A Visit From the Goon Squad and Puzzle Sugar Cookies

I have perfect timing!  This week's selection is Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, which earlier this week won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  This is far and away the best book I have read in a long time - and I usually love everything I read for this blog! I can't quite put my finger on what made this book so amazing, but it was both technically impressive and really funny and emotionally affecting.  It is a fantastic book.  I did the puzzle cookies cause the book has a lot going on - it is a bunch of chapters about different characters at different points in time, but all connected in some way.  It should be a confusing book but it isn't, but it is still a bit of a puzzle, hence the cookies.  This is a different review this week as well, I did a power point review, in tribute to a chapter of Egan's book which is entirely done in power point.  I thought it was a great chapter, and man, do I hate power point! 

Basic Frosted Sugar Cookies

Adapted from the master, Martha Stewart (in her Baking Handbook)
 

Ingredients (Note - this makes A LOT of cookie dough, I would suggest halving)

For cookies

 4 sticks butter, room temp

3 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

5 cups all purpose flour, plus more for rolling out

For Royal Icing frosting (ditto on amounts above)

1 lb confectioners sugar

5 tablespoons meringue powder

Food coloring of choice

Directions for cookies:  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy - 4-5 minutes.  Add the eggs, vanilla and salt, mix on medium speed till combined.  With mixer on low speed, add flower in 2 batches, mixing until just incorporated.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface and form a ball, cut in half, flatten into two disks and wrap in plastic.  Refrigerate for at least two hours and up to 1 week.

When you are ready to make cookies, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface into a large rectangle (on disk at a time) to about 1/4 an inch thickness.  Cut your desired cookies.  Gather scraps and refrigerate for a few before rolling out again.  

 After you have cut your desired shapes, refrigerate the cookie sheets for about 15 minutes so the cookies set appropriately and keep their shapes when baked.  Bake for about 10 -15 minutes, till they are golden along the edges.  Transfer cookies to a wire rack and cool completely before any icing is done.

To make icing, and royal icing is what you want to use for that glossy, firmly set look, if you want something more casual, use a buttercream.  In the bowl of electric mixer, combine sugar, meringue power and scant 1/2 cup of water on low speed, beat until mixture is fluffy and dense, 7 to 8 minutes.

To color, remove portions to a bowl and add gel food coloring a little at a time, stirring thoroughly.  To pipe, either use a squeeze bottle or a pastry bag with a small fine tip.  You should pipe the edge first, with the frosting in its original consistency.  Then, take the frosting and thin it out a little by adding a tiny bit of water at a time.  It should really only be slightly wetter than it originally was and should not be in the least but watery.  You then can fill the cookie with the slightly thinned frosting, spreading it with a toothpick for coverage.  This is called flooding.  I don't have great pictures on this, but there are a million blogs out there that do.  To do dots like I did, you need to let the base layer dry completely (like several hours or overnight) before piping on a second decorative layer.

 Et voila!