A sugary, chocolaty kitchen flop

Confession time: I have never successfully made a moist, rich, delicious sugar cookie in my life. I actually have some horror stories for you. (Please indulge me for just a moment and continue reading). My sophomore year of college I wanted to make Christmas cookies for all of my financially impaired college friends, but sadly, I over softened the butter and the delicious batter turned to mush while cooling in a rolled mess of wax paper in the fridge. Oh me oh my. So many times my cookies have turned into rocks with my adorable husband choking them down with a smile on his face.

I'm not one to toot my own horn, but I do think that I have a considerable amount of talent in the kitchen. I mean, I can do more than boil water - that's something right? Well tonight my long-time rivalry with sugar cookies reared its ugly head. It seemed that everything in my kitchen was against me from the get-go. My father-in-law (ish...it's a long story) is flying in tomorrow to stay with us for a couple of days. My husband is picking him up at the airport while I'm at work, so I wanted a heaping plate of cookies to be my special touch on our little apartment when he got here. Apparently, my kitchen had other plans. The recipe I chose hailed itself as the best sugar cookie recipe ever, and I have been so excited to make it for about two months now and this seemed the ideal situation. However, when I realized that the entire recipe, buttercream icing and all, would take three sticks of butter, I just couldn't do it. Maybe for Christmas this year, but please not during bathing suit season. So, I decided to halve the recipe, but it called for one egg. I pondered for a while how exactly to half an egg, and finally decided to just throw it in the mix, after all I had been at work all day and all I wanted to do was lay on the couch.

Anyways, long story short, the egg made the dough WAY too gooey, and, as a result, I rolled the dough WAY too thin and my delicious, moist sugar cookies turned to little crackers, each one cracking as I took them off the cookie sheet. And as if THAT wasn't enough, I decided to do a light chocolate drizzle instead of a heart stopping (but tasty) buttercream on top of the cookies. Turns out, I don't know how to make drizzle very well or how to actually drizzle said chocolate drizzle on top of the cookies. So the delicious, adorable chocolate drizzled sugar cookies are now freezing in my freezer as chocolate cookie sandwiches, half to get rid of all of the non-drizzling chocolate and half to glue my cookies back together with the chocolate. Ohmeohmy, it was a complete and utter kitchen nightmare. Perhaps I'll wait a little longer to make sugar cookies. We both need to grow up a little more, I suppose. However, I will share the recipe with you for one reason and one reason only. Out of this ridiculous situation that has happened to me over the past two hours surfaced ONE perfect sugar cookie. One cookie. Even my husband ate a bite and his face lit up with delight. That is all I needed to make things right in this world.


Enjoy.

The perfect sugar cookie
(The recipe was taken from Our Best Bites blog)

1 C real unsalted butter

1 C sugar

1 egg (large or extra large egg)

1 1/2 t vanilla extract (or other flavor of your choice, like almond)

3 C unbleached, all-purpose flour

1 1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

1. Cream softened butter and sugar in a mixer until light and fluffy- about 2 minutes (my FAVORITE part). Add in egg and extract and mix until blended.
2. In a separate bowl add flour, baking powder and salt and mix.
*Recipe alert: Be sure to scoop your flour into a measuring cup with a spoon and then level off with a knife. Don't scoop flour directly with your measuring cup. Trust me.
3. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture a little bit at a time and mix until incorporated.
4. Roll dough out between two sheets of wax or parchment paper. Trust me, it's so much easier. Let chill flat in the fridge for twenty to thirty minutes. OR you can chill the dough in the fridge for an hour and then roll it out on the counter with additional flour.
5. Cut cookies into shapes (I used a glass. It's the only circle shape I had.) The key here is to make sure the cookies are thick. Keep the dough at 1/4 inch thick. I rolled them to almost paper thinness, thinking they would rise (what was I thinking?) and they just turned into a complete disaster, except for the last one that I got tired of dealing with and kept it super thick. It was the star of the bunch.
6. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Take them out as soon as they look slightly brown - possibly before that.

Chocolate cookie drizzle:
(Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens website)

Semi-sweet chocolate chips

Butter

1. Combine 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips with 2 teaspoons butter in a small sauce pan over low heat.
2. Stir until chocolate melts and is smooth. Place cooled sugar cookies on wax paper lined cookie sheet and drizzle.
3. Freeze cookies for 5 minutes.