I have brought work home with me tonight, but before I can get to it, I have a few dozen cookies to bake.  It’s my daughter’s assigned date to celebrate her summer birthday (when school is out), and so she gets to have her first of two or three birthday parties.  She got to decide what she wanted to bring, and decided on these sugar cookies, which I made for the first time for her school birthday celebration last year.  These cookies fit my self-imposed requirements for school night baking: homemade, simple, and not too nutritionally sinful.

I’m dedicating it to her friend Enzo, who is the rare child who is not a sweets eater. He loved these just slightly sweet sugar cookies so much, he still asks me to make them, one year later. Quite a compliment from a 7 year old boy.

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Sugar Cookies for Enzo

Makes 4-1/2 dozen bite-sized cookies.

Ingredients

2-1/2 cups flour

3/4 tsp. salt

1-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cups sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla

Optional: colored sugar or sprinkles

Technique

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2.  cream butter and sugar together with a mixer until light and fluffy

3.  add in the egg and vanilla, blend until smooth

4.  add flour and salt.

5.  using your hands, work batter into a ball of dough (will be the texture of pastry dough)

6.  form batter into 1 inch balls and place onto a cookie sheet, and slightly flatten.  (Dough may also be refrigerated for a few hours, rolled out and cut into shapes with cookie cutters.)

7.  If desired, lightly sprinkle each cookie with sprinkles or colored sugar.

8. Place in 350 oven and bake until just golden around the edges, about 10 minutes.

© 2010 Linda Shiue