Easter Sugar Cookies

I really am not a religious person, at all, but I love being festive. Well, and off topic, but Easter actually began as a pagan holiday as a celebration of fertility. I am not trying to offend anyone, but it is the truth, look it up if you don't believe me. Well and the bunny represents fertility.  It's also an excuse to bake something, which I'll take any reason to bake, and do just that, bake. It's been a good hot minute since I've made cookies. In celebration of Easter, I am making bunny sugar cookies! I have been on the hunt for the perfect sugar cookie recipe. It is so difficult to find a great sugar cookie recipe as well as a good yellow cake recipe. We will get to the yellow cake though in another blog post somewhere down the line, I'm sure. Well I found one that is, I wouldn't say perfect, but it is pretty darn close!

 

 

 

First, start off by combining your dry ingredients, 6 cups of all purpose flour, 2 tsp of baking soda, and 1 tsp of salt. Whisk it all together in a bowl, and set it aside for later. Warning this makes A LOT of cookies! It gave me about 76 and that was after munching on some raw cookie dough. ha but it makes a lot!  

 

Now combine all the wet ingredients into a mixer, I am using my kitchen aid with the paddle attachment. The wet ingredients consist of, 1 cup of shortening ( I usually always replace shortening for butter in everything other than sugar cookies and pies, shortening is better in these to give you that texture you need!), 2 cups of white granulated sugar, 2 eggs, a tablespoon of vanilla extract, and 1 cup of sour cream. It sounds weird, I know but it works!

 

Mix all the wet ingredients together.

 

Don't forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is incorporated and is smooth.

 

Smooth like so!

 

Now slowly add in the dry ingredients, little by little, mixing on a low speed, making sure it is just mixed until combined and not over mixed.

 

 

Now when the dough is looking like this, don't panic, it is ok, this is what we want it to look like, because we are going to be rolling the dough out, we don't want it mixed to much, or else it is going to make our cookies tough. Tough cookies are not good, when they are in the eaten form... you know? ... you get it, a tough cookie... ha yeah that was lame, moving on..   smile, you know you want to!

 

Make sure you get all the dough off the paddle attachment. Press the dough together, to get it all to stick together, and place it into a bowl. Once in the bowl push it all together the best you can, I know it's pretty crumbly at this point.

 

Place the bowl in the refrigerator to harden up a bit, and come together into a uniform piece of dough. Let the dough chill for 3-4 hours, or even over night if you can.

 

 

Once the dough has sat and formed together, clean and sanitize a spot on your counter, flour up the counter with a generous amount. Keep the flour near by so you can reapply a layer if need be. I also like to dust my rolling pin with some flour.

 

Next, roll out about 1/4th portion of the dough, give it a good initial roll, then, I like to flip it and finish rolling it all the way out. You can make these as thin or thick as you want them, just try to stick with whatever thinness or thickness you want, to insure that when you bake them off, they will all cook evenly and be done at the same time. A helpful tip i learned about rolling sugar cookie dough out is don't roll it out to hard, meaning, don't apply that much pressure on the dough, be gentle with it. This helps for two reasons, the first, being that it helps not to tear the dough, the second is, it helps the dough to not stick to the surface. Also, I think it helps make a softer cookie.

 

You can use any kind of shapes or cookie cutters that you want. I am using this bunny set from target. I will be using the small bunny and the second to smallest cutter.

 

When you cut your shapes be sure to give it a good wiggle, (side note- I've always though wiggle was a weird word) and make sure the cutter, cut all the way through.

 

Bake these on a nonstick cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 7 minutes. I lined mine with foil to make for an easy cleanup and i didn't have parchment paper. The foil I am using is Reynolds wrap nonstick.

 

These don't spread too much, however, I still like to make sure they are evenly spaced and have plenty of room.

 

After they are all baked, allow them to cool off completely. Now, when you make sugar cookies, I feel like it is an automatic must to cover them in icing. I am covering my bunnies in pink icing and pink sprinkles.  I was going to give them cute faces, however it started to look REALLY BIZARE!  Part or the main part of this I believe is i have really naturally shakey hands, so trying to draw on steady faces, is a miss for me. I really hate that about me, I love cakes, baking, and decorating, but nothing ever looks the way I want it to because my damn hands wont stop shaking. Sometimes I think something is wrong with me. I will learn to control my shakiness! One day..

 

 

Finished bunnies. I still think they are cute, even if they didn't turn out the way I wanted, and they were pretty darn tastey. 

 

 

 

Recipe:

 

 

Dry Ingredients:
6 cups of Flour
2 teaspoons of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of Salt

(mix together is small bowl and set aside)

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup Shortening
2 cups Sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup Sour Cream

(Blend wet ingredients until smooth in large bowl)

 

Stir in dry ingredients, Cover and place in the fridge for a few hours.

Roll out amazing cookie dough. Use your favorite/festive cookie cutters.

 

 

Hope y'all have a hoppy Easter!  :P