How to Make Beautiful, Easy Sugar Cookies and Our Best Lemon Bars

[Music]today on America’s Test Kitchen danmakes Julia the ultimate holiday sugarcookies Adam reveals his top pick forparchment paperLisa reviews silicone baking mats andlaun makes bridget the very best lemonbars it’s all coming up right here onAmerica’s Test Kitchen[Music]the problem with most holiday cookies isthat they either taste great but theylook a little rough or they’re beautifuland taste like cardboard so obviously weset out to develop a recipe that bothlooked and tasted good but we alsowanted it to be easy because makingholiday cookies it’s supposed to be funDan it is funso holiday cookies are all abouttradition mm-hmm we decided to questionevery I wanted to kind of rework themand see if we can come up with theeasiest cookie that baked up nice andflat on top with a really tender crispinterior I’m in alright so let’s startwith our wet ingredients have an egghere and I’m gonna add in a teaspoon ofvanilla vanilla is a classic flavor forthese if it’s missing you woulddefinitely tell we’ve also got 3/4 of ateaspoon of salt and then just a quarterof a teaspoon of almond extract just atiny amount high any bit if you use toomuch it would overpower the cookies it’slike marzipan we think a little bitactually kind of brings out the flavorand the complexity of the cookie so I’mjust gonna whisk this together okayperfect that’s greatlet’s move on to our dry ingredients sowe’re starting with two and a half cupsof all-purpose flour and we’re gonna adda little bit of lavender so if you had alot of leavener you’re a really puffytall cookie not what you want forholiday cookies they’re gonna decorateright want a nice flat surface thatmaybe then has a quarter teaspoon eachof baking powder and baking soda andthen I’m just gonna whisk this togetherokay great so we’ve got our wet and ourdry now it’s time to look at our sugarand our butter so in most traditionalcookie recipes we’d be creaming thiswe’d have a stand mixer out here we’dhave butter that we let sit at roomtemperature until it got to about 65degrees right and that’s so we canincorporate lots of air when we beat ittogether with the sugar we’re not gonnado thatyou’re totally out the window out thewindow I’m gonna start with the sugarand so we found will made this recipewith just straight granulated sugar thatkind of a grainy texture to it and thereason is there’s not a lot of moisturein this cookie right there how much wentinto it so there’s not a lot of water todissolve the sugar we also tried withconfectioner sugar which dissolves veryeasily but it ends up making a reallydense hard cookie we wanted something inthe middle and we found that superfinesugar which you can buy at thesupermarket works great you can alsomake it really easily in your foodprocessor so we’ve got a cup ofgranulated sugarI’m gonna process this until it ispowdery which takes about 30 secondsokay so that’s 30 seconds this isreduced to a nice powder which isfantastic so we’re gonna go in with ourbutter it’s nice and chilled right outof the fridge we’re gonna do a techniquecalled plasticizing which you see whenwe make croissants and we beat thebutter and make it pliable but it’sstill really cold and that’s gonna helpus with rolling it out you’ll see in asec and that can happen in the foodprocessor hey can we can use the bladesinstead of you know kind of manualaction so this is 16 tablespoons ofunsalted butter and 1/2 inch piecesit’s nice and chilled so I’m just gonnaprocess this for about 30 seconds untilit is plasticized and incorporated intothe sugar and scrape down if you need toto make sure there’s no sugar hiding outhey that looks great next goes in ourliquid ingredients yeah this is totallybackwards from making a traditionalcookie we’re going crazy on this onethis is only 10 secondsand now for our flower you can just addall the flour at once I had it all theones okay so we’re gonna cross this thisagain again for 30 seconds we’re lookingfor it to come together no dry flour butit’s still gonna be a bit crumbly okaythat looks great so let’s pop over hereI’m just gonna dump this out on theboard bring this together really brieflyknead it about ten seconds here just tobring it all together boy that lookslike a nice dough to work with it isit’s really nice so I mean it’s a tinybit tacky but it’s really nice so thisis where the recipe really gets crazyI’m gonna split this dough in half andthen normally at this point softenedbutter would be so sticky yeah we try toroll it or anything like that it’ssticking to our rolling pin it’s a totalmess we’re actually gonna start rollingthis out now while that’s still warmnormally you take it out of the fridgeit’s hard as it rock right we’re gonnatotally avoid that so I’m gonna have tostart you out on a piece of parchmenthere and we’re gonna start by using ourhands we’re gonna try and get this downto a 7 by 9 inch oval okay I’m just byhands and then we’ll do some moreparchment and we’ll roll the restbeautiful all right so now we’re gonnatake our second sheet of parchment allright that goes on top just flatten thatout and now we’re gonna switch over toour rolling pin mm-hmm you can roll asyou would with a rolling pin but areally nice technique that we found isactually this pressing motion where youstart in the middle and you push out soyou can do a combination of the twowe’re gonna look for a 10 by 14 inchoval here really we’re trying to getdown to 1/8 of an inch thickness that’sgreat yeah alright awesome so we’regonna stack these up so you’re not gonnacut the cookies now we’re not we’regonna chill before we cut and that’sgonna help us get really nice cleanedges it’s gonna be a lot easier totransfer them to the baking sheet I’mgonna put this in the fridge now untilit’s nice and chilled before we cut itI’ll take about an hour and a half allright so Dan mentioned that plasticizedbutter is the key to this recipe so thatyou can roll it out right away withoutchilling it now what is plasticizedbutter well a lot of the fat and coldbutter is in the form of big crystalswhen we pound cold butter with a rollingpin or in our case chop the butter upwith the blades of a food processor webreak those large fat crystals intosmaller crystals and it’s the smallercrystals that make the butter moremalleable so we’re able to roll out thatdough right away so this has been anhour and a half and it’s nice andchilled I’m going to give you your doughbacka couple cool tricks here we’re gonnafirst peel off this top layer alrightcomes right off then we’re gonna put itback on okay we’re gonna flip it over Iknow this stretch knows so the doughdoesn’t stick to the bottom piece ofparchment when you’re cutting out thecookies and take this top one off and wewill get rid of this one now we’regetting the real fun we’re gonna makesome shapes so I have a triangle and asquare I’ll give you a star in a circleyeah thought you like those so we’rejust gonna cut them out and thentransfer them over to our cookie sheetshere now this has really great airflowacross the whole surface we get reallygreat results so there is a reason forcookie sheets there is we don’t use themvery much but cookies time to use themif you want to get as many as we can outof here so the good news is you candefinitely reroll what’s left oh goodyes we can reroll it flatten it back outand then you just want to chill it againbefore you work with it beautifulabsolutely beautiful most of thedecorating we’re gonna do after the factbut I really like the sugar cookies toowe just get a nice covering you want todo it before you bake that okay sobasically you want to use a nice heavyhand and really cover the top you cansmooth it out if you have a big pile ofanywhere don’t worry about getting it onthe sheet it’s a pretty low oven andwe’re not gonna bake for that long soit’s not gonna burn or Brown alright sojust give it a nice thick coating yeahthat was beautiful all right beautifulokay let’s bake yours first okay we’regonna go into a 300-degree oven on thelower-middle rack we’re gonna bake themfor 14 to 17 minutes rotating halfwaythrough we’re gonna get just a lightlybrowned on top we don’t want them to getreally dark oh I love that smell sobuttery they look beautiful so these aregonna rest for five minutes like thisthen we’ll get them off the sheet in themeantime we’re gonna bake off thissecond batch all right so we have somebeautiful cooled cookies here the sugarones right now but these other ones arelooking a little plain so I think wewant to decorate them fun and for thatwe need a royal icing so this is thetraditional topping for these cookies itdries to this gorgeous kind of mattefinish and we’re not breaking fromtradition at all for this we’re goingreally really classic so I’ve got twoand 2/3 cups of confectioner’s sugar inthe bowl here and I have two large eggwhites half a teaspoon of vanillaextract an eighth of a teaspoon salt soit’s really clean flavor he’s reallyabout that sweetness andthe beauty of this just a little vanillajust a little bit we’re gonna start thison medium-low so we don’t kickconfectioner sugar all over the kitchenand it’ll just come together in about aminute so now that that’s come togetherwe’re gonna start to medium-high andwe’re gonna whip until we get nice softpeaksokay so that’s been three minutes andwe’ll take a look and I soft Pete’sthere all right we’re good now if youare worried about using raw eggs in thisfrosting you could substitutepasteurized egg whites I’m gonna setaside a half a cup now we’re gonna useit for a really cool technique calledflooding the second here so it’s gonnatransfer about a half a cup to thismeasuring cup here all right do thetransfer here yeah nicely done nowbefore we get into piping I just want toshow you this cool technique so we’vegot the half a cup of reserved icing andthen this is one teaspoon of milk just alittle it’s gonna thin it out justenough that we can fill on the inside ofthe cookies and get those beautifulfinish yeah it’s almost like a mirrorfinish exactly beauty all right allright so we’re squeezing all thisgorgeous icing to the tip exactlysqueeze it down and then twist it so I’mgonna pipe a little border for my mysquares here so that I can flood themokay so I piped my border there and nowI’m just gonna take a little spoon of myflooding liquid here go right in themiddle and then I’m using a toothpickspreading it to the edges just take itright out to the edge so for the floodedones you want to let the first-level drycompletely before you pipe up at the topokay so now we’re getting really fancyhere so I’ve got these beautiful drawjays mm pearls yeah they’re aren’t theygorgeous you get them in all differentcolors and I’m using some tweezers hereyes you are because I there’s no way myfingers would make this work that’swhat’s great about these cookies I feellike you can make them as easy sugartopor as fancy as you want them it’s reallyup to you love itokay so we’ll finish decorating the restof these and then they just need todrive for another hour and a half andthen we’re ready to eat okaywell Dan these look really bad rightthey are gorgeous they weren’t fun tomake they don’t look good they’reabsolutely beautiful I just want to showyou before we dig in and eat so this isthe one that I flooded is beautified itdry and then you score over the topdesign on top but it you get this niceheight to it you gonna eat that one mmmtastes buttery and light has a littlebit of good chew in the middle but it’scrisp on the outside it’s so goodwhat I love is the cookie obviously hasgreat structure because it’s nice andflat and it has good edges but it stilleats really really right it’s tendercrisp it’s perfectdan these are delicious cookies welldone thank you those funny no place funso four perfect holiday cookies thattaste good look good and are easy tomake start by processing the sugar untilfinely ground then add chilled butterand plasticize it then add the egg alongwith some vanilla and almond extractbefore adding the flour roll the doughout while it’s still soft then chill ituntil firm before cutting out thecookies after baking the cookies letthem cool completely before having funwith all sorts of cookie decorations sofrom America’s Test Kitchen our newrecipe for easy holiday sugar cookiesthe one for this guy next in a round one[Music]today we’re celebrating a real unsunghero of the kitchenit’s parchment paper Adams here he’sgonna tell us all about it and which oneis bestthe thought of me is the unsung heroBridget I think about you all the timeall right what I would like you to do tostart is just tear off a nice neat pieceof parchment paper from that roll toline that baking sheet all right cuzthat’s what you use it for that’s whatyou have to do you want it nice yeahand therein lies the rub that’s theproblem with a lot of parchment productsfor home use we tested ten differentparchment products seven of them were inrolls just like plastic wrap or foilthree of them were pre-cut sheets we dida whole lot of baking to test thesethings including baking pumpkin jellyroll cakes thin crisp gingerbreadcookies to assess their release and theBrowning as well as passaglia jer whichis that an Jovian caramelized onionpizza in a 500-degree oven to assessscorching and brittleness more testscovered handling rolling disks of cookiedough between parchment sheets and usingparchment sheets to tightly roll a bakedjelly roll cake both to assess stickingand wrinkling and using the parchmentpaper to line tart shells filling themwith heavy pie weights for blind bakingand then lifting the paper with the pieweights to carry them around the kitchento assess the strength and thedurability and they conducted some athome testing with volunteers who use theparchment to bake chocolate chip cookiesand also stored the rolls and the sheetsin their home kitchen cabinets anddrawers so you’re saying not a lot oftesting have to make as many cookies aspossibleall of these parchment productsperformed well on the baking test soreally what distinguish them was theease of use and that got down to twothings number one was size the standardbaking sheet that you have there therimmed half sheet is 12 inches wide onlyone of these rolls of seven was 12inches wide you think that would be thedefault size wouldn’t you yes all theothers were 13 to 15 inches wide so ifyou manage to tear off a sheet neatlyyou then had to trim it to fit intoa half sheet pan non-starter now theother problem came with the packagingand that is tearing off sheets neatlyjust like the one that you were tryingto do at the top of the segment I meanthis box didn’t even have a propercutting edge and the box was so flimsybut by the end of the testing it was allstretched out and miss shapen trying toget a nice neat piece of parchment outof this roll was like an act of futilitythe three pre-cut sheets were a littlebit better but they also had somepackaging issues this one they’re allfolded inside of the box but you can seewhen I put this down look at those deepcreases yes the creases weren’t distincteven when we tried to flatten them outand when testers rolled cookie dough inthese pieces of parchment those creasesimprinted the dough with lines thesewere rolled up inside of their box whichis great but they were sort of resistantto flattening out like they were reallyhard to flatter no I’ve actually bakedgoods where the edge curls back up intothe cookie or the cake that I’m makingnot that barrier to that the third setof pre-cut sheets were the runawaywinner of this testing these are theKing Arthur flours baking parchmentpaper half sheets there were 1995 forthis bag of a hundred plus you have topay for the shipping they come in thisbig ziploc bag so that they’re notrolled up they’re not folded you canstore them flat now you know it’s alarge package so you have to find anempty drawer maybe the top of the fridgebut I’ll tell you these things performbeautifully they were sized to fit intoa baking sheet with no trimming younever had to worry about any of the likecutting nonsense it’s as close tocommercial parchment as you can getexactly there you go well if you fancyyourself it’s a little bit of a sirbakes a lotyou’re gonna need King Arthur flowersbaking parchment paper 1995 will buy you100 pre-cut sheets[Music]silicone baking mats are an alternativeto parchment paper they’re convenientand reusable you can just pop one into abaking sheet and you instantly have anonstick surface that you can use washand use again we tested five mats pricedfrom nine to twenty five dollarscomparing them to our favorite parchmentpaper we baked a lot of cookies and wealso tested them against an unlinedbaking sheet roasting potatoes andsalmon the good news that these mats arevery easy to use and they also stay veryflat because they’re heavier than paperthis is great for delicate cookies whereyou want everything to stay very levelon the downside the slickness of themats sometimes made cookies spread alittle bit too much and over time theyall got a little bit oily and retainsome odors so we really preferred matsso we could put into the dishwasher sothey could stay cleaner the size of themat was also important because some ofthem really slight ly too long or tooshort our favorite though fit perfectlyinto a standard half size baking sheetthis is called the de Mauro Silpat u.s.nonstick half sized baking sheet it’s 22dollars and it’s our top choiceI know I’m supposed to go gaga overchocolate desserts but I love any thinglemon lemon ice lemon pie Jack lemoneven those lemon candies you know theykind of rip up the top of your mouth asyou eat them but lemon bars not so muchthey always look like they’re gonna bethe lemonadethey’re yellow but they never taste likelemon but luckily lawn is here and she’sgonna put the lemon back in lemon barsure am so when I was developing thisrecipe the lemon lovers like yourselfmade me a little crazy we can’t haveenough well hopefully I’ve satisfiedyour desire for lemon all right beforewe can get to the filling though let’stalk about the crust okay instead of theusual shortbread style crust which was alittle too crumbly we’re gonna go withsomething slightly different okay itstarts with a cup of flourI’ve got all-purpose flour here aquarter cup of granulated sugar and 1/2a teaspoon of table salt all right I’mjust gonna whisk that together I’m usinggranulated sugar here instead ofconfectioner’s sugar which you see in alot of recipes right the coarser sugaris gonna give our crust a tiny bit ofcrunch last up is our butter I’ve got 8tablespoons of melted unsalted butterand I’m just gonna stir that in as youcan see it’s a really playable almostbatter like dough yeah we’re gonna bemaking our lemon bars in an 8×8 pan andI’ve lined this pan with two foil stripsthat’s gonna make cleaning up andgetting the bars out of the pan a loteasier right now I’m just gonna presseverything into place I want to makesure that the bottom layer is very veryeven I want to make sure every bite hasjust the right amount of crust andfilling now I’m just gonna pop this intoa 350 degree oven I’ve got the rack setin the middle and it’s gonna bake untilit’s dark golden brown 19 to 24 minutesokay so our crust has come out of theoven it’s a nice dark golden brown andwe don’t actually have to let this coolall the way we can just keep goingokay my filling in so for that fillingI’ve got two thirds of a cup of lemonjuice and two teaspoons of lemon zestand those ratios aren’t actuallyradically different from what otherrecipes use the secret ingredient itturns outis cream of tartar it’s a dry acid soyou don’t have to bind it with any extrabinders okay so I’ve got two teaspoonsof cream of tartar and cream of tartaris actually tartaric acid and what itdoes is it sort of tricks the lemonlovers into thinking there’s more lemonin there actually is because it providesmore puckery flavor absolutely all rightso I’m going to add a cup of granulatedsugar I have two tablespoons ofall-purpose flour and a quarter teaspoonof salt just gonna whisk that alltogether next up I have three large eggsand three egg yolks and these providemost of the binding power the flour isjust kind of a little extra help okayand you absolutely do have two separateeggs for this if you use too many eggwhites it ends up tasting a little bitsulphurous and eggyokay distracting we’re not looking for alemon omelette it’s nice and smooth hmmI’m just gonna add that lemon juice thatwas two-thirds of a cup okay and thelemon zest I’m just gonna whisk that alltogether now I’m not going to just pourthis into that crust this filling wouldtake probably 40 minutes to bake throughand over that time the edges are gonnaovercook while we’re waiting for thecenter to set right so what we’re goingto do is we’re going to jumpstart thisfilling I’ve got a medium saucepan herecook this at medium-low heat until itreaches 160 degrees this is going totake five to eight minutes stirringconstantly to prevent the bottom fromcurdling okaylooks good I’m looking for hundred andsixty degrees there you go perfect I’mgonna move this off heat so it doesn’tkeep cooking okay and I’m going to addfour tablespoons of unsalted butter yesnow it’s occurred just gonna stir untilall of that butters melted the butter isgonna help cool this as well and it’sgonna just round out the flavors alittle bit this looks greatis beautiful now we are going to strainthis mixture and that’s to make surethat if there are any curdled bits wecatch them and that lemon zest that’s inthere we’re done with it given upeverything it’s going to give to ourlemon bars so let’s get rid of itright into our 8×8 doesn’t that lookbeautiful that is like sunshine in a panI’m just gonna tilt this pan just smoothit out there’s no need to try to even itout with a spatula okay and just gonnapop it back into that 350 degree ovenjust until it sets up will jiggle thepan to make sure it’s done that’ll take8 to 12 minutes so it’s been about 10minutes take a look all right how’s itlooking at youit looks great the edges are juststarting to puff just a tiny bit we’regonna get out of herenow we have to exercise our patiencethis is too cool for that filling to setand it’s gonna take about an hour and ahalf yes all right I hope they’re coldenough they certainly are you ready Isure AMso that sling we made earlier it makestaking these out so easy I’m going tocut these into 12 hours and I’m gonnawipe my knife clean in between slicesand I love that there’s some resistancein that crust too I can tell it’s gonnabe nice and crunchy right a beautifulcolor look at that even crust rightthere and gorgeousall right first bitethat is gorgeous that lemon flavor justlingers and lingers and lingers it doesbut it’s not too tart and that crustjust comes through you get the bits ofcrunch hmm it’s kind of buttery you getthis almost toasty flavor underneath andthe texture of the curd it’s like butterthese are packed with lemon thank you somuch longer well if you want to makethese lemon packed lemon bars it startswith stirring melted butter into theflour mixture press into a pan and baketo create a tender and crunchy crustcook lemon juice zest and a little creamof tartar our secret ingredient alongwith eggs on the stovetop or over thatcrust and then finish in the oven coolslice and the Bower as fast as possibleso from our Test Kitchen to your kitchena true lemon lover’s delight believe methe best lemon bars I’m speechlessthanks for watching America’s TestKitchen what you think we’ll leave acomment and let us know which recipesyou’re excited to make or you can justsay hello you can find links to today’srecipes and reviews in the videodescription and don’t forget tosubscribe to our Channel see you laterI’ll see you later