No dough chilling required.

Many months ago, I wanted to bake chewy sugar cookies but all of the recipes I had required chilling the dough for some obscenely long period of time. I wanted cookies then…not 12 plus hours in the future.

After a little perusing of Food Blog Search, I found a recipe that didn’t require chilling and yielded chewy cookies. Bingo! The recipe can be found on the Fallen Souffle blog. I’m not sure of its original source as she didn’t list it in her post.

These are perfect. They’re quick and easy. I honestly had the first sheet of them out of the oven in about 20 minutes with the assistance of my Kitchenaid stand mixer. If you need something sweet and homemade in a hurry, these will do the trick. They certainly worked for me last Friday night when we were out of dessert and desperate for a quick sugar fix.

I’ve made these cookies at least 7 or 8 times now in various different ways. It’s really easy to add different flavors to the dough. I’ve made them plain and rolled in sugar. I’ve made a triple ginger variety with fresh, powdered and crystallized ginger. I’ve also added almond extract and crushed almonds. The favorite in our house are the lemon ones pictured today. They have lemon extract and dried lemon peel from Penzeys in them.

Side note: I’m kind of obsessed with Penzeys and I’m really obsessed with this dried lemon peel. If you don’t know what Penzeys is, you should. And if you are in the know about Penzeys, buy some dried lemon peel. You might love it as much as I do.

Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies

Recipe from the Fallen Souffle blog

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract (depending on how lemony you want them to be!)
• 1 tablespoon dried lemon peel
• 1/2 cup sugar for rolling cookies

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. Using a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and very fluffy.
4. Beat in egg, vanilla extract, lemon extract and lemon peel.
5. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients.
6. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and roll in sugar. Place on lined cookie sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart.
7. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned.
8. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

One more thing: If you don’t already do this, store your cookies in a conainer with some pieces of bread. Any mildly flavored bread will do. The cookies will suck the moisture out of the bread. The cookies will be soft. And wonderful. I only learned this trick a year or two ago and I now swear by it. If you want soft cookies, you must use the bread.

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