Quick and Easy Rolled Sugar Cookies

Time for Valentine’s Day cookies.

I’ve used the same recipe for sugar cookies for the past year or so, but the last time I made it we had a lot of trouble rolling out the dough, plus it makes about 5 bajillion cookies more than we need. I poked around the web for something simpler, and there it was: Quick and Easy Rolled Sugar Cookies, no chilling of dough required.

I assembled the ingredients. There weren’t many of them. Quick and easy indeed.

I put the butter into the bowl of the stand mixer, and measured out the sugar so Juliet could dump it in.

Once that was properly mixed, she was ready for egg cracking. She loves to crack the egg but as soon as things get slimy, she hands it off. Smart kid.

We added the vanilla, beat the mixture well, then attended to the dry ingredients. Well, I did. Juliet took a break to do something else, doubtless involving some sort of snack consumption.

In a separate bowl, I whisked together all purpose flour, baking soda, and salt.

We added that to the mixture in the stand mixer incrementally, until it was fully incorporated and the dough was clumping into large pieces rather than being a smooth mixture. We rolled a chunk of it into a nice round ball.

We floured the counter, then tried rolling out the dough, but it stuck to the rolling pin even though we’d floured that up as well. I got out a sheet of wax paper to put on top and that made everything better. I got her started, but she got the hang of it pretty quickly.

We decided to do hearts, stars, and circles, and I did my best to teach her how to make the best use of space with the cookie cutters. It wasn’t her favorite part of the process, but she humored me.

We made them thinner than we usually do with the other recipe, but we still didn’t get the three dozen suggested. I think we just have big cookie cutters. Doesn’t matter; it was exactly the right amount to make the afternoon fun without getting dull.

Eight minutes seemed to be exactly the right baking time to get them a little brown around the edges but not undercooked. Then the inner struggle began in my daughter: decorating fun vs. cookie eating. It was a tough call.

It was a lot to ask of a five-year-old, to smell those cookies and not eat them. Instead of our usual thick frosting, I opted for a simple pink glaze, something that would be just enough to hold the sprinkles in place without becoming the main attraction.