Holiday baking can make such wonderful memories with your kids. And with Valentine’s Day only a few weeks away, so is another opportunity to pull out the cookie cutters and sugar cookie dough. That said, I don’t know about you, but for me there is nothing more frustrating than placing beautifully shaped cookies into the oven and getting blobs back out. With that in mind, here are a few tips to having perfect shapes to decorate:
Dough thickness – it doesn’t matter if you mix it yourself or use the stick from the dairy case, the key is to roll out your dough so that you have a consistent thickness across your cookies so that they cook evenly.
Cookie size – make sure all of your cookies are approximately the same size or your little ones might burn and your big ones will be gummy.
Dough temperature – it is critical that you slide your baking sheet into the refrigerator for 10 minutes before baking the cookies. The dough needs to be cold to hold its shape; the process of rolling and our hands warms it up.
Don’t overcook – it is so easy to peek at a sugar cookie and think it isn’t done. Don’t guess, time your cookies, and once the oven and pan are warm, you might want to cook later batches even less. My rule, take them out before they brown at the edges, usually 7 minutes.
Cooling racks – many people don’t use cooling racks… I highly advise that you do. Cookies will continue to cook on the pan and you don’t want hard and flaky cookies!
Happy baking!
Tags: baking tips, kid activities, sugar cookies
No comments
