Chewy Sugar Cookies and KING ARTHUR FLOUR GIVEAWAY!
Christmas seems to get more and more hectic each year when you have a family. Shopping, decorating, lists, baking, Christmas cards, wrapping, watching your budget, crafting, and all of the other little things we do to make the season special for our families.
While our kids and spouses get to sit back and enjoy the season, we rush and run around to create more magic, more, More..MORE!! ~laughs~ It gets a little harried, but I have one thing I do that I look forward to every year. Each year around this time, I start cookbook shopping. Not an ordinary book, but a big old thick cookbook with a nice hardback cover that I can really curl up with.
I really enjoy looking over my different options, reading reviews, pondering the pros of this one or that…and then I finally make my decision. I always order it by mail (Usually Amazon.com) so that it arrives sealed up in a box. Here is the important part: I do not open that box! I wrap it the day it comes in and place it beneath the tree with my name on it.
The remaining weeks are spent with me casting longing glances beneath the tree and looking forward to Christmas morning where I unwrap my prize and spend the better part of that day curled up in the recliner leisurely flipping through pages, enjoying my new toy as my kids enjoy theirs.
For two of the past few years, those books have been from King Arthur Flour. I love cookbooks, but it takes a lot for me to get really excited over one. There are four cookbooks in print right now that I trust completely. I own two King Arthur Flour cookbooks, so they hold two of those places!
You know how you see a new recipe, want to take it to an event, but feel you need to “try it out” first to make sure it tastes good? My favorite cookbooks are the ones which I trust completely, they require no trials or testing. You can choose a recipe and make it for the very first time to take to a grand event and know it will be perfect and loved by all. That’s how King Arthur recipes are.
The two King Arthur books I have (and love) are The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook and the The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion: The Essential Cookie Cookbook
. Ready for the exciting news?
This cookbook is the essential guide on cookies. Just for sugar cookies alone there are 15 recipes and at least as many for our beloved chocolate chip! Each recipe features an introduction which describes the cookie texture and flavor..allowing you to choose exactly the type you are looking for with ease and confidence.
I still haven’t chosen my cookbook for this year. I need to pay another visit to King Arthur Flour’s site…
Now on to these delicious cookies…
My son has always loved the sugar cookies they sell in the malls. He calls them “sprinkle cookies” because they are covered in colorful sprinkles. I made these for the first time a few years back and he was elated when he came home from school. He actually thought I had been to the mall just to buy him cookies! They taste so wonderful and really beg to be dunked into a glass of milk. These are classic Santa cookies! You won’t believe the texture. When you pick them up, they feel like a regular cookie, but biting in reveals a tender chewiness unlike any other.
Ingredients
- From Page 55 Of The The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion: The Essential Cookie Cookbook 3/4 Cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 Cup brown sugar
- 1/4 Cup light corn syrup
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg or 1/4 tsp lemon oil (optional, your choice - I left both of these out)
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 2 1/2 cups unbleached, all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup coarse or granulated sugar, for decorating
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets. In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter, granulated and brown sugars, corn syurup, vanilla, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and egg. Stir in flour.
- Place coarse sugar in shallow dish. Drop dough by tablespoonfull (a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here) into sugar, rolling the balls to coat them. Place on prepared baking sheets. (We just dig out hands in the dough, grab a bit, and roll it up in a ball - I've never owned a cookie scoop!)
- Bake cookies for ten minutes until the edges are just barely beginning to brown, they'll look soft. If you bake these cookies too long, they'll be crunch rather than chewy. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to rack to cool completely.
Don’t forget to sign up for my email newsletter to receive printer friendly versions of each recipe featured on Southern Plate. Terri says I need to mention the cookbook free shipping special again, too.. ~points to sidebar up near top~


















[...] Belle ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Today is the last day to enter to win the King Arthur Flour Giveaway! Be sure and visit the link for information on how to [...]
[...] Be sure to stop by my King Arthur Giveaway Post and leave your favorite Christmas memory in the comments to be entered to win the Cookie Companion [...]
Let’s see- living with a father who has a DRY sense of humor… how about the year my mom said she wanted a 14 carat necklace. She opened the box Christmas morning and Daddy had put rivets into 14 carats and strung them up for her. Of course, in the bottom of the box was a beautiful gold necklace…. or the year Daddy decided to fix Mom’s habit of “snooping” under the tree, and wrapped a bag of manure/fertilizer! Shall I go on?
please do! I think we’re related and II love getting more ideas! lol
My favorite memory is of my first Christmas with my Hubby. I decided I was going to make him real cut out cookies, the grandma who raised him only made drop cookies, so he had never had cut out cookies. I cut baked and decorated with a paint brush no less for like 6 hours! He did love it, but wow what a lot of work.
he bought me my very first teddy bear the same year, what a lovely holiday it was. Now, 33 years later he has become scrooge and grumps when I set up the tree! LOL oh well, one of these days I will make the cut out cookies for him again and maybe he will get his Christmas spirit back!
Do you think I could roll the dough to cut out shapes? They look delicious..
Yum, the cookies look so festive and you make them sound delicious! Some of my favorite Christmas memories are centered around baking and decorating cookies with family.
Hi Miss Millie!
My fondest memories are of my mother in law and i makinf Kefflies. We put a very big bowl of them in the garage to keep them cool,and out of site out of mind.But when christmas came. the bowl was empty. Seems like the four of us,husband father and mother in law had been sneaking them. LOL. We had to make more for the rest of the family to enjoy. She has past away now,but I think of her everytime I make Keiflees.
My favorite memory is from the last Christmas my grandfather was alive. I was in 5th grade. My Nannie gave my sister and me huge boxes of doll clothes she had made. She even made booties from her own sweater. For some reason that seemed to me the ultimate sacrifice- to give up your sweater for a doll. Our family was all together that year. My next favorite Christmas was last year. My sister and her family came up from Georgia. It was a great because we had snow the whole time, and her kids have never had a white Christmas. We rarely do either, so it was fun for all of the cousins to get to play in the snow together.