Easiest-Ever Sugar Cookies
3.4 oz. package instant vanilla pudding mix
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Optional; frosting, decorator sugar, candy sprinkles

Blend together pudding mix, sugar, and butter: stir in egg and set aside. Mix flour and baking powder: blend thoroughly into pudding mixture. Chill dough until firm. Roll out 1/8 inch to 1/4-inch- thick on a lightly floured surface: cut with desired cookie cutters. Place on lightly greased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 9 minutes. When cool, frost and decorate, if desired. Makes 2 to 3 dozen.

Powdered Sugar Frosting
3 cups powdered sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Few drops food coloring

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Divide icing into small bowls. Tint portions with food coloring as desired.

Probably my favorite cookie is a good sugar cookie. I will eat crunchy ones, but I really like the soft and chewy ones. I like sugar cookies with icing, with sprinkles, with colored sugar, or any combination of the three; it really doesn’t matter how you top them.

So, one morning I was looking for a good looking/sounding cookie recipe. I wanted a recipe where I had all of the ingredients and it was simple, because I didn’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I started my quest for the cookie recipe by looking through a couple of cook books I have and stumbled upon this recipe for the

Easiest-Ever Sugar Cookies in the Gooseberry Patch 101 Christmas Recipes cook book.
To get started I sat a stick of butter on the counter to soften and then gathered the remaining ingredients. When you bake it’s best to use eggs at room temperature and it usually takes about 30 minutes for them to warm from the refrigerator. Once the butter was soft I was ready to get started.

I combined the butter, pudding mix and sugar then stirred in the room temperature beaten egg. After combining the flour and baking powder I poured the dry mixture into the wet mixture and gave it a good stir, making sure the dough was well blended.

I patted the cookie dough into a ball and left it in the bowl I was using. I covered the bowl and placed it in the refrigerator for the dough to chill.
The recipe says to chill until firm. However, I got busy doing other stuff and left it in the refrigerator until late afternoon.

When I was ready to bake the cookies, I removed the dough from the refrigerator and placed a piece of waxed paper on the counter and floured it. I put the cookie dough on the floured surface and realized it was very firm. I tried using a rolling pin to flatten the dough, but I wasn’t strong enough so I used the palm of my hands to begin flattening it. That was taking more effort that I wanted to use and

I ended up letting the dough sit for about 30 minutes to soften a bit and then I was able to roll it out to about 1/4 of an inch thick.
I started looking through my limited supply of cookie cutters and settled on a fluted round one.

As I cut the cookie rounds out, I placed them on greased cookie sheet pans. I re-rolled the scraps a couple of times and ended up with a total of 19 big cookies. The cookies baked for 9 minutes and while they cooled, I made the icing.

Since I didn’t end up with as many cookies as the recipe said I would (2-3 dozen) I figured the amount of icing called for would be too much and I only made half a batch. MISTAKE, after icing about half of the cookies I had to make more of the icing. Since I like sprinkles on my cookies, I sprinkled the top of some of the iced cookies with a course colored sugar. I wanted to know how these cookies tasted without any added sweetness so I decided on the last cookie to just ice half of it.

Okay, the cookies were baked, iced, sprinkled and were ready to try. About that time Brad walked into the kitchen and I asked if he wanted to share one. He agreed and I broke the half-iced cookie in half and we shared each half.

Even though Brad would prefer chocolate chip cookies he said he thought these sugar cookies were really good and he especially liked them because they weren’t crunchy. I liked these cookies too.

The plain part of the cookie was good, but the iced half was even better. These cookies were a hit at our house and I’m glad I decided to take the remaining cookies to a youth gathering at our church.

I’ve flagged this recipe in my cook book because it was the Easiest-Ever batch of cookies I’ve ever made and I definitely Nailed It.

When Brad was proofing this article for me he said he it would be nice if we had some of these sugar cookies because he really liked them. I guess I’ll be baking sugar cookies again very soon.

With this recipe it will be a snap.

Food columnist Sarah Condley wrote this recipe column for the Jessamine Journal.