The Petunias took Miss Lollipop’s advice to heart and realized that we should put one of our intended projects to the test, sort of.For many of our our of town guests, the trip to Florida for our wedding will be their first visit to the state, so we think grouping the welcome items together for the OOT bags under a Florida & beach theme makes sense, even if we’re not having a beach-themed wedding in general.
One of the things we’d like to include in the bags is homemade Key Lime Sugar cookies, so I purchased this cookie cutter in the shape of Florida from The Cookie Cutter Shop. (I believe they have all states represented and other adorable cookie cutters, too!).
Now Mr. Petunia and I weren’t fully prepared yet to make rolled and cut cookies: I’d never made cookies from scratch before at all! We did think we could handle some basic peanut butter cookies as our first experiment though, so out came Mr. Petunia’s gift to me from two Chrismukkahs ago:
All in all, the cookies came out alright: we’d give them a B-. Taste was yummy, but the cookies were a bit dry, I must admit…
Here’s what we learned after doing some research on the Internet:
1. Many people cut down the flour in a baking recipe by about 1/4 so that they end up with moister cookies
2. Once you add the flour to the mixer, you are supposed to stop mixing THE MINUTE the flour seems to disappear. Apparently, it’s bad news to keep mixing and mixing once the flour can no longer be seen
3. Because of some chemical reaction (I knew I should have paid attention in high school Chemistry…) or something, you should leave your butter out for a while until it’s at room temperature and not use right-out-of-the-refrigerator-cold butter
Although altogether the cookies weren’t bad, we certainly hope they will be much better the next time around. In the meantime, we’d love to hear any good baking tips from the experts out there!
for the rolled cookies -
its a good idea to not overwork your dough. it’ll make them tough
let your dough chill like amysue said or you’ll get sticky warm dough and it’ll be really hard to work with
put some flour on your cookie cutter before you use it so it wont stick
its a good idea that all your ingredients be room temp before you add them (butter, eggs etc) unless your recipe says otherwise. (and a lot of times they do!)
thats stuff my aunt taught me (she’s a wonderful sweets maker! she’s making my cake!) and they’ve helped me make some tasty cookies over the years.
good luck!!
Best cookie tip ever: add a small package of vanilla pudding to the wet ingredients when you’re mixing. Makes the cookies SUPER moist and extra yummy!
Lovely cookie idea - oh, and by the way, the only reason you need the butter at room temp. is because it needs to “cream” with the sugar. If the butter is cold when mixed with the sugar, they just turn into “crumbs.” Believe it or not, the butter and sugar “creaming” affects the overall texture and moisture of cookies. Creaming is a really important step.
I like amysue’s idea about freezing the dough, but I would advise you to just chill it before you roll it out. The cookies will cut out easier and will bake off better.
Also, if you check the cookies and they look like they need another minute, as long as the edges are golden (not brown) take them out of the oven. There is a ton of carry-over heat in cookies, even though they are little. The dough will continue to “bake” for another couple of minutes. So leaving them in the oven for the extra few minutes you “think” they need will actually land you with overbaked sweets. 
all of these comments are making me really hungry. i think i might need to go make some “practice” cookies myself!
There is a great flourless peanut butter cookie recipe on the Kraft Canada website: http://www.kraftcanada.com/EN/Recipes/RecipeTemplate?recipe_id=85458
I have made these many times and they are amazing, melt-in-your-mouth treats!
I really love my cookie sheets — no idea what brand they are but they have a thin layer of air between the two metal sheets so you can never burn your cookies! They carry then at BB&B and Crate & Barrel (probably Target too). I highly recommend them over the old school dark pans my mom used to have when she taught me how to make cookies!
Ooh, Key Lime sugar cookies sound soooo tasty, and they’ll be adorable with that cookie cutter!
As for dry cookies, I don’t know much about the science of ingredients, but I had the same thought as Louski — be sure not to overbake the cookies. That’s pretty common, and definitely can make them turn out overly dry and/or crispy.
If the recipe calls for baking on greased cookie sheets, it’s a good idea to use a sil-pad (a mat made of silicone on top of the cookie sheet). That way, you don’t have to grease in between each batch, clean-up is a breeze, and the cookies will bake evenly. Best of luck!
Thanks for all the tips everyone!
I’ll have to see if I’ll even be brave enough to try royal icing sometime!
And Mrs. Bee: I’m thrilled you like the Florida shape cookie cutter — I can’t wait to see how the cookies will actually look as the Sunshine state!
i made about 140 star shaped sugar cookies for a baby shower this year, and here a few things i learned (i’d only made drop cookies before, so maybe you already know all this!):
keep lifting the dough off the floured surface each time or every other time you roll the dough so it doesn’t stick. (it took me a while to figure this one out even though i watch cooking shows all the time — i felt so dumb after i figured it out!).
shaped cookies tend not to cook evenly — the tips of almost all my stars were a browner than the rest of the cookies. but maybe using a silpat sheet and not just parchment would solve this.
icing cookies with even just one flat color is a LOT of work — it took probably six or eight man-hours for inexperienced me and a friend to ice my cookies so the surface was somewhat smooth. dedicate lots of time (or enlist dedicated helpers) to icing (or you could make cookies into sandwiches, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about perfect icing).
i would definitely do a couple of complete (baking and icing) test runs for your cookies so that you have the kinks worked out and so you are nice and calm when you are making the final batch. i wish i had done this instead of procrastinating and making all my cookies the night before.
good luck! key lime sugar cookies sound delicious, and making cookies is always a nice way to spend time with loved ones. :@)
An extra egg (or just upgrading to jumbo size eggs) also makes cookies extra moist/chewy.
Mrs. Petunia, Ft. Lauderdale
Age and Occupation: 31, College Professor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Engineering Student/Part-time Barista
Engagement Date: December 8, 2006
Wedding Date: March 2, 2008
Venue: Riverside Hotel
Blogging Since: August 6, 2007
About Me: Our original idea of running off to get married quickly turned into an event with 100+ guests once other people got involved and I, too, got swept away in the lovely madness that is wedding planning. Mr. Petunia and I are obsessed with all things World of Warcraft, Monopoly, and Nintendo, so we’re planning on including some fun “game-y” details into our wedding.
You might try throwing the dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes before you bake with it. It depends on the recipe, but with my fave chocolate chip cookies, the dough will spread and burn faster in the oven if it’s too warm going in. Chill dough makes the cookies fluffier.
Take that with a grain of salt, though. I know next-to-nothing about baking anything that doesn’t have chocolate chips in it. : )
Cute favor idea, too!