Sugar Cookies

Another day, another craving for sweets. Plus a chance to use the mixer I got from my parents for Christmas. This time I went looking for a recipe for sugar cookies! They didn't turn out so good:

According to the Chewy Sugar Cookies recipe I found on allrecipes.com, they were supposed to turn out looking a little something like this:

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cup margarine

2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup white sugar for decoration

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 2 cups sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients until just blended. Roll the dough into walnut sized balls and roll the balls in remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets and flatten slightly.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until light browned on the edges. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 30 cookies (about 100 calories per cookie).

Edits: So I didn't follow the directions exactly... First, I made half a batch because I didn't want too many cookies (I'll eat them if they're there!). Then I didn't have baking soda and vanilla extract so I just omitted them. I also saw that someone used the recipe to make snickerdoodles (adding cinnamon sugar as the topping) so I figured I'd just put nutmeg and cinnamon directly into the dough (1/8 tsp and 1 tsp, respectively, for the half batch). I'm really glad I added that because I love the flavor of the cookies! They're pretty unusual tasting, but I guess they'll be Joanna cookies. The dough was super liquidy so I couldn't roll them into balls, rather I just spooned the dough onto the baking sheets. Hence, the odd shapes of cookies pictured on the right hand baking sheet. I also didn't roll the dough in sugar because I figured they had quite enough in them already.

Lessons learned: For future attempts at these cookies, I recommend using even less sugar. They're a tad too sweet even for my sweet tooth. Maybe cut down the butter too to keep it from being so liquidy. Perhaps invest in some baking soda because that might help the consistency. And if you use an old cookie sheet, grease it! I used a brand new pan, which worked great, and an old one. The old one ended up with the bottom half of the cookies, which made my tummy sad.

Verdict: The cookies didn't turn out as expected, but the still tasted good! How could they not with a lot of butter and sugar? While they had low viscosity in batter form, once baked, they really were chewy and I loved the texture. I'd make these cookies again if I was really craving sweets.