#58: Sugar Cookies
Is there a worse store-bought (or “boughten”, as my grandma would have said) cookie than the grocery store sugar cookie? You know, the ones that either have a sprinkling of cheap fluorescent sugar on top or a very tragic icing situation. It really brings down the name of sugar cookies, and, for people like me, implants a generally terrible opinion of sugar cookies due to the ubiquity of their worst versions. Perhaps the time has come to reclaim the good name of homemade sugar cookies once and for all.
Since my own preference for sugar cookies is actually to opt for literally any other cookie, it felt a bit silly to be searching my recipe inventories for a variant of Bon Appetit’s classic version, as I was bound to come up short purely out of lack of interest. What luck that my memory decided to step up to the plate and remind me of a sugar cookie-shortbread cross that my grandma used to make, which thanks to a thick coating of icing, was tolerable even to a small child who had already sworn off shortbread and most sugar cookies, deeming than infinitely inferior to anything containing chocolate.
So there you have it: two worthy yet nicely contrastive recipes for this post. BA’s is a pretty classic sugar cookie that has a delicate bit of crunch to it when you bite through, plus infinite possibilities for decorating as fancifully or minimally as desired. As I’ve said though, my allegiance will always lie with a soft sugar cookie, as this is the type that I grew up liking (especially when it gets a generous spoonful of almond-spiked cream cheese icing on top) Both of these recipes blatantly flip “boughten” sugar cookies the middle finger.
A reminder to those who might be newer to the blog and wondering why I would even WRITE a sugar cookie entry if I am so disenchanted by them: this is the list of home-cooking classics that I am guided by in my attempt to master the essentials of home cooking. Bon Appetit’s version will always be tested alongside my own recipe(s).
