Super Sugar Cookies

Rolled sugar cookies have long been my nemesis in the kitchen. I suspect it is because my grandmother has handed down the World's Best Gingerbread recipe, and this declaration comes from someone who doesn't particularly care for gingerbread in the first place. The dough is soft, easy to roll out, not sticky, doesn't spread in the oven, and stays soft for days. I've been searching for the sugar cookie equivalent for YEARS, and nothing was quite right. Some rolled out well but were too crunchy, some tasted great but didn't roll well, and some... some were just utter disasters spreading into amorphous blobs. But finally, FINALLY, just when I was about to give up all hope... I noticed my bookshelf. All these years, I've been searching the internet for the ultimate recipe, and yet there it was, right in my apartment the whole time, hiding inside my copy of America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. Why, oh why, did I not think to look there in the first place? America's Test Kitchen has never let me down, and this is no exception.

These cookies are, dare I say, my definition of perfect. The dough is soft enough to roll easily, not remotely sticky -- no flour necessary to roll them out, which helps them hold their shape better (adding extra flour to the rolling surface and rolling pin often cause cookies to spread). They sat out Friday night cooling and Saturday night drying, uncovered, and are still perfectly soft today. And, they're not too sweet, which I like, since royal icing is just another layer of sugar on top.

Instead of the standard creaming sugar and butter and then adding in the flour, these cookies use reverse creaming. The butter is added to a flour and sugar combination, which eliminates all those little air pockets that tend to make cookies balloon up. The recipe also calls for superfine sugar; if your grocery store doesn't care it (mine does not), process 1 cup of granulated sugar in a food processor for 30 seconds, then measure the appropriate amount.

And, of course.... HERE WE GO, STEELERS, HERE WE GO!!!

The Perfect Rolled Sugar Cookie
Source: America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 3/4 cup superfine sugar
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  
• 16 tablespoons softened butter, cut into half-inch pieces
  
• 2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  

Directions:

1. Whisk together flour, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Beat the butter into the flour mixture, adding one piece at a time. Mixture should look crumbly and slightly wet
   
2. Beat in the cream cheese and vanilla until the dough begins to form large clumps. Knead the dough in the bowl by hand several times until it forms a large, smooth mass.
   
3. Divide dough into two even pieces. Form into a 4-inch disk, wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes, or up to two days (dough can be frozen at this step for up to a month).
   
4. Roll the dough between two pieces of parchment paper to a 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness, no flour necessary. Slide the dough, still between parchment paper, onto a baking sheet and refrigerate 10 minutes. This firms the dough to ensure a perfect cut with the cookie cutters.
   
5. Preheat oven to 375F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
   
6. Remove dough from refrigerator. Carefully remove top piece of parchment paper and cut out cookies. Transfer the cookies to the baking sheet, spaced one inch apart.
   
7. Bake the cookies until light golden brown, approximately 10 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 3 minutes before transfering to a cooling rack. Allow cookies to cool completely before decorating.
   
8. Repeat with remaining dough. Dough scraps can be re-rolled up to two additional times (ATK claims once, but I re-rolled mine again afterward and the cookies still held their shape perfectly).