Dear Chums – Needing Sweet Success

As you know we love getting letters and questions from you, our chums.  We got one just the other day from a chum called Kristen wondering if we had any ideas about what to make for a fund raising bake sale.  We sure do!Here is the note we received:

“Dear Chums,

I am the president of the women’s group at my church and our biggest fundraiser is a bake sale. I am not a very good baker. Any ideas on a simple recipe that I can package attractively in individual portions that will sell for $1 per piece?

Your expertise is so appreciated. 🙂

-Kristen”

Well Kristen we have just the thing for you.  It is simple, looks pretty and most importantly is really yummy!  We want to show you how you can make simple sugar cookies that with a minimal amount of effort will look like beautiful roses.

The sugar cookie  and icing recipes are below for everyone.  It turns out Kristen has some time as her event is in November so she can make as many batches of this dough as needed now and freeze it until she is ready to bake the cookies.  The dough will be good in the freezer wrapped well in waxed paper and then sealed in ziplock bags for a couple of months.  The cookies, once they are baked and decorated, will still taste fresh for about 2-3 days, which is great if you have a lot to bake.

This is a very simple sugar cookie dough that came from the back of the package of a copper cookie cutter.  These cookies are rich and buttery and soft in texture.  If you happen to like a crisper cookie simply roll the dough a bit thinner and bake the cookies a bit longer.

What is great about these cookies is that you really don’t need to have any special or fancy equipment.  If you plan to make sugar cookies more often however, you may want to begin to buy some cookie cutters when you run across them.  It is fun to use sugar cookies as favors or decorations at all sorts of events.  These particular “roses” are great for showers, Mother’s Day, tea parties, a Kentucky Derby party (aka the Run for the Roses), or if you happen to live in the Los Angeles/Pasadena area they would be perfect for a New Years Day Rose Bowl Party.  There are so many ways and reasons to make these that the bake sale will be just the start for Kristen.  You will want to try them too.  But be warned…they won’t last long!  Sugar cookie roses will no doubt bring “sweet success” for Kristen at the bake sale and will bring to you more love, more joy and the sweetness of more abundant living!

Basic Sugar Cookies
(Makes approximately 3 dozen cookies)

1 1/2 cups butter softened to room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Beat butter and sugar until creamy.  Add eggs and vanilla and almond extract and beat until smooth.  Stir together flour with baking powder and salt.  Add to butter mixture and beat on very low speed until flour is fully incorporated.  Scoop dough onto a large piece of waxed paper and shape into a thick disc shape.  The dough will be very soft but don’t worry it will firm up in the refrigerator.  Wrap the dough up in the waxed paper and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours. (At this point the dough can be frozen until you are ready to bake the cookies.)

After 1 hour, or as soon as the dough has firmed up, remove from the waxed paper and divide it in half.  Roll out the first piece on a floured board or surface, sprinkling the dough with flour as needed to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin.  The dough should be approximately 1/4 inch thick.  Using a simple round cookie cutter or biscuit cutter or even the rim of a large drinking glass, cut circles and place on a baking sheet lined with a silpat liner or a piece of parchment paper.

Bake for 8 minutes in a preheat 375 degree oven.  Allow to cool and set up on the baking sheets for about 3-4 minutes before removing the cookies to a rack to cool completely.  (These cookies will be soft in texture.  If you want a firmer crisper cookie, roll the dough a little thinner and bake the cookies for about 10 minutes.)  Cool them completely before decorating.

Icing

1 stick of butter softened
1 pound powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
food coloring
Enough water to create the consistency you need for spreading and drizzling

Beat the butter and sugar and flavorings together.  Add about 2 tablespoons of water.  Add more if icing is still stiff.  Divide the icing in half.  One half will be used as the base icing on your cookies.  The other half will be divided again in two portions and colored whatever colors you want to decorate your cookie roses.  We chose to use three different shades of pink but you could use yellows and oranges, or pink and purples.  Let you imagination go.  If you want to add “leaves” to each cookie, take out a small amount of icing before you start adding other food coloring, and make it green for the leaves.

On each cookie spread a thin layer of the base color you have chosen.  Don’t worry about making it perfectly smooth.  The texture will add to the finished look.

Next place one of the other accent colors you are using in a disposable icing bag.  You can buy these at Michaels or at Walmart in the cake decorating section.  Cut off the very tip of the bag and place a cake decorating metal tip in the bag.  You want to use one that has a plain small round hole.  They look like this and can also be found at Michaels or Walmart.  They cost less than $2 each.

If yo don’t want to buy these you can also go the really simple and cheap route and use a heavy duty ziplock bag.  Just  add your icing to the bag and then cut the very end of a corner off.  You want to just barely cut the tip to make a hole for the icing to pass through, remembering that you can always cut more away if it isn’t big enough.  (Remember this decorating is easier to do if your icing is thin.  Simply add water about 1 teaspoon at a time beating it until you get a thin free flowing consistency.  If at any point you get the icing too thin and it seems to separate, just add more powdered sugar and it will firm up again.)

Now starting at the center of the cookie begin going around and around in circles until you reach the outer edge.  It helps if your icing is fairly thin as this allows you to make your design more easily.  But you can’t really do it “wrong”, even the children can do it.

Now you can get creative and add two colors of decorative circles if you like.

Or add decorative “sanding sugar”.  You can get this at Micaels or Walmart or any cake decorating store. Or you can add white table sugar.  This will give the cookie a bit of sparkle but won’t add color like the sanding sugars will.

This is when you can also add the touch of green to the edges to make “leaves” if you want.

You really can’t make a mistake.  Just let your creative juices flow and have fun!  And by the way, if you want the really simple shortcut method, buy some ‘slice and bake’ sugar cookie dough at the market and some tubes of decorating icing and have at it.  Either way allow the icing to set up for a couple of hours in a cool place so that it is not going to smear when  you handle it.  Place each cookie in a cellophane bag (you can find the link to buy them here) and tie it with a pretty bow and voila!  You have a bake sale “Sweet Success” 🙂