Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Tuesdays with Dorie: Grandma's Sugar Cookies


Ulrike of Küchenlatein chose Grandma’s All Occasion Sugar Cookies for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie selection. I don’t always make sugar cookies at Christmas: that’s my Dad’s job! I do have a favorite recipe that I like so I thought it would be interesting to give these a try and see how they are different.

Dorie gives you lots of variations, so I ended up trying two things with the dough: I added orange zest to the dough and then divided the dough into two halves. One half I just chilled to be rolled out and the other half I formed into a log and rolled in orange sanding sugar. I knew that they’d be super quick as refrigerator cookies, just slice and bake.

I refrigerated the log about 5 or 6 hours until it was firm and then sliced it into ¼ inch slices. Even though these weren’t perfectly round when I put them in the oven (Dorie calls this “rustic”), they puffed a little while baking and came out of the oven looking almost perfect. I originally was going to glaze them with a powdered sugar/orange juice glaze, but my husband said that they didn’t need anything more.

The other half of the dough I was going to use for cut outs, but I had bought a Christmas cookie sheet earlier this year with indentations; you just press the dough into the openings and bake and then you get nicely formed cookies without so much work. I pressed the remaining dough into the pan and baked them until lightly golden.

This turned out fairly well, but I think that the dough needed to be a lot thinner than it was. They are soft and have good flavor. I was going to decorate them with some frosting in a bottle that I had picked up recently, but it was too late in the evening to fiddle with that. They don’t look too bad just by themselves.

Since I added orange zest to the dough, it’s pretty hard to compare these to the sugar cookies that I usually make. I think the ones I make are a little crisper, but then again I roll them a lot thinner than these. I really like the refrigerator cookie option. I might try that variation again with some other flavors!

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, p. 146

8 comments:

Rebecca of "Ezra Pound Cake" said...

Wow, I've never seen a pan like that. Cool! I'm thinking you probably got some tasty edges out of that sucka.

chocolatechic said...

I added orange zest too.

They were fabulous.

vibi said...

I have to say, that's a mighty nice picure on top! It looks like a vintage 50's pic, with golden lighting and rustic colors!
Beautiful, Nicole, just as the cookies!

kimberly salem said...

your cookies look great! love the little bow in the top pic :) i've never seen a pan like that before, looks cool!

Libby said...

interesting pan! I love the colored sugar.

Leslie said...

Mmm, orange zest, mmm...

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Your cookies look and sound scrumptious! Glad you liked them!

Teanna DiMicco said...

Cookie cutout sheets?! That is fantastic! And it did the trick.. your cookies look great!

Colleen said...

What a fabulous pan! Perfect for someone like me who has no patience for rolling out dough and cutting the cookies out.