Sugar Cookies

I am on a search to find an excellent sugar cookie recipe. I have used the "America's Test Kitchen" version before, but did not really like it because it uses a few too many specialized ingredients. Calling for super fine baker's sugar, cream cheese, etc...the cookies were good, but in my mind not good enough to justify the number of ingredients.

Yesterday, I tried out the dough recipe sent with my amazing Williams-Sonoma cookie cutters. The cookies held their shape well, but they were a bit tough. Decent, but far from spectacular -- though the cookie cutters themselves are absolutely wonderful. My next venture will be to try Sprinkle Bakes' sugar cookie recipe. I have much higher hopes for this one; essentially the same as the Williams-Sonoma recipe, but with two more eggs, a touch more vanilla extract, and the addition of some baking powder.

Then, it will be on to perfecting the icing. I still have not decided between using royal icing and buttercream icing. I will have to do a few test rounds to see whether the buttercream will dry hard enough, as the cookies are intended to be part of my sister's wedding favors in July, and will thus need to be bagged together. The royal icing is good because it dries to a hard, shiny, unsmudgeable finish, but it might be a bit too sweet.

Back to the kitchen....