This school year, I decided to volunteer as a “room mom” in my youngest’s classroom. I’m not totally new to this role; I’ve done it a couple times in the past. But this year, however, I seem to have been matched with a rather endearing and passionate Room Mom. (She truly deserves to be recognized with capital letters and perhaps an award for her outstanding effort.)
I didn’t sign up for this volunteer role out of my passion for party planning and goody bags – which I despise by the way. No. I found myself back in a season of life that I’ve known before just a couple years past – the stay at home mom with kids in school. I figured it was time to get off the bench and jump back into the PTA game because of all the time I had on my hands. HAHA.
My “unemployed and loving it” status changed two weeks into the school year after I was offered a 7-week long term sub position. I just couldn’t pass it up.
So now I find myself working in what seems to be the busiest month of the elementary school year, second only to May, and I can barely keep up. From Field Day snacks, to Halloween parties, to the Fall Carnival bake sale and cake walk, to the teacher’s birthday, and a brunch – all before Thanksgiving, thank you very much! I am no longer worried about keeping up with my talented partner in “room momming”. No, I’m settling for doing just enough to get by and not drive everyone in my household crazy.
These sugar cookies totally fit under that category. Delightfully rich, thanks to 3 sticks of butter, these cookies can be whipped up in less than ten minutes of work time. The dough can easily be made up ahead and stored in the refrigerator for a later date. Because there are no eggs in it, the dough can last up to a week in an airtight container.
Today, my 10-year-old made a batch. All I had to do was lay out the butter to soften and help with the oven. Can’t get any easier than that!
Enjoy!
| Prep Time | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time | 10 minutes |
| Passive Time | 60 minutes |
| Servings |
cookies
|
- 3 sticks Butter softened
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 1.5 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 tsp Baking powder
- 3 cups All purpose flour
- Sprinkles for decorations
Ingredients
|
|
- Begin by adding the softened butter to a mixing bowl fitted with the paddle attachment. These cookies can be mixed up by hand, but the dough will get thick once you add the flour.
- Mix until the butter is smooth and creamy.
- Carefully pour in the sugar and mix on low for 2 minutes into the sugar is well incorporated.
- Pour in the vanilla and mix for 30 seconds.
- Turn off the mixer and using a flat spatula, scrape down the edges of the bowl.
- Add the flour. You can add it one cup at a time if you want. However, it is totally fine to dump in all 3 cups at once. Just make sure to start your mixer up on low or your will have flour on every surface of your kitchen!
- Mix just until the dough comes together. Allow the dough to chill in an airtight container in the refrigerator for an hour up to 7 days.
- When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Using a small cookie scoop, place the dough balls evenly apart onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Since the dough is cold, it should not spread out too much when cooking.
- If you have children helping like I did, the cookies will turn out to be all sorts of shapes and sizes. Thankfully the look doesn’t effect the taste!
- If you want to add sprinkles this is the time! Learn from our mistake and do not use candy corn. I repeat - do not bake candy corn. Total disaster. Lightly press the decorations into the dough so they will stick.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes. Pull the tray out of the oven when the middle is still soft and before the edges start to brown.
- Remove the cookies to cool on a wire rack and enjoy!
