Sugar cookies with royal icing

By definition, a sugar cookie consists of sugar, flour, butter, eggs, vanilla, and, baking powder or baking soda. Sugar cookies may be formed by hand or rolled and cut into shapes. They are commonly decorated with frosting, sprinkles, or a combination of both. They can also be cut into decorative shapes and figures. In North America, sugar cookies are popular during the Christmas and Halloween time.

However, the modern incarnation of the authentic sugar cookie can be traced back to the mid 1700s in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. There, German Protestant settlers created the round, crumbly, buttery cookie that came to be known as the Nazareth Sugar Cookie. Sugar cookies probably derived from an earlier, unleavened cookie called a “jumble,” which is a biscuit that gained popularity in the 17th and 18th century in Europe mainly because as a non-leavened food, it could be dried and stored for many months.

The modern Nazareth-style sugar cookie has gained enormous popularity in America. Sometime in the 1930s it became a tradition for children to leave sugar cookies and milk out for Santa Clause on Christmas Eve. Because of how easy it is to cut and shape the sugar cookie dough, custom cookies have become wildly popular.

My niece made these sugar cookies for her son's fifth birthday.   Her son wanted a birthday theme The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  She and her son worked hard to create butterfly and caterpillar cookies to perfection.  The end result made the kid a very happy boy.  Adults who looked at these cookies were impressed by her baking, icing and artistic skills.  I am very happy to share the recipe of sugar cookies and the royal icing here:

Ingredients (for cookies):

1 1/2 cups butter on room temperature, 2 cups white sugar, 4 eggs, 1tsp vanilla extract,  5 cups white flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt

Method (for cookies):

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Ingredients (for icing):

2 lbs confectioner’s sugar, 3/4 cup meringue powder(dry egg white powder), 1 1/2 cup warm water, 2 to 3 tbsp some extract or flavoring.

Method (for icing):

Add the dry ingredients first. Use your mixer’s whisk attachment to incorporate the sugar and meringue powder.  Add the extract to the water and slowly add it to the dry ingredients while mixing. At first the icing will be very liquid-like.

Continue to mix it at medium to high speed until it is fluffy and stiff peaks form.  It takes about 7-10 minutes.  Mixing times vary as per your mixer or food processor.  You can stop mixing as soon as it becomes stiff.  

You can mix color in this stiff icing.  Color choice and shape are purely individual decision.

Home made Strawberry Jam

The strawberry season generally starts in mid June in Illinois, USA and continues for three four weeks, depending on the weather and how many people come to pick strawberries.  Most of the strawberry farms were within an hour and a half drive from where we live.  Some farms have attractions for children while some others have miles of fields around them.  We went to strawberry farm at Marengo, Illinois.  We were seven adults and six children and were given baskets by the farm managers to pick strawberries.  The deal was we could eat strawberries for free but whatever we fill our baskets with, we were to pay only for that.  Picking strawberries was a wonderful experience with loads of fun.  These delectable red berries were very sweet and juicy.  Since we got so many strawberries, I decided to make jam out of these.

I did not know making strawberry jam was so easy.  Only tough part was to bottle the jam so that it can be preserved for sometime.  Most people put double sugar but I tried with less sugar as my strawberries were very sweet.

Ingredients:

5 cups crushed strawberries, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 6 tbsp pectin, 5 cups of sugar

Method:

Combine strawberries, lemon juice in a saucepan.  Gradually stir in pectin.  Bring mixture to a full boil, stirring constantly.  It is a good idea to wear kitchen mitts while stirring the hot mixture as it tends to splash.  Add sugar and stir so that sugar gets dissolved.  Bring it to a boil for another minute while stirring constantly.  Mixture will get to thicken a little. Turn off the flame.  Skim foam if necessary.  Transfer the hot jam to hot sterile bottles. Fill the bottles leaving a gap of 1 CM or 0.5" from the rim.

In the meanwhile, wash the jars and lids separately and put them in boiling water in order to sterilized.  Take them out on a  towel before filling them with hot prepared jam.  If your jars will be cold, they will crack when you fill them with hot jam.

Once jam is filled, mount the lid and twist to close with moderate strength. Take a big pot of lukewarm water.  Place the jam filled jars in the water.  Make sure that water level in the pot is above the top layer of the jars.  Boil this for ten minutes by covering the pot with the lid.  Turn off the flame and let jars stay in the pot till water cools off. Take them out on a towel.  Leave them out for 12 to 24 hours before putting them in the refrigerator.  If the middle of the jar lid is firm it means it is sealed properly but if it is not sealed properly, you may have to repeat the process of pasteurizing with different lid.

If you prefer to eat your jam within three weeks, you can omit pectin.

Enjoy your home made scrumptious strawberry jam.

Cherry Salsa

My brother's backyard has a cherry tree which is laden with beautiful looking red and crimson cherries. Last week my sister-in-law and I picked these cherries of a branch.

We decided to make cherry salsa with those. Result was so yummy that I could not stop myself from eating that. The best part is, it is way too simple and requires a very few ingredients.

Whether tart or sweet, cherries are a great pain reliever and help you against the pre mature aging. Cherries, along with many other berries, are a rich source of antioxidants. They help prevent or repair the damage that is done to the body’s cells by free radicals. This means that antioxidants replace free radicals in our body before they can cause any damage. Cherries help in relieving arthritis and gout. By helping reduce inflammation in the body, the anthocyanin and bioflavonoids in cherries also help eliminate migraine headaches. These compounds are known to have similar activity to aspirin and ibuprofen.

With such nutritious value, it was hard to throw away those tart cherries. So we made a salsa and ate with brown rice crackers. Here is the simple recipe.

Ingredients:

2 cups tart cherries, 1 medium red onion chopped finely, 1 green chilly pepper, 1/4 cup fresh coriander leaves washed and chopped finely, salt to taste, 1/2 tsp cumin powder, 1/4 tsp sugar

Method:

Wash and cut cherries into two halves. Take out the pits and put them in a big bowl.
Add onion, salt, sugar and cumin powder and mix it well. Take out the seeds of the green chilly pepper before chopping into small pieces. Add this to the mixture. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves. No need for lemon juice as cherries are tart enough.
Have the salsa with corn chips or any kind of crackers. Bon appetit !