When I was a little girl, my mother would take me across town,
every couple of months, to what was unarguably the BEST bakery in town,
Lake Forest Pastry Shop. It was always jammed, and my small self often
got lost in the crowd of shirt-waist dresses and leather handbags, some of them
bopping me in the face! I can still remember the black-and-white tiled
floor, the icing-scented, hair-netted ladies behind the counter, and the heady
aroma of freshly baked pastry when I walked in the door. As a child of
eight, my line of sight was in perfect alignment with the pastries in the glass
cases. I'd put my hands on the glass (I'll bet the shopkeepers just LOVED
that!) and peer inside just longing for one of their very big, very delicious
sugar cookies. My mother generally bought coffee cakes and stollens
(Stollen?! I never did quite get that name as a child, I still
don't.), but what I wanted most were the cookies. I wasn't deprived, she
did get one for me on occasion, but generally my hands needed to be free for
carrying one of the many white boxes tied with twine out to the car for the
long drive home.
Ever since then I've been tampering with sugar cookie recipes in
an attempt to recreate what I considered to be the Sistine Chapel of sugar
cookies. Okay, as a kid, I did not know what the Sistine Chapel
was, but you get the idea: the sugar cookie to end all sugar cookies. The
cookie that took me back to that little bakeshop frequented in my youth.
A couple of years ago I did it, and I'm sharing this recipe with
you. Crispy on the outside, puffed and tender on the inside, with a
complex yet comforting light citrus and vanilla flavor, this is my "go
to" cookie when I'm nostalgic for that sweet taste of my youth.
Sistine Chapel Sugar Cookies
1½ c. granulated sugar
½ c. butter, room temperature
½ c. Crisco
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla
½ t. lemon extract
½ t. orange extract
2½ c. all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. cream of tartar
Sugar for coating
Preheat oven to 350ºF. In a mixer fitted with paddle
attachment, cream together sugar, butter, and Crisco until light and fluffy,
about two minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, add vanilla, lemon, and
orange extracts. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking soda,
and cream of tartar. With mixer set to low, gradually add dry mixture to
wet ingredients.
For each cookie drop two tablespoons of dough (I use a
cookie scoop for this) into a bowl of sugar; roll to coat. Place cookies
on a greased cookie sheet.
Before baking sprinkle about a teaspoon of
additional sugar on the top of each dough ball, this will cause the crackled
top. Bake for 14-17 minutes or until the edges are light brown. Remove
from cookie sheet to cool on wire racks. Makes approximately 30
4" cookies.
The additional sugar on top is what gives them their crackled
appearance.
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