Making Delicious Sugar Cookies

[Music]everyone welcome to my kitchensure your cookies are one of the mostwonderful things that you can make foryour family and friends they are sobeautiful to look at and so delicious toeat I’m so excited to be sharing myrecipe with you this recipe is very easyto focus what you will need is unsaltedbutter baking powder salt vanilla milkegg sugar and flour the first thing thatwe’re going to be doing is creaming ourbutter now I softened my butter in themicrowave and it melted a little bit toomuch but that’s okay if this happens toyou you can still use it and I decidedI’m so going to use it for our video theonly thing is that I’m renamed I’mmixing it a little bit more I’m gonna becreaming my butter for about threeminutes and all you want is for thebutter to get light and fluffy[Music]because we’re only using 2/3 cup ofbutter it’s not that much butter so Ijust want to scrape the bowl to makesure that my butter is mixing well and Ithink I already tell this is very lightI can I could already start adding inthe rest of the ingredients I’m justgonna soften it just a little bit moremy blender is nice and soft and I onlyactually mixed it for a minuteso now we’re ready to put in the sugarthe baking butter[Music]whenever I turn on my mixer when I’madding ingredients I start with thelowest setting make sure all theingredients incorporate and then I bringhim to medium all the ingredients haveincorporated now I’m going to add thevanilla milkthis is a small batter so that’s why I’mkind of scraping the bowl love it morethan I usually do because they’re sothere’s very little ingredients in herebut usually I make you know two to threebatters at a time just because I do makea lot of sugar cookies we don’t want toover mix it we’re just mixing it to allthe ingredients incorporate the lastthing we’re going to do is add all theflour all at once and this is not siftedregular all-purpose arm you want to makesure that you start at the first settingcenterfire doesn’t go everywhere andthen you eventually you go gradually tomedium speed okay that’s it the cookiedough is very crumblyI didn’t over mix it now we’re gonnastart kneading it by hand I’m going tobe using my flour to dust the surfacearea my rolling pin in my hands so thatthe dough is not causticservice now as you can see this cookiedough is very crumbly and it looks verymuch like my crest I love making a piecrust that is actually my favoritedessert a long time so I do make a lotof pie crust as well the first thing I’mgoing to do is I’m just going to pressmy dough together I’m going to use aslittle flour as possible and only whennecessary so I’m just going to startkneading the dough just like this I’mnot adding flour on this unless itsticks to my surface then I’ll have alittle bit more flour but I’m going totry not to use any more flour than Ineed and I’m pretty much just kneadingit until it it starts to get more smoothand not so crumblyso I haven’t really used too much butteractually and I can have any tell thatthis is ready to go so it doesn’t it[Music]I really like using my cell phone maxwhen I’m rolling on my dough a lot ofrecipes will ask you to chill your doughfirst before you roll it and cut into itbut I actually like to roll it up firstcello for an hour and then cut into itwith my cookie cutters there arecertainly a lot of techniques out thereand I’ve definitely tried a lot of themthis technique just got this door for meso the first thing I’m gonna do is I’mjust gonna dust my my surface here alittle bit a little bit of flour hereand I’m going to roll out my cookiedough to approximately 1/8 of an inch[Music]the center is the thickest part of thecookie dough so I want to make sure thatwhen I’m rolling I’m rolling from thecenter and backwards[Music]you want to make sure to not stop put somuch pressure because then you’re goingto scratch your cookie dough I’m justdoing it slowly trying to evenly get itout that’s why I’m starting on it fromthe center going outwardsif you see cracks on your cookie dough Ibelieve it’s because you’re rolling itout and pushing it out too quickly[Music][Music][Music]okay so it’s nice and even I believeyeah looks good now I’m gonna pop itinto the freezer for about an hour andthen we’ll be with the country after[Music]I’ve just taken a cookie dough out ofthe freezer it’s been there for an hourso it’s nicely chilled now I’ve beenmaking sugar cookies for a very longtime and I make one to two hundredwaiting sugar cookie favors and they allhave to be you know perfectly the exactsame shape the exact same size and Ifind that they secret to getting thatperfect cut is to have a reallywell-donethe first thing I’m gonna do is I’mgonna flip this over a little bit offlour and right now that the dough isnicely chilled that I only want to startcutting into it if your cookie dough isa little bit too hard to be able topress into it just leave it up for nolonger than a minutesomething very quickly and then you’llbe able to get into it[Music]now when it comes to sugar cookies Idon’t actually like to use parchmentwhen I think I’ve been his freshmen foreverything but for my sugar cookies Idon’t like to use freshmen sometimes youknow the parchment kind of crinkles upin the oven and I don’t want that for myshaking cookies so I put them directlyonto my cookie sheet now also anotherthing is right now that I’m cutting intothem and I’m placing them on my cookieon my cookie tray I’m going to beputting them approximately 1/2 an inchaway from each other this cookie tray isready to go I’m gonna pop it back intothe freezer and a preheat my oven oncemy oven is ready I’ll be able to putthem inside the oven and start beatingwhile the dough is nice be chilled stillI’m gonna really need this leftoverdough and I’m gonna quickly roll it andI start cutting into it because thisstill nicely chilled[Music]we’re not going to be moving on to makeeven realizing and let me tell you thereare so many recipes out there and thereason why is because everybody likes aconsistency different the consistency ofyour royal icing really has a lot to dowith your decorating skill level I willbe making a recipe that I find is easyfor me and to be able to decorate withas well my children seem to like thisrecipe as well this is definitelysomething that you might want to addjust to your preference well I thinkit’s pretty much a powdered confectionersugar and the rest liquids now I do liketo use a meringue powder meringue thisfrying powder you can find at your localWalmart or craft store or baking storeand what it does is allows the oil Ithink to drive much quicker which isreally good for beginners because whenyou’re decorating you know two differentcolors different layers it is definitelyeasier when you’re icing it dries muchfaster for liquids I will be usingfreshly squeezed lemon juice milk watervanilla and you can add your own flavorsthat you like as well I’m going to bezooming in the camera so you can have abetter idea so let’s get started thefirst thing I do is I drop all of myconfectioners sugar into my bowlnow you can sift it if you would likebut I find that I get the same resultswhether I sift it or not sometimesyou’ll get a bag where the confectionerssugar is really really compact and Iwould definitely sift it if that’s thecase I definitely do you know recommendthat you use meringue powder it’s goingto make it a lot more easier to decorateespecially if you’re starting out likeI’ve been doing it for I’ve beendecorating sugar beets for so long and Istill liketo use my meringue powderfor one bag of confectioner sugar I douse three tablespoons of meringue powderyou want to make sure you mix both dryingredients before you start adding yourliquids so now you can add quite a fewdifferent kind of liquids I like to usea 50/50 ratio of milk and waterI find that milk does lessen thesweetness of the icing I’ve made royalicing just with water vanilla andmeringue powder and it was very verysweet I I could really taste themeringue powder as wellthat’s why I like to add firstlysqueezed lemon juice and of course youwant to add your delicious pure vanillaI do add my liquids by tablespoon butwith the vanilla you want to add it oneteaspoon at a time[Music]at this time I only have dark purevanilla and that’s going to give myicing a more of an ivory look if you dohave pure clear vanilla that will giveyou that really nice white icing youwant to be watching the consistency ofyour icing as you’re mixing and you’readding your liquids I usually put twotablespoons of lemon juice 2 teaspoonsof vanilla and the rest is milk andwateryou also want to be tasting it as you gothat way you know which the quiz youwant to add you want to make sure thatit’s getting to the flavor that you wantbefore you get to the consistency thatyou want you don’t want to find out thatyou know you have the right consistencyand yet it has no flavor because thenyou’re gonna have to add more liquid andthat will make the icing alot morethinner if you do accidentally put toomuch liquid you can definitely just addmore confectioner sugar for sure so it’sstill in the thick side I’m going tocontinue adding more liquids I amtasting it as I go so I can decide whichliquids I want to addI can already tell it’s finally startingto get the consistency that I like assoon as you get to the consistency andflavor that you like you want to letyour icing mix for five minutes onmedium speed and this is gonna allow allof the flavors to mix well we’re goingto put the royal icing in a well sealedcontainer this is gonna stop it fromdrying out and as you can see you cantell that it is quite smooth consistencywithin a minute you’ll be able to seeair bubbles so we want to let this icingsit and it’s ready to go I want to talka little bit about how about energeticit should be and let me tell you this isdefinitely a personal preferenceanything later than this I find it’sdone these a little bit of cooking andanything darker than this is a littlebit of overdoneI personally do not like my sugarcookies white when I started makingsugar cookies for clients I thoughtthat’s what they wanted so I always geta little bit white but personally tastewise I do like them a little bit more inthe middle here but definitely you knowif my sugar cookies turn out this dark Iwould definitely you know keep them andserve them fourth coffee and tea when afamily and friends come over these onesare so deliciousI find I preferrather than lighter ones but again likeI said it’s a personal partner my sugarcookies are baked my relate I will beplacing my Roy I think in the frigeratorovernight because I want all the airbubbles to rise to the top that way whenI’m done great and I don’t have any airbubbles on my will I sing and I’m goingto be putting my tea sugar cookies awayand tomorrow I’m gonna call them IRA Ithink that’s right decorating which isthe fun part I hope you enjoyed thisvideo and of course I will be postingthe recipe in my description belowthanks for watching[Music]