Oh My Goodnes! Sugar Cookies

OK, I have found my go-to sugar cookie!  This is the recipe that I will pass to my daughter!  This is the recipe that will mark my Christmas sugar cookie memory recipe.  This is the sugar cookie that will go down in Long family infamy!

It's soft, sandy, crumbly, buttery, sugary perfection. 

I got it from the Pioneer Woman Cooks Cookbook, which is, what I think, the book for which everyone should stop what they are doing right now and go out and buy this minute!  Wow, Wow WOW!

I would post the recipe, but I can't find it on her site!  I will post it as soon as I find it!  I don't want to infringe on her copywrite rights...or whatever.

UPDATE!  Click here for the recipe.

Jani's Peach Blueberry Cobbler

It's Summer...time for fruit cobblers!

This very special peach cobbler is fabulous!  I adapted it from a Martha Stewart recipe to meet my more simple needs. One of the things that I believe strongly about cobbler is that it must have a buttery, sweet, crumbly biscuit topping...never pastry.  This one is perfect.  The biscuit portion can be used with any type of fruit you fancy.  I happen to love peaches in season.  The blueberries partner nicely with the sweetness of the peaches, and adds beautiful jewel-like color. The sprinkling of sanding sugar puts a spectacular boost on the finished dessert.  Just make sure your peaches are properly ripe.  I'm sure frozen peaches would be OK, but fresh is what I prefer.  No need for a lot of extra sugar.  There's not even a need for ice cream on the side...but by all means, indulge as you please!

Jani's Peach Blueberry Cobbler

Filling:
5 cups peaches, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup blueberries
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Biscuit Topping:
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup butter, cut into small pieces
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing
sanding sugar for sprinkling

Toss peaches and blueberries together with all of the filling ingredients.  Pour into an 8X8 inch baking pan.  Set aside.

For the topping, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and sugar.  Cut in butter until you have crumbles the size of peas.  In another small bowl combine cream and vanilla.  Add cream mixture to flour mixture. Stir until you have a soft, sticky dough. 

Spoon globs of dough evenly over the fruit.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  In fact, the more imperfect it is the better...its more rustic that way.  Brush the dough with a little cream, and sprinkle with sanding sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 45-50 minutes.

Let it cool a bit, but serve it warm with vanilla ice cream on the side...or just by itself.

Makes 6 generous servings or 9 small servings.

Cranberries and Clementines

Well, what better to do on a lonely Tuesday afternoon than to bake something to lift your spirits! I know that there are those out there who agree with me. So here are my adventures in baking today.

I was strolling through the grocery store the other day and came across this beautiful special edition of "Ultimate Cookies" put out by Better homes and Gardens. It was so festive and fun looking...and since I had some dollars in my pocket, I decided that it had to come home with me.

So this afternoon when I was feeling bored, I decided I'd let the pages fall open and bake whatever it showed me. How perfect that a recipe for "Cranberry-Orange Pinwheels" was the first one I saw. (A link to the recipe is at the bottom of this post.) Being December, I just happen to have a couple bags of cranberries in the freezer (the ones they have by the barrel-full in the produce section this time of year.) No oranges on hand...the kids eat those as soon as I can get them home. But I have clementines! Why in the world do I have 5lbs of clementines in my fridge? I was a sucker for the sale price of a box of them...another seasonal abundance in the produce section. I figure they're in the same family as oranges...so we'll see how they turn out!

So, pecans, cranberries, and brown sugar go into the food processor to be finely chopped. Seriously, what would we do without a food processor? I know I would hate baking if I always had to chop up this kind of thing by hand all the time! The food processor made it so it took about...oh...30 seconds. This will be the filling. Honestly, in hindsight, I could have chopped them up even finer...to almost a puree. Next will be the dough.

The orange zest (or in this case clementine zest) goes right into the dough. I found that zesting a clementine is tricky. The skin is soft and it's easy to go right into the pith which is usually bitter. The dough is pretty typical for sugar cookies with a whole cup of butter (Yikes! Doesn't match with my weight loss plan. But you just can't substitute butter for margarine spread in cookies...unless it's at least 80% fat according to BHG. It just doesn't brown the same.) The dough has a real nice texture and a pleasing scent from the zest. My DS tasted a little hunk and said that it was good! I'm keeping my tasting fingers out!

Now, divide in half, pat each into a disk, wrap, and chill for an hour. Coffee break time! Maybe I'll plan dinner now... One-Pot Spaghetti sounds good. I got side-tracked so the dough chilled for 2 hours and was so firm I had to "thaw" it for about 20 min before I could roll it out.

I love how I can see the little pieces of clementine zest in the dough when I roll it out. I used a French rolling pin which I have found to be the best at achieving the shape and thickness I want. Also, I rolled out the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap. That way I use no flour to make a mess (which also can make the cookies tough); my wooden rolling pin doesn't stick to the dough, it doesn't get dirty, and I save having to use water to wash it which can cause damage. It saves so much work! And look at this little trick:

I often have trouble when I try to roll up dough (jelly-roll style) with it cracking as you can see. So I use the bottom piece of plastic wrap to lift the dough over as I roll to help support it and prevent cracking (sort of like they do when they make sushi rolls). Works like a dream!

So after making the two "logs" of dough, I wrapped them back in their plastic and into the fridge they went again. The recipe says to chill for 4 hours, but who has that kind of time? I haven't been following the recipe to the letter anyway. Maybe 1 1/2 to 2 hours will be sufficient. It just has to be firm enough to slice without the cookies losing their shape. (OK, sidetracked again. They ended up chilling overnight!)

Next, slice them up about 1/4 in. thick and place 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. I always use parchement paper when I'm making cookies. Here's why:

I can go ahead and place all the next batches on separate pieces of parchement while the first batch bakes.

Then, I can slide them off the hot sheet all at once and stop the cooking. This is my secret to making the cookies soft. As long as they're on the hot sheet, they continue cooking, so it's important to get them off quickly! It's also totally non-stick.

Voila! 8 minutes in the oven and I have yummy, beautiful, tangy-sweet Christmas cookies! The house smells so good! The clementines worked just fine. They're delicious! I suppose if you like, you can drizzle powdered sugar icing over them, but I thought they were plenty sweet just how they are. Here's a link to the recipe:

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/cookies/cranberry-orange-pinwheels/

Gotta love Better Homes and Gardens!

http://www.bhg.com/

Just in case you are wondering: Since these cookies can potentially spoil my weight loss goals, I tasted a small one (how can I post this unless I know that they are good?) and the rest I'm taking to a Christmas party so they can cheer and delight other people who can fit them in moderation into their food choices for the day! :)