Corn starch!
Marilyn, This is a very tasty, scientific recipe from Marcy Goldman in Cook's Illustrated Magazine, Nov/Dec '93, that uses corn starch to make amazing shaped sugar cookies. Colleen
Holiday Sugar Cookie (with cornstarch) and frosting/glaze
dry
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tsp baking powder
tiny pinch of salt
wet
2 egg yolks
3 Tbs. light cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
butter base
12 Tbs. unsalted butter, softened
4 Tbs. vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or silicone paper.
2. Stir dry ingredients together in a medium bowl
3. In a mixing cup or small bowl, stir yolks, cream, and vanilla together
4. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, shortening and sugar until lightened and pasty.
5. Beat yolk mixture into creamed butter until just combined
6. Add dry ingredients into wet and beat until mixture begins to clump (about 18-20 seconds on lowest speed of electric mixer).
7. Turn dough out onto floured surface and kneed, adding a little flour until a soft dough forms. (Can be separated into quarters, wrapped in plastic wrap, sealed in a zip bag, and refrigerated up to 3 days or frozen up to 6 months.)
Classic Cut-Outs
1. Working with 1/4 of the dough at a time, roll dough to about 1/8' thick on a well-floured work surface with floured rolling pin. Cut with cookie cutter rolled in flour. Repeat with remaining dough.
2. Using a spatula, transfer cut-outs to parchment lined baking sheets, placing them about 1" apart.
3. Bake at 350 degrees until golden, 10-12 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool to room temperature.
4. When completely cool, frost or glaze. Store in a sealed container.
Colleen's notes: I use salted butter and no additional salt. I also use butter flavored Crisco (in the stick) instead of plain shortening. I rolled the cookies 1/4"+ thick and made big 4" cookies using a Tupperware container as my cookie cutter (for 17 cookies with a little scrap). I cooked them slightly longer at a slightly lower temperature without parchment paper. Make sure you put a nice amount of flour down on your work surface before you roll the dough out. (This is easier to do with chilled dough if you plan ahead).
Colleen's Frosting/Glaze
1# powdered sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/4 cup milk (use more if glazing)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Food coloring
Frosting: Beat 1-2 minutes until creamy (for whipped frosting, beat 1 additional minute). Makes 2 1/4 cups, enough to fill 2 layer cake, 24 cup cakes, 2 batches of cookies. Freezes well
Glaze: Add additional milk until thin and pourable.
