the one time sugar cookie event

I tend to pick one "creative project" every week for Market Day.  Something tasty that is also pretty and a bit more complicated to bake and decorate because it's fun and I enjoy creating beautiful edibles.  Two weeks ago it was the Icebox cupcakes, last week was the Orange Blossom cupcakes and this week it was Full Bloom Vanilla Bean sugar cookies.

Maybe it's something about the challenge of creating something beautiful, that tastes just as amazing as it looks, that lures me into these little projects.  Sugar cookies, like cupcakes are often gorgeous but bland or covered in shortening based frosting.  There is nothing more disappointing for me than to bite into a pretty sugar cookies and not taste real butter.

I spent way too many woman hours working on these pretty petal topped flower cookies.  The dough had to cool and in the end I was still cursing at the blobs sticking to my Silpats as I rolled it out.  I ended up freezing it awhile which helped as well as flouring my work surface.  I spent a significant amount of time rolling the dough and cutting out the pretty shapes.  Each flower is topped with eight little petals.  The recipe made 19 large cookies so you can do the math on how many little petals I cut and baked last night.

Then came the frosting.  It's a basic butter cream that I colored and smeared on each little piece.  The wonderful thing about this frosting is that it hardens and is delicious so it's perfect for these flower creations. I adore the yellow frosting stamens in the middle of each cookie.  I couldn't sleep until those little details were done. This is why these beautiful flower cookies will likely not be at Market Day again.  I will definitely make these cut out sugar cookies for Halloween and Christmas but they will not be elaborate as the flowers.  It was a fun creative project but my poor knuckles feel arthritic after all that work last night!

The girls were off of school Thursday and Friday this week for Meskel break and I thought the flower cookies would be a fun project for Addie and I.  In the end, it was I who did most of the work.  I think I didn't get to sleep until close to midnight last night.

I am most happy with the flavor and texture of the sugar cookie.  The vanilla bean flavoring added a nice depth of flavor. They were a tad crunchy on the very outer edge but soft and buttery everywhere else.  The cookie wasn't too sweet.  The trick is to add a tad more salt to the dough than called for so the cookie compliments the sweet icing on top.  I'm secretly elated that one cookie broke during transportation so I could eat it.  It's everything a frosted sugar cookie should be.

Part of my little ladytroupe.  Addie was a big help at the market and insisted on helping bag the goodies and seal everything with my stickers.  Bella on the other hand just ignored my reprimands to not stick her fingers in the baskets to try to get the little left behind bits of goodies.