Cookie Monsters

My hands are still red from all the food coloring, but who cares because the cookies were a huge success.

See, we've been watching our "cookie tv" show over and over again, especially with Sis and now Bud under the weather. Sis loves the candy canes by Sandra Lee and Bud loves Emeril's raspberry lemon thumbprints. And so, we decided to make them yesterday. But instead of following two separate recipes (especially because I will not use store-bought dough a la Sandra Lee) and having a huge amount of cookies, I whipped up a batch of Alton Brown's sugar cookie dough, yet another one on our cookie tv show, in just under 10 minutes (I know, that means I softened the butter in the microwave, a big no-no, but time was definitely of the essence) before I ran out the door to church.

When I got home late in the afternoon, after a weaver's guild meeting (more on that, maybe), the first thing Sis said to me was, "let's make the cookies!" Hers called for a ton of red food coloring, which of course she wouldn't touch. And then I got covered in lemon juice and orange zest mixing the dough for Bud's cookies. But they made the shapes of each and helped me get them into the oven. Then we all had a cookie tasting. It's a good solid sugar cookie dough, easily adaptable.

Which is great because I saved half of it in the freezer for another day!

Except, apparently, they want to make Giada de Laurentiis's biscotti next, and that's just a different dough.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Sugar Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon milk

Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Bake at 375 for 12-14 minutes.

For Sis's Candy Cane Cookies: split (half of) dough in half, adding red food coloring to one half until it is the desired red color. Roll "worms" of each dough and then twist together, placing them on the cookie sheet with a "bend" for the crook of the candy cane. Bake as directed.

For Bud's Lemon-Raspberry Thumbprints: add orange zest (about a teaspoon) and lemon juice (1-2 teaspoons) to his half of the dough. Pinch off ball of dough, roll into ball, place on cookie sheet, press with thumb or little measuring spoon, and fill indentation with raspberry jam (alas, no Chambord). Bake as directed.