Bakery Style Sugar Cookies

Bakery Style Sugar Cookies - made dough September 4, 2019 from Tastes of Lizzy T

Time to confess my guilty secret. You know how I’m a complete and utter baking snob? Especially when it comes to cookies. I duck out of sight when Girl Scout cookie season comes as I’d rather bake my own. The original Tollhouse cookie recipe is so 4 decades ago when all I knew how to make were thin cookies. Mrs. Fields? No flavor except sweet.

BUT, would it surprise you to learn I almost always like those Otis-Spunkmeyer type sugar cookies you can find at any Subway? Or the kind where you buy the cookie dough from the local school’s fundraiser (the little girl across the street just sold me a bucket of cookie dough – I’m a sucker). I can be the world’s biggest chocolate chip cookie snob but when it comes to sugar cookies, my soul goes for pretty cheap.

So when I saw this recipe for “Bakery Style” sugar cookies, I know it meant those buy-them-almost-anything type of sugar cookies I usually go for. What intrigued me about this recipe was that it used a baking emulsion. I’ve never baked with an emulsion as a flavoring but with the exorbitant rise in vanilla prices, I thought it would be prudent to start.

I followed this recipe faithfully to the letter, from using European butter to the emulsion to brushing the tops of the cookies with heavy cream and vinegar and sprinkling with big sugar crystals. My faithfulness was rewarded with some amazing cookies. Seriously, I loved these cookies. I can’t even tell you why I liked them so much except that they had the perfect texture (light, airy crispy edges and chewy moist middles) and beautiful sugar-butter flavor. Like 10x better than Otis. 

My only beef with them is they spread thin and while that would normally be a baking sin in my world, these cookies were so good, I forgave them. I’m not sure if my dough was too soft before I froze it (and I baked from frozen dough) or I needed to bake them at a higher temp than the recipe called for or I made the dough discs too large as they spread into large thin cookies. Regardless, that didn’t detract from the taste or the texture of these cookies. I need to make the next batch a little small so the cookies won’t be so big but still….did I mention they were delicious?

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup European-style butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 large egg
3/4 teaspoon LorAnn Princess Cake & Cookie Bakery emulsion
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon white vinegar
extra sugar for sprinkling on top

1. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder; set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg, emulsion and lemon juice. Gradually blend in dry ingredients. Do not overmix.
3. Scoop the dough into about 18 1 1/2" balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Slightly flatten the top of each cookie with the bottom of a glass that has been dipped in sugar.
4. Refrigerate cookies for at least 1 hour.
5. In a small bowl, combine the heavy cream and vinegar (it will curdle). Use a pastry brush to brush this mixture on top of the cookies.
6. Sprinkle the top of the cookies with extra granulated sugar or large sugar crystals.
7. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space chilled cookies on baking sheets. Bake for 10 minutes, removing the cookies just before the edges get brown.
8. Cool for 5 minutes then remove to wire racks to cool completely.