Amelia Romine '24, Photo Editor
As we approach the holiday season, many families have traditions of baking cookies with their friends, family, and perhaps for Santa. "I love the tradition of Christmas cookies because me and my grandma used to do them every year; now I carry the tradition to keep the memories alive," senior Genna Clement said. Although baking is common, it can be a very precise art. You always need to be exact with your recipes to ensure they come out how you intend. Here is an easy and simple recipe on how to bake the best sugar cookies:
First, you are going to need the ingredients. Having the exact amount of each ingredient is the key to making your cookies taste and look good.
This recipe calls for:
- Four sticks of Oleo (can be substituted with butter)
- Two cups of sugar
- One teaspoon of baking soda
- One teaspoon of vinegar
- Three cups of flour.
Next, you are going to need to preheat your oven to 300 degrees. This is a very important step so you don't have to worry about it once you have finished forming your cookie dough and placing them on the pan. After you preheat your oven, you need to start mixing your ingredients together to form the dough. To do this, you need to add your Oleo, sugar, baking soda, and vinegar into a bowl and combine into a thick and smooth texture. Once you have combined your ingredients you can start adding the flour. To mix in the flour, use a blending machine or a whisk to ensure you do not get any clumps.
After your dough is blended well, prepare your pan. Bake the cookies on a nine by 13-inch sheet pan, which can hold eight to twelve cookies at a time. To grease your pan, use butter or nonstick cooking spray, and make sure to coat the pan evenly to ensure the cookies don't stick. After you have finished greasing the pan, take the cookie dough out of the bowl, shape it into even-sized balls, and place them onto the sheet pan in neat rows so they do not overlap while baking. Once the cookies are neatly placed on the sheet pan, grease the bottom of a glass cup and dip into a bowl of sugar (optional to add sugar), color the sugar with food coloring to your liking, if desired. When prepared, press the glass cup onto the cookies to make them into cookie shapes, greasing and dipping into the sugar bowl between each. Following this, place the pan of cookies into the oven for about ten minutes. Once the ten minutes have passed, carefully remove the cookies from the oven and set them on a rack until they have properly cooled.
If you choose not to sugar the cookies you can decorate the cookies with icing; this is still a great way to make them look ornamental. "I use icing to decorate my cookies because it tastes good and makes them look better," senior Brody Weaver said. To make traditional icing you will need to have five basic ingredients: three cups of confectioners sugar, ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract, two teaspoons of corn syrup, five tablespoons of room temperature water, and a pinch of salt. To make the icing, add all of the ingredients into a bowl and make sure to use a whisk to mix the icing so it doesn't have clumps. At first, the icing will be very thick—but trust the process. Keep mixing until you can lift the whisk and let the icing drizzle down; if the icing holds its shape of the drizzle for a few seconds before melting back into the rest, it is made correctly. If desired, you can add food coloring to make the cookies stand out.
To decorate the cookies with your icing you will either need a piping bag or a butter knife. A piping bag is the easiest way to create intricate designs, while a butter knife is used mostly to decorate the cookie one color. You may also add sprinkles or luster dust on top of the icing to make them even prettier.
Baking festive cookies is just one of the many traditions that come along with the holidays. You can enjoy these delectable treats on the couch while watching holiday movies, after your Christmas dinner, or leave them out for Santa on Christmas Eve. Happy baking, and happy holidays!
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