In all my time spent in the kitchen and as a cooking instructor, no recipe has been more popular than the Valentine's Day Sugar Cookie. There's something special when a child presents a gift of love to mom, dad or a grandparent. Here is the recipe for a sturdy, tasty treat that children will love to decorate especially for that certain someone in their life.
Valentine Sugar Cookies
Prep Time: 20 minutes + 2 hours refrigeration
Baking Time: 12 minutes
Makes: about 20 (3")(7 cm) cookies
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups (625 mL) all purpose flour
- 1 tsp (5 mL) baking powder
- 1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
- 1 cup (250 mL) Crisco® All Vegetable Shortening
- 1 cup (250 mL) granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp (30 mL) orange or apple juice
- 2 tsp (10 mL) vanilla extract
- coloured sugars
- coloured icings
Directions:
- Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Stir well to blend.
- Cream shortening and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, juice and vanilla. [Do your kids know why you beat the shortening and sugar together? Doing this creates air bubbles in the mixture. When you add a leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda it gets into the bubbles, helping the cookies rise and making them light and fluffy.]
- Stir flour mixture into creamed mixture. Mix well.
- Form dough into two balls. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Roll out dough on floured surface to 1/4 inch (5 mm) thickness. [Get your kids to sprinkle some flour on the work surface and show them how it keeps dough from sticking to it. Make sure they remember to put some on the rolling pin too!]
- Cut into desired shapes.Place on prepared cookie sheet. Decorate with coloured sugar before baking or leave plain and decorate with icing later. Bake in pre-heated oven for 8-12 minutes or until light golden.
- Cool for 5 minutes on sheet, then transfer to rack and cool completely. When cool, decorate with coloured icings, if desired.
Note:
You may prefer to prepare cookies ahead and decorate as needed.
To make them extra-special, personalize cookies with a name written in icing.
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