kissing cousins

These simple, buttery Soft Amish Sugar Cookies are exquisite. They have crisp edges and a soft, chewy center. They’re easy to make and so satisfying to eat. If you’re not careful, you’ll eat three or four before you know it. They are delicious enough to be eaten plain, but you can’t go wrong if you dress them up with sprinkles or dip them in chocolate. They even travel well and make a welcome addition to my holiday packages. Butter and sugar never came together in a more satisfying bite.

I’ve been in the mood for apple pie lately. But since making pies is rather daunting, I was wondering if all that great taste could somehow be put into a smaller package, like a cookie. John at Preppy Kitchen did just that and his step-by-step instructions with photos make it easy and fun. The result is a delicious pie-cookie hybrid, with a tart apple filling wrapped in a flaky, buttery crust full of cinnamon, allspice and ginger.

My sister asked me to make cookies as a gift for her art teacher. I knew I had to make something pretty...afterall she’s an artist, right? I also knew it had to be delicious because my sister’s art class has been the recipient of a lot of my cookie “experiments,” and some of them, although tasty, were not very pretty to look at. A birthday required a delicious and beautiful cookie.

Although decorated cutout cookies are my first love, there are other cookies that also lay claim to my culinary affections. Flavor and texture are key and sometimes what I’m really longing for is a delicious, crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside chocolate chip cookie. I almost always have balls of chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer, ready to pop in the oven at a moment’s notice. No decorating time is necessary to produce these heavenly bites.