pull up a chair

gulp. that’s the sound of me deep against a deadline. i’m a wee bit underwater here, with a 2,500-word story in the works. and a clock ticking loudly, telling me to crank it up, crank it up.

whatever leisurely tale i might have told you here this morning, it’s being scuttled by the overdrive that writing brings. when sleep becomes a playground for sentences that romp around your head, and you rise to gurgle coffee and down it by the mugful.

tis advent time, the season of quietest anticipation, a season i love and will enter deeply, once the clacking on the keyboard quells.

because i wouldn’t want to leave you high and dry, while i pull verbs and nouns and nifty transitions out of a hat, i thought i’d leave you something rather earth-shattering: we’ve a  new cutout cookie recipe over here, and after decades making my grandma lucille’s rolled cutout cookies, the ones she blanketed in wax paper sheets, tucked inside her cookie tins, her cutouts swapped for seasonal appropriateness, she’s been one-upped. there’s a new cookie in town, and my cookie-scarfing 17-year-old (a kid who knows) has deemed them better than the best.

this fine road to buttery perfection came to me — why, of course — at a hanukkah baking workshop on a recent rainy saturday afternoon at our synagogue. i was enticed to sign up because i’d thought i might learn the secrets to old jewish cookie treasures, some hanukkah morsel to bring to the table when we light the menorah on the first night of the festival of ever-burning light. instead, i got an ultra-upgraded butter cookie, one whose magic might rest in the milk (or cream) or vanilla my grandma never used, or perhaps it’s the baking powder, one of those cooking alchemies whose magic i don’t quite grasp. because i’m a girl who likes to get to the bottom of things, and maybe you do too, i’ll leave both recipes here on the table for you to peek at, pore over, and perhaps dive into.

but i’ll let you in on a secret that might amount to family treason: the new one, the one from marlene, my best new baking buddy, who all week checked in on me to make sure i’d not run into any lumps, is — shhhhhhh — the one i’ll reach for from now on. i baked these in the middle of the week, shortly after turning in my first draft of that darn story i’m still writing — or rewriting, to be precise. and i tell you, pulling out the cookie-cutter basket, remembering the tale of how each cutter came to me — a double bass for my longtime bass player, a teddy bear for, well, my very own TB — it was sweeter to me than the three and three-quarters cups of sugar i dumped into the mixing bowl. but those are stories for another day.

(a recipe note: i’m particularly charmed by the little asides in marlene’s instructions. you can almost hear her peeking over your shoulder, gently pointing out a better way, a shortcut, a trick she learned from years and years behind the rolling pin. i hope you’re as charmed as i am, and ever will be…)

Sugar Cookies from Marlene Carl (Directions 2018*)

*p.s. i love that marlene dates her directional revisions, as this cookie baking science is not to be taken nonchalantly…

3 and ¾ cups of regular flour a bit more if using egg beaters instead of regular egg

1 and ½ cups of regular sugar

2 teaspoons of real vanilla

1 and ½ teaspoons of baking powder

1 stick of unsalted butter and 1 stick of Can’t Believe It’s Butter margarine.  You can use all butter but the batter seems to roll better with the combination of half of each.  However, I do use all butter as I love the more delicate taste.

1 large egg or I use ¼ cup of egg beaters   (when baking with children who like to taste the raw batter, egg beaters are a safer option than real egg.)

2 and ½ Tablespoons of milk, (there are 3 teaspoons in one tablespoon)

Cream the butter until soft and blended, add the sugar and blend well. Then add the egg or egg beater, followed by the vanilla.

Mix the flour and baking powder together in a bowl, then add some of the flour, then some of the milk blending on low speed, continuing adding and blending until thoroughly  blended and mixed. The dough will begin to form a ball and pull away from the sides of the bowl.  Add a bit more flour if the dough seems very sticky.

Form three balls with the dough and press flat.  Wrap in plastic wrap and put into fridge until ready to use.  36 hours is the longest I have done so and it was perfect. You can also freeze the dough until ready to use.  Be sure it is double wrap and use within a month.

Bring the dough to room temp when ready to make the cookies.  Flatten one ball of dough between two pieces of wax paper the size of your cookie sheets and roll to about 1/8 to ¼ inch thick.

Using cookie cutters form into shapes, then remove as much of the extra dough around the cookies as possible. When you have done so, place in freezer or fridge (freezer about 10 minutes, fridge maybe a little longer amount of time).  When the cookies are cold it will be easy to pick them up and then place the cookies on a different cookie sheet and repeat the process.   Smaller cookies can often be removed without chilling them.

Leave about ½ inch between cookies.  I usually wait until I have used all the dough and made all the cookie forms before baking two trays at a time in a preheated 400 degree oven.  I use convention mode and they bake in about 6 to 7 minutes the edges turn a nice golden brown color.  Regular bake mode will take longer maybe 8 to 10 minutes.

Take the cookies off the tray immediately and place on cooling rake.  I usually only bake two trays at a time as the cookies are hard to get off the tray if they cool too much. If that occurs, place the tray back in the oven for about 30 seconds and the butter will soften the cookies and they will become easy to remove again.

When you roll the dough between the two pieces of wax paper, (if the dough seems to be sticking to the top piece of paper), you need to add one heaping tablespoon of flour.  Then knead the flour into the circle of dough.  It should not leave any particles of dough on the wax paper.

and because i promised, here’s my grandma lucille’s. like my grandma, it is clipped and to the point, no frilly asides in this one. my german grandma meant business, and business we got. even in her recipe tin.

Lucille’s Famous Rolled Cut-Out Cookies

1 cup shortening

½C. brown sugar

½C. white sugar

1 egg

2 Tbsp. lemon juice and grated rind

2 C. flour

¼tsp. baking soda

¼tsp salt

Cream shortening. Add sugar. Cream well, egg, flour, soda, salt, lemon juice and rind.

Chill about 3 hours (or overnight).

Roll ¼-inch. Use cookie cutters {Editor’s note: most notably turkeys, bunnies, Santa on sleighs, at appropriate seasons of course. Put raisin in turkey’s eye; same for bunny’s nose.}

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.

do you have a stand-out family cookie recipe in your tin, one that comes out at least once a year, or perhaps every other week? how does your family favorite stand up to the one dear marlene just bequeathed me?