stuffing them in your mouth. (And rightly so: 16 will set you back $60, not including shipping and handling. That's $3.75 a cookie, folks). They're a perfect solution to your lack of romantic poetry skills.

If you're not so into the love notes, you can go the traditional route with Eleni's hearts, love birds, or "prince charming" frogs, which are all just as cute (and just as expensive). The bakery also specializes in cupcakes and brownies, so browse the site to your heart's (and stomach's) content.

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When I was a kid, my dad had a music production and distribution company. One of his business partners was a woman named Eleanor and every year she would have a holiday cookie baking and decorating party. My sister and I would go over to her house some Saturday afternoon in early December and join Eleanor's kids around her dining room table, rolling, cutting and decorating our weight in cookies (we also ate quite a few).

It's been nearly twenty years since I made cookies with them, but I still have fond memories of those Saturday afternoons in early December. I also have very fond feelings towards this recipe, because it is tasty and fool-proof. Like the gingerbread recipe I posted yesterday, this dough keeps in the fridge for up to a week, so you can mix up a big batch and bake them off through the holidays. This is also another one that you can either decorate prior to baking or frost with a simple powdered sugar frosting after they've baked (which is what I did in the picture above).