A Baker's Cookie Guide

A Three Volume Cookie Cookbook

You will get three volumes of recipes, tips, and techniques—everything you need to make perfect cookies.

Would you like to bake perfect cookies? Learn to troubleshoot cookies? Or even make cookies without baking?

We’ll give you “A Baker’s Cookie Guide” to help you bake those perfect cookies—

You’ll get . . .

• Dozens of recipes
• A Baker’s Cookie Guide: Tips and Techniques for Better Cookies
• How to Troubleshoot Cookies
• Save Time with No-Bake Cookies (with Recipes)
• The Joys of Refrigerator Cookies

Simply fill out the form below to be emailed your free guide. * Email Address:    * First Name:

Cookies and Their Methods

A Baker’s Cookie Guide
Tips and Techniques for Better Cookies
How to Troubleshoot Cookies
Ingredients
Sugars
Flours
Butter
Eggs
Fruits and Nuts
Spices
Leaveners
How to Mix Your Cookies
How to Bake Your Cookies
Storing Your Cookies
Freezing Dough
Freezing Cookies
Refreshing Cookies
Types of Cookies and How to Bake Them
Bar Cookies
Drop Cookies
Formed Cookies
Refrigerator Cookies
Rolled Cookies
Pressed Cookies
Cookie Techniques
A Primer for the Perfect Cookie
Are They Done Yet?
How to Make the Very Best Sugar Cookies
Baking Biscotti the Easy Way
How to Cut Picture Perfect Bar Cookies
Cookie Decorating Tips
How to Decorate the Edges of a Cookie
How to Paint Cookies
Shipping Cookies to Loved Ones

How to Make the Very Best Holiday Cookies

Everyone loves sugar cookies at Christmas. But sugar cookies don't always turn out right. We've compiled this list of tips and techniques to help you make the very best sugar cookies.

1. Measure ingredients accurately, especially the flour. Too much flour will make your cookies hard and dry. If you scoop the flour with the measuring cup instead of spooning sifted flour into your cup, you are likely to have 20% too much flour.

2. Sugar cookies are made by the creaming method. This is the most important step in making sugar cookies—it incorporates the air into the dough that acts as a leavening agent. Use the paddle attachment of your electric mixer to cream the sugar, salt, and spices with the butter or shortening. Cream the ingredients together at low speed, not high. For light cookies, cream the mixture until it is light and fluffy. For a denser, moister cookie, cream only until the mixture is paste-like.

3. Add the eggs and liquid after creaming, beating these in at low speed.

4. Mix the flour into the creamed mixture only until it is combined. If you over-mix, you will develop the gluten and make a tougher cookie. Sugar Cookie Tip Because each reroll works a little more flour into the dough and develops the gluten a little more, consider rerolling the scraps into a log. Refrigerate the log and then slice 1/4-inch thick slices from the log for refrigerator cookies. Instead of fancy shapes, they'll be round--but they'll be more tender.
Go to www.preparedpantry.com for more baking guides!

5. Choose a low protein flour, preferably pastry flour, for your sugar cookies. Avoid bread flours with their high protein content. All purpose flour is an acceptable compromise.

6. If the dough is too soft to work easily, chill it until firm. The dough should be pliable but not squishy soft. Handling of the dough with warm hands will make the dough soft.

7. Use no more flour than necessary to dust the counter. The flour will work into the dough for a drier, tougher cookie.

8. Too much re-rolling will make for tougher cookies. Not only does successive rerolling work the dusting flour into the dough, the continued working of the dough develops the gluten.

9. When cutting shapes, make the cuts as close together as you can to minimize the amount of dough that will be re-rolled.

10. Most recipes call for the dough to be rolled to 1/8 inch in thickness. This creates a crisp cookie. For a moister, less crisp cookie, roll the dough to 1/4 inch only.

11. Remove the cookies from the counter with a thin metal spatula.

12. When garnishing cookies with sprinkles, drop the decorations from a height of eight or ten inches for a more even distribution.

13. The size of the cookies will affect bake times. Put like-sized cookies on the same
sheet.

14. Do not over bake cookies. Thin cookies will bake in seven or eight minutes at 350 degrees. Thicker cookies will take ten or twelve minutes. Cookies on darker pans will bake in less time. When done, the cookies will still be pale-colored with just a tinge of brown at the edges.

15. Cool cookies on a wire rack. Do not frost them until they are completely cooled.

You will receive a free subscription to our informative newsletter with “How to Bake” information and tested recipes. (You can unsubscribe at any time with a simple click.)

The free guide is yours to keep . . . and we will never, ever share your email address with others.

We will never, EVER share your email address with others.