ALL-OCCASION SUGAR COOKIES RECIPE - Tuesdays With Dorie

Cookies, Cookies & More Christmas Cookies!
Christmas is right around the corner, and everyone knows Christmas cookies are the most popular treat anyone can give to friends and loved ones! My family loves Christmas cookies and the more varieties the better too. I used to make at least 10 different Christmas cookie recipes every year, sometimes more. When we had the bakery, we would make boxes and boxes full of cookies.

When we made as many as time would allow, we would get out all the trays and set up an assembly line. Three Pecan Butter Balls, three Cherry Kisses, five Peanut Butter Blossoms with Hershey Kisses, five Santa's Whiskers, three Snickerdoodles, two Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons, an assortment of Thumbprint cookies, Shortbread, Soft Sugar cookies, Spritz cookies, Chocolate Chip, Molasses and Oatmeal Raisin cookies rounded out the trays. I'd wrap them in pretty cellophane and tie them up with colorful ribbons. One year, as I looked the bakery, I realized I had made 220 pounds of cookies! Not cookies, but pounds of cookies! And you know what? We ran out of them! People were still calling for more! Ahhhh, memories!

Now that I live on a sailboat with my mini easy bake oven, I can only bake one sheet tray of cookies at a time. It takes me a LOT longer to make one batch now than it ever did. But, boat or no boat, I was bound and determined to make Christmas cookies this year! After four years of not making Christmas cookies to sell, I got right back in the festive cookie mood again, kind of like riding a bike or having sex! Anyway......

Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies
Many thanks to Ulrike of Küchenlatein for choosing Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies for this weeks Tuesdays With Dorie challenge. You'll find the recipe on pages 146-147 of Dorie Greenspan's book, "Baking: From My Home To Yours". If you don't have the book, feel free to click on over to Ulrike's blog for the recipe, and make sure to choose the English version.

This recipe for Sugar Cookies didn't thrill me as it was written. They looked a little boring to me. So, being the non-conformist baker that I am, I fooled around with the recipe a little. I divided the dough in half and colored half with red cake coloring. Then, I rolled them into long ropes and twisted the red and white ones together into a candy-cane like log. I rolled the log in holiday sprinkles, wrapped it in parchment paper and put it in the fridge to harden. When it came time to bake the cookies, I sliced the log into 1/4" slices, put them on the cookie sheet and baked as directed. That's why they're so cute and colorful! Easy Peasy Refrigerator Cookies! It sure wakened up my cookie tray that's for sure!

Tuesdays With Dorie
Guess what? I'll be choosing the recipe the week of December 23rd! I know, I can't believe it either! When I started baking with Tuesdays With Dorie way, way back in March, I never thought I would see this day come along. After all, I was number 76 back then. Baker coma and bakers go, and soon I was bumped up to number 44. You'll have to be patient though, as I can't reveal the secret recipe until that day is here. Then I'll be the hostess with the most-ess and I'll have the honor of typing out the recipe and posting it to my own blog! YAY and Woo Hoo! Make sure you come back and see what I picked!