Cookies and Kaia

Kaia and I are buddies. We've been hanging out since before she was born, back when Rob and I were championing having her name be "Ooga."
(back story: Rob and I were at his mother's and one of his nieces dumped her baby on my lap so she could go out and smoke. I muttered to Rob, "What is this kid's name?" He replied, "I don't know ... Ooga?". Rob and I don't do names. So now we are determined to have one kid named Ooga. At least we could remember that.)

Kaia is a little redhead, with a sweet, but determined, temperament. She and I bake cookies together for the holidays. We baked some at Christmas and now, we had Easter cookies.

My all-time favorite cookie cookbook is the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion. The recipes in this book are amazing and unique. The little touches make the best cookies. I've even won awards for them -- two ribbons -- second and third place, at the Ventura County Fair. (I won a blue ribbon for my peach pie -- yeaaaa me!)
Kaia and I make the sugar cutout cookies, which are so delicious that I have banned myself from making them when Kaia isn't around. I'll eat them all.
We had fun, although we did have a point of contention over how much colored sugar to sprinkle. Kids seem to have an uncontrollable urge to dump half a jar on each cookie. I tried to explain that this isn't necessary, and that I'd have to clean up the mess. Cooking is a great way to introduce all kinds of concepts to children: fractions, counting, precision, creativity, science.

Here's our favorite rolled sugar cookie recipe:

(Recipe courtesy King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion)

King Arthur's Special Roll-Out Sugar Cookies
1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
3/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
1 large egg
1/4 cup (2 ounces) heavy cream or sour cream
3 tablespoons (3/4 ounce) cornstarch
3 cups (12 3/4 cup) unbleached all-purpose flour
In a medium-sized bowl, beat the butter, sugar, salt, baking powder, vanilla, and almond extract until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well. Add half the cream, all of the cornstarch, and half the flour, beat well. (Giggle when flour goes all over the place despite the guard on the KitchenAid). Add the remaining cream and flour, mixing just until all of the ingredients are well incorporated. (Show that by going slowly with mixing speed, the flour dispersion rate drops.)
Divide the dough in half, flatten into rounds, and wrap well. Refrigerate for 1 hour or more to facilitate rolling. (I found that it needs to be worked slightly before it will roll out without breaking apart after refrigeration.)
preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease or line with parchement, two baking sheets.
Transfer the chilled dough to a lightly floured work surface and place a piece of plastic wrap over it while you roll it out to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin (Anne's note: I actually use flour to create a nonstick rolling pin and surface. I find plastic wrap to be awkward to use and it leaves lines in my cookies) Roll the dough to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Cut it into the shapes of your choice and transfer to the prepared cookie sheets. (Anne's note: Decorate with colored sugar and jimmies at this point. Wait until the cookies have baked and are cooled before frosting. If you're doing both frost, then decorate after cookies have cooled)
Bake the cookies 10 to 12 minutes, until they're set but not browned. Remove them from the oven and let cool for 5 minuted on the baking sheet beofre transferring to a rack to cool completely. Use a metal spatula to pick up one cookie; if it seems fragile or breaks, let the cookies continue to cool until you can handle them easily. (Anne's note: Make sure to rotate cookies half way through cooking if you're cooking two sheets at once. Move the bottom sheet to the top position and the top sheet to the lower position when the cookies have been in the oven for about 6 minutes. Cool cookie sheets by placing them in the refrigerator between batches.)