Category Archives: Baking Celebrations

November 28, 2017 · 10:10 pm

Easy Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

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Rolled sugar cookies ready for decorating. With a new method for mixing there’s no need to soften the butter or chill the dough before cutting out cookies!

This great recipe was provided by Land O’Lakes. Go to http://www.Landolakes.com for more holiday recipes.

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¹/₄ teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 cup cold butter cut into chunks

1 large egg

1 ¹/₂ teaspoons vanilla extract

¹/₂ teaspoon almond extract

How to make

STEP 1
Heat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper; set aside.
STEP 2
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in small bowl; set aside.
STEP 3
Place sugar and cold butter into bowl of heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Beat at medium speed until well combined. Add egg, vanilla, and almond extract; beat until well mixed. Gradually add flour mixture, beating at low speed until just combined.
STEP 4
While removing dough from bowl, knead to incorporate crumbs and form a smooth dough. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 1/8-inch thickness.
STEP 5
Cut into shapes with 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter. Place onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes or until just beginning to brown around edges. Cool on cookie sheet 2 minutes; remove to cooling rack. Cool completely.

Tip #1

If planning to cut with intricate cutters, chill dough 30 minutes before rolling and cutting. This ensures your cookies will hold their detailed shape.

“Biscuit Month” has come again and brings to mind a life-long challenge for me—to bake a really great biscuit. Is it because I was born in northern Iowa that I am biscuit-challenged? Lack of success is not for lack of trying. For anyone else who’d love to improve their biscuit baking skills, I’m trying these remedial steps for improvements:

Start with the right wheat flour from the six classes of Wheat and Flour 101 Flour used in biscuit baking should be “softer,” (lower in the flour proteins called gluten). Famously good biscuit bakers also bake with self-rising, all-purpose, and for whole grain biscuits, whole white wheat.
Learn the difference in leavening commonly used in biscuit baking, baking powder and baking soda, and use the correct one. What’s the difference between Baking Soda and Baking Powder?
Entrust your efforts to test kitchens that know biscuits, Crisco Baking Powder Biscuit.

Include one of the longest sources of soft wheat flour milling for biscuits, Southern Biscuit flour. If these brands are not available near you, find a self-rising flour for starters.

Watch a pro–fifth generation milling CEO and biscuit baker–Robert Harper. Robert will share his best family biscuit favorites from Hopkinsville, Kentucky as he prepares Cinnamon Biscuits at www.sunflourflour.com
Finally, the best way to groove what you know is to share it—teach it. A ready-to-go lesson, Explore Biscuit History and Traditions, available from those who’ve produced the baking powder to leaven biscuits for over 150 years. Buttery Breakfast Biscuit lesson.

Keep in mind, the biscuit should be served with butter! Explore a whole flight of deliciousness, sweet or savory here!

Septermber Baking Events Calendar

Have you discovered, only much too late, interesting national observances that might be beneficial to your classroom lesson plans and community programs? For example, did you know September 17th is Apple Dumpling Day? You don’t have to be in the dark any longer. The Home Baking Association regularly compiles these interesting events and celebrations for your convenience. Download our Quarter 3 PDF here!

1: Lazy Mom’s Day

2: Macadamia Nut Day

4: Labor Day

5: Cheese Pizza Day

6: Coffee Ice Cream Day

Read-A-Book Day

7: Beer (Bread) Lover’s Day

9: Teddy Bear Day

10: Grandparent’s Day

11: Hot Cross Bun Day

13: Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day

14: Cream-filled Donut Day