Soft Sugar Cookies With Light and Fluffy Frosting – from Fake Ginger via SavorySights

• Cookies
  • 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 4 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cups butter (3 sticks), room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 5 tsp vanilla
• Frosting
  • 5 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 tbs vanilla
  • 7-8 tbs milk
  • food coloring (optional)
  • sprinkles (optional)

The Dough

In a large bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt.  Whisk together.

In the bowl of a mixer combine the butter and sugar.  Cream together on medium/high until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Make sure to fully mix in each egg before adding the next.  Then add the vanilla and mix.

Turn the mixer to low and slowly add the flour mixture.  Mix until everything is incorporated.

Cover the bowl and chill in the refrigerator for an hour or more.

Time to Bake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

When the dough has fully chilled, scoop out 1/4 cup portions and roll into a ball.  Then place the balls on the parchment lined baking sheets about 2-3 inches apart.  Then flatten the balls slightly to form disks.  Repeat with the remaining dough.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes or until they are just set.  DO NOT OVERBAKE!  The edges should be just be lightly turning brown.  You do not want the cookies to get any color.  If so they will start to harden.

When the cookies are just set, remove them from the oven and let cool on the baking sheets for 5-10 minutes.  Then transfer them to a wire rack to fully cool.

The Frosting

While the cookies are cooling place the confectioners’ sugar to a mixing bowl.  Add the melted butter, vanilla and milk. Whisk the mixture until smooth.  If the frosting is too hard, slowly add another tsp of milk to the mixture.  Whisk and repeat until you have the desired texture.  If you want colored frosting add the desired color to the frosting now and whisk.

Frost the cookies and add sprinkles to finish the cookies.

If the frosting starts to harden, whisk in another tsp of milk to the frosting.  This will loosen it up to all you to finish frosting the cookies.

Store in an airtight container.

These cookies are awesome! They are light and fluffy.  Plus since they are so light they just dissolve in your mouth.  The perfect cookie.

Homemade Sandies (shortbread cookies)

• 1/2 pound butter, softened (2 sticks)
• 2/3 cup sugar, plus 2 tbs more for sprinkling
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/4 cup flour, sifted
• 1/8 tsp salt

Cream together the butter and sugar.  Mix until it is light and fluffy.

Add the vanilla and salt and mix.

Then add the flour slowly and mix until combined.  The dough may stick to your beater.  Perfectly fine.

Turn the dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap and knead it together.  It should come together rather easily.  No need to knead it too much.  Just enough to form a ball.  Wrap the dough in the plastic wrap and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and turn it out onto a floured surface.  Roll into a flat sheet about 1/4 inch thick.  Then using your favorite cookie cutter, cut it into individual cookies.  As you can see, my favorite cutter is a shot glass.  It comes in handy, what can I say.

Place onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment.  Then lightly sprinkle with a little more sugar.

Place the cookies in a preheated 350 degree oven for 18-22 minutes or until the edges start to lightly brown.

Cool completely on the cookie sheet and then enjoy with your favorite cup of coffee.

These cookies are simple and delicious to make.

We scarfed down a good dozen in a matter of minutes.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 stick butter
• 6 tbs shortening
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 cups old fashioned oats
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer, beat together the butter, shortening and sugars until creamy.  This will take a couple of minutes.  Make sure the mixture is light and fluffy before you proceed.

Slowly add the eggs one at a time.  Make sure to beat the first one in before adding the second one.  Once the eggs are fully incorporated add the vanilla.

Add flour, baking soda and salt.  I used to sift the flour and other dry ingredients together, but come on, who has time for that.  I have made this recipe both ways and it comes out great both ways.  Actually the cookies have a better texture when you do not sift the flour.  So just slowly add the flour to the mixer.

Once the flour is incorporated add the oats.   Then incorporate the chocolate chips by hand.  You can use the mixer, but it will break them up and you might end up with pieces instead of chips.

Form the dough into 1 to 1.5 tbs sized portions and place onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  I have found that a cookie scoop is a good investment.  They sell them in various sizes at bed bath and beyond.  Amazon also has them Cookie Scoops.  They have them in all sizes and shapes.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until lightly browned.  Remember that if the top is browned the bottom will be really browned. So check the edges of the cookies to see if the cookies are done.

Cool for 1 minutes on cookie sheets then remove to a wire rack to cool.

You can also change this up and make them cinnamon raisin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with addition of 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1 1/2 cups of raisins instead of chocolate chips.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

M&M^® Cookies – (From Joy of Baking)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 3 large egg yolk
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup M&Ms ^®

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place a rack in the center of the oven.  Line a cookie sheet with either a Silpat or a sheet of parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and the sugars until light an fluffy.  Roughly 3 minutes.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract.  Beat until combined.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt and baking soda.  Turn the mixer down to low and slowly add the dry ingredients into the creamed butter mixture.

Form the dough into 1-2 tbs balls and place them on a cookie sheet.

Then using your hand or the flat bottom of measuring cup, gently flatten the dough balls into 2-3 inch rounds.

Cover the top of the cookies with M&M’s ^®.  Then gently press them into the tops of the cookies.

Bake the cookies for 10-14 minutes until they are lightly browned.  They will seem a little soft but they will firm up and crisp when cooled.

Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for 2-3 minutes and then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

This makes about 24 cookies.
M&M ^® is a registered trademark of Mars, Incorporated.

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar (1 1/4 cups granulated sugar with 1tbs molasses)
• 3/4 cup Butter Flavor Shortening
• 2 tbs milk
• 1 tbs vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 12 oz bag chocolate chips
• 4 oz chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375 degree Fahrenheit.

Combine the brown sugar, shortening, milk and vanilla in a large bowl.  Beat on medium speed until light fluffy.

Then add the egg and beat until combined.  Sift the flour, salt and baking soda.  This is optional, but it will give you the best possible cookie. Mix the flour mixture into the creamed shortening mixture.   Once combined stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

Unroll 3ft of wax paper and pour the cookie mixture onto it.  Form the cookie dough into a log and roll it up in the wax paper.  At this point you can cut the log into two and freeze or refrigerate the rest for another time.

Once you have the dough rolled up into a perfect log, cut the log into cookie sized round pieces.  I made mine about 1/2 inch thick.

Place the cookie pieces on a parchment or silpat lined cookie sheet about 2-3 inches apart.

Bake in the preheated 375 degree oven until desired doneness.  Roughly 8-10 minutes for chewy cookies and 11-13 for crunchy cookies.

These cookies are awesome.  Since they are shortening based, they do not spread out as much as butter based cookies. Thus they are dense and chewy.

My favorite.

I made a small stack for the picture, you could easily down 8 of these in a sitting.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 stick of butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup br0wn sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 – 2 cups chocolate chips
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl or the bowl of your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.

When lightened in color add the eggs one by one, mixing after each addition.

On a sheet of wax paper, sift the baking soda, salt and flour together.  As always, the wax paper will help you funnel the ingredients into the mixing bowl.

The wax paper makes pouring the flour into the mixer easy.

Slowly add the flour to the mixture until combined.

Since there is so little butter in the mixture you will need to mix the oats and chocolate chips in by hand.  Make sure to stir the ingredients together.

Place teaspoon sized ball onto a greased/or parchment lined cookie sheet. Once you drop the batter onto the cookie sheet, flatten the tops so that the cookies are not round.  Due to the lack of butter, these cookie will no spread out as much.   Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 10 minutes and then remove them to a cooling rack.

The cookies were not crumbly or even too dry.  They were amazing.  Some of the best cookies I have ever eaten.

Check out the Strawberry Jam post for some super simple freezer jam.

Thumb Print Butter Cookies – (from Simply Recipes)

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
  
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup preserves or jam (I enjoy strawberry jam)

In a mixing bowl or bowl of your stand mixer, cream together the sugar and butter.  Make sure that the butter is at room temperature or this is really gonna get messy.

Separate two eggs to get the egg yolks.  Save the egg whites in a freezer safe dish and freeze them.  Save them for egg white omlets or whenever you need some egg whites.  Just thaw in the refrigerator over night before you need them.  Add the egg yolks and vanilla to the butter mixture.  Mix until combined.

Slowly add the flour and salt until the ingredients are just combined.  Once combined place the dough into the refrigerator and let it set up for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.  Portion the dough into tablespoon sized balls.  Place the balls on the sheet pan and press your thumb into them.  This will make the indent for the jam and give the cookies their name.  I used a 1 1/2 inch ring to make sure that all of the cookies came out round.  This is not necessary, but helps out when you want perfectly round uniform cookies.

This makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Once you have all of the cookies made fill them with a teaspoon of your favorite jam.  I prefer strawberry but Dana really enjoys apricot.  Personal preference, I will not judge.

Place the sheet pan in the middle rack of the oven and cook at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.  Cook until the cookies are slightly firm and slightly starting to brown.  Allow the cookies to cool on the pan until firm and then transfer to wire rack to completely cool.

These cookies were excellent.

They are perfectly balanced.

Dream Bars II

The crust is perfect.  The top is almost there, but not quite.

Dream Bars #2

• Crust
  • 6 tbs butter – Room Temperature
    
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • pinch of salt
• Topping
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tbs flour
  • 1/2 cup coconut
  • 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the butter and the brown sugar.  When light and fluffy add the oats, flour and salt.  Press the crust into a 8×8 pan.  I am using a smaller pan for this as I want a nice thick bar instead of a puny little bar.

Press into a pan

Place the crust in the preheated oven and cook for 10 minutes.

While the crust is blind baking, mix the eggs and brown sugar in a bowl.  Stir in the flour and vanilla.  Mix well.  Then finally fold in the nuts and coconut.  Don’t worry this will be a bit runny.  I decided to remove some of the flour and all of the baking powder as I did not want the bars to have the consistency of a cookie.  The Dream Bars from Pot Belly are moist and chewy.  Hopefully this change will help.

Mix up the filling

Place the chocolate chips over the pre-baked crust.  Then spread the topping mixture over the top of the pre-baked crust.  Spread it out evenly.  Place the pan back into the preheated oven for another 12-15 minutes.  Remove when the top turns golden brown.

Spread out the filling

Let cool before cutting.

Let cool before eating

These are my closest try so far.  Not quite there.  The crust was perfect but the topping still needs a little work.  The topping was not as chewy as I hoped.  The layer of chocolate in the middle is nice, but does not follow the dream bars that I am trying to re-create.  I think these tasted better than the Dream Bar I recipe, however, neither fits the bill for the pot belly dream bars.  Any thoughts, let me know.

Dream Bar Try #1

Not quite the same, but still a damn good cookie bar.

Dream Bar #1 (AKA – First Try)

• Crust
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup oats
  • 2 tbs vegetable oil
  • 1/2 tsp salt
• Filling
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 tbs flour
  • 1/2 cup shredded coconut
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  • 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the shortening and the brown sugar.  When light and fluffy add the vegetable oil, oats, flour and salt.  If the mixture needs a little more moisture to stay together, add a tad bit more oil.

Mix together and add oil until the mixture comes together

Grease your hands with a tad bit of vegetable oil and press the mixture into a 9×13 pan.  Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Make sure to grease your hands to press this into the pan, otherwise you will have hulk hands.

While the crust is blind baking, mix the eggs and brown sugar in a bowl.  Stir in the flour, baking powder and vanilla.  Mix well.  Then finally fold in the nuts, coconut and chocolate chips.  Don’t worry this will be a bit runny.

The filling will be a tad bit on the liquid side.

Spread the mixture over the top of the pre-baked crust.  Spread it out evenly.  Place the pan back into the preheated oven for another 12-15 minutes.  Remove when the top turns golden brown.

Golden brown and ready to eat

Let cool before cutting.

These tasted like Dream Bars, but did not have the right texture or consistency.  Not that they are bad, they were actually awesome.  I enjoyed them a ton.  I might actually make these again.  The top was chocolate chip cookie like and the bottom was soft and chewy and the middle was gooey awesome.  While not quite the Dream bars that I wanted, they were tasty.

Thin and crispy

The cookies never browned right.  Although they are quite tasty and I see why people like thin and crispy cookies.

Thin and Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies – (From Martha Stewart)

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup water
  
• 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (about 12 ounces) semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

The first step is to cream together the butter and sugar.  Make sure your butter is at room temperature or else it will not cream to easily.  In the bowl of a stand mixer add the 2.5 sticks of butter and granulated and brown sugars.  Start mixing slowly and then turn the mixer up to medium.  Mix until it is light and fluffy.

I could just eat the whipped sugar and butter

Next turn the mixer down to low and add the salt, water, vanilla and eggs.  Beat until fully incorporated.  Now turn the mixer to low and slowly add the flour and baking soda.  Beat until just combined.

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and add 12oz of chocolate chips.  Mix them in by hand.

Add the chips

Measure out a tablespoon or so of the dough and place it on a parchment or silicone lined cookie sheet.   Make sure that each cookie is separated from the edge and the other cookies by at least 1.5 to 2 inches.  These cookies really spread out.  I would say that the maximum amount of cookies per sheet should be 12.

Make sure that the dough is spaced apart. These cookies spread.

Place into the preheated oven and cook for 12-16 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown.  I found that when cooking these the cookies never fully got golden brown.  Only the edges browned.  I left one batch in the oven for 20 minutes and they never fully browned on top.  However, the bottoms were completely burned.  If you take them out when you see the edges starting to brown they will be perfect. Let cool on the cookie sheet for a couple minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack.  Store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Edges are browned and ready to eat.

The cookies were thin and crispy.  They had a great flavor and crunch.  I might suggest changing the 1/4 cup of water to 1/4 cup of milk though.  Give it a little more browning power and add another layer of flavor.