We still have leaves on the trees here. I find this amazing since it is almost the middle of November. But, I honestly can’t remember what the leaves did last year. Our region is past peak according to iloveny.com, but Long Island and NYC are just turning to peak, so get out there and enjoy!
In honor of the falling leaves and the season, I wanted to make a seasonal cookie. I bought a nice copper maple leaf cookie cutter and if I’m not going to use it now, when am I going to use it? I thought just a regular sugar cookie would be best and then I could jazz it up with an icing or decoration. After realizing I have no patience, I knew I wouldn’t be using a pastry bag to decorate the cookies. In a perfect world I would spend all afternoon producing beautiful iced cookies, good enough to sell behind glass, but in reality that was never going to happen. (One has to know their limitations.) I did want the cookies to have a maple syrup icing. After playing around with a royal icing, I couldn’t get the consistency right with the amount of maple syrup flavour I wanted. I also didn’t want to use an extract of maple syrup because well, I didn’t have any on hand. So I ended up (maybe out of frustration) just spooning maple syrup on the cookies and to my surprise, it worked out wonderfully. The syrup dried and left a pretty glaze and subtle maple flavour. Sometimes being impatient works out! (There is hope for me!) The cookies are sweet but not overly sweet as some iced cookies can be. They are perfect for a chilly afternoon with tea or coffee. Enjoy.
Maple Sugar Cookies
(Adapted from the Joy of Cooking)
Makes about 30 cookies
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup white sugar
1 large egg
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
maple syrup, the darker the better
You want the butter to be soft, so if you are making the cookies in the afternoon set your butter out in the morning. If I make cookies in the morning, I put the butter out at night. (Provided that your room temperature isn’t too hot.)
Cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl. You can do this by hand or in a stand mixer. (Or with a hand mixer)
Beat in egg and vanilla extract.
Sift together baking powder, salt and flour.
Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar.
Stir until all is combined.
Divide the dough into quarters.
Wrap each quarter in plastic wrap and mold into a disc. (This will help when you start rolling it out)
Refrigerate the dough until it’s firm.
Pre-heat oven to 350˚ F.
Line two cookie sheets with either parchment paper or a silpat or grease with butter.
Once dough is chilled, take out one disc at a time to roll out.
Roll cookie dough out to about ¼ inch thick.
Cut out cookies keeping scraps to re-roll.
Place on cookie sheet and bake for about 10-12 minutes.
(Bake one sheet of cookies at a time. Depending on your cookie cutter this could take one or several portions of dough. Keep any dough you aren’t using in the fridge.)
The cookies are done baking when they are honey coloured with light toasted edges.
Let cool a bit and then spoon on maple syrup.
Let maple syrup dry.
Repeat with the rest of the cookie dough.
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