A Fun Sugar Cookie Tutorial

Last Friday I had a baking lesson from my friend's daughter.  We met at Sheryl's place and Lisa got busy.  Honestly, I pretty much watched and gleaned as much information as I could.  Lisa makes the BEST sugar cookies evah!  I had her recipe but my cookies didn't look or taste like Lisa's cookies.

Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup shortening * Lisa uses butter flavor Crisco, I didn't know that!

1/2 cup butter *Lisa says it must be room temp.

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs * Lisa says they must be room temp.

1 tsp. vanilla *Lisa uses Costco brand, I do too.

1 tsp. salt

2 1/2 cups flour *I brought Robin Hood from Canada, I think it's the best.

Cream the shortening and butter in a medium bowl.  Add sugar, mix well.  Beat in the eggs and vanilla.  Mix in the dry ingredients.

Roll out dough on a floured surface and cut out cookie shapes.*Lisa makes them thick and I think that is what makes them good.  Really thick, see photos. 

 Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  *Lisa really watches them so they don't get over baked.

Cool.  Frost and decorate as desired.

Lisa works a fair amount of flour into the dough before she rolls the cookies.  She kneads it in.  We tripled the recipe.

Emeri was our helper.  I can hardly believe it but she talks MORE than her Grandma and I when we get to together.  She calls her Grandma, "Chilla".  It's really cute!

Yes, they are thick!

For the frosting Lisa melts a half cube of butter, and adds the butter and half and half to the powdered sugar, slowly.  No recipe, sorry folks.  She adds a bit of vanilla but not too much as we wanted the frosting to be white.

Wedding white!

The frosting should be thick enough that it doesn't fall off the knife.

The frosting should be spread on thick.  Lisa puts the sprinkles on thick too.

Besides cookies for Mother's Day we made wedding cookies for an engagement care package that I was mailing to Danny and Jessica.  We made wedding cake cookies and bridal gown cookies.

The hearts were for Mother's Day brunch.

For Danny and Jessica's package I had fun finding treats so they could celebrate their engagement.

Vintage champagne glasses, a silver keepsake, a check for champagne, wedding sugar cookies, Bride magazines, nail polish(Glass Slipper and Champagne Toast) for Jess, vintage favors with Jordan almonds. Don'ts For Wives, a book I found at Paper Source with some very antiquated ideas about marriage.  I hope they have some laughs reading this book.  I packed the box with some something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

I used an old wedding dress pattern for tissue.

Hubby and I had fun putting the package together.  We are so happy for Danny and his sweet fiancee.  

Their wedding date is June 21, 2014.

Thank you Lisa, Sheryl and Miss Emeri for a fun morning.  It was inspiring and very educational for this baker.  Sugar cookies are my favorite and Lisa's are my very favorite!