Yesterday, Alden and I made a special trip to Sur la Table to look for fun things to do in the kitchen together. We found an entire set of alphabet cookie cutters and Alden couldn’t wait to get started!! By the time we got home last night it was too late for cookies so I promised him we would make them today. At 7:00 am, he decided that now would be the PERFECT time to try them out.
So we did. My first thought was to get the hand written recipe notebook my Mom sent me when I went away to school. I pulled out this recipe my mother baked with me as a child and we were off! I’m not sure where this recipe originally came from, but I have been eating these cookies my entire life. (I think it was from my Great Grandmother.) Talk about comfort food… roll them thin and they will be nice and crisp. Great with a cup of hot tea in the afternoon. (Or with a cup of coffee for breakfast!) This makes a lot of cookies, so be prepared to give some away to your friends and neighbors.
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 cups brown sugar, packed
- 2/3 cup shortening (I use the trans fat free kind)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- In a medium sized bowl, mix together flour and baking powder with a whisk. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and the shortening.
- Add the eggs and vanilla to the shortening and mix well.
- Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture.
- Roll thin and cut into desired shapes. *See Tip.
- Place shapes on the cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 8 minutes.
- Let cool on the cookie sheet for 30 seconds to one minute before removing them to a wire rack to cool. If you don’t have a wire rack, place them on the cool counter or a plate. (If you leave the cookies on the sheet for more than one minute they will stick and break as you try to remove them.)
*Tip: I roll the dough out in small batches in between 2 sheets of plastic wrap. I remove the top sheet, cut the shapes out then return the top sheet of plastic over the dough. Place this in the freezer for a few minutes until it gets cold. The cookies will be easy to get off of the plastic and you won’t stretch the shapes out when you move them to the cookie sheet.
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