Stir-n-Drop Sugar Cookies

The Date: 16 December 2011

The Occasion: Christmas is coming up!

The Recipe: From this little gem of a cookbook I got at Ollie's years ago.

How it Went:
These are extremely easy, delightful little sugar cookies. Definitely will be my go-to cookie when I'm in a rush, or when I'm cooking with little daughters someday. Requires only things you most certainly have on hand already. They're not super-sweet, but they puff up nicely and would look pretty for any occasion dressed up with appropriately colored sprinkles or sugar. I made them Wednesday night for Pete's prayer group which met at our house, but only a half-batch. They turned out well so I made a double batch on Friday night. The recipe given below is the regular, single batch. I recommend doubling it, though, no matter the occasion. You can never have too many sugar cookies, and these are so easy, it's worth doing a lot at once.

What You Need:
sugar
vegetable oil
baking powder
vanilla
salt
eggs
flour

Your Turn:
Mix together with a spoon

• 3/4 C sugar
• 2/3 C vegetable oil
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs

Add 2 C flour, a little at a time, and stir until a soft dough forms.

Drop rounded teaspoons-ful on an ungreased cookie sheet about two inches apart. Press down to about 1/4 inch thickness, and decorate as desired. Giant was all out of red and green sprinkles, so I had to use these multicolored ones. I found an excellent way to distribute sprinkles on a cookie with my olive spoon! The little spoon is designed with slots in the bottom to collect olives out of the jar and drain the liquid on the way out. But I found if you scoop up a small bit of sprinkles in the edge of the spoon, then slowly tilt it and gently shake it over the cookie, they will sprinkle out nicely. Then just tilt it back and move to the next cookie.

Challenge: Hold an olive spoon full of sprinkles in one hand and shake it slowly over a cookie without making a mess. In the other hand, hold a camera and take a decent picture without trembling the camera and causing blurriness.

Put in a 400 degree oven for 8 minutes. I baked two trays at once, and switched their position in the oven after 4 minutes. That way each tray got 4 minutes closer to the heat, and nothing got burnt. Take them out when the edges just start to look golden.

Merry Christmas!