Vanilla Bean Cookies from Fresh April Flours

Vanilla Bean Cookies - made dough August 18. 2023 from Fresh April Flours 

2 cups (240 grams) all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup powdered sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste

1/2 cup granulated sugar, for rolling

1. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl to keep mixture even textured.
3. Add egg, vegetable oil and vanilla bean paste, mixing to combine.
4. On low speed, add dry ingredients in two additions, mixing until just combined. Do not overmix.
5. Scoop dough into small cookie dough balls. Cover and chill for several hours or overnight.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
7. Place granulated sugar in small bowl and roll dough balls, coating completely. Evenly space on baking sheets and bake 8-9 minutes, until edges are set. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheet for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

This is a nice, simple, straightforward sugar cookie. Dough was easy to make and came together nicely. Dough balls were easy to form and cookies tasted good. The texture was soft and the outer edges had a nice crisp. Not much more to say other than if you want an easy to make and tasty sugar cookie, here you go.

One thing I will say (okay, I always have more to say after all), is that I've noticed in recent trends that there's a lot of emphasis on things like "fast! very few ingredients! no chilling required!" and those are meant to be good things. I've been baking a long time and I tend to buck the fad trends. If I don't have a lot of time at any given moment, "fast" to me means I whip up the dough and bake it off later. "Very few ingredients" typically means you start with a mix of some sort *shudder*. Brownie mixes, cake mixes, whatever - yes, I'm a baking snob. I get the appeal of folks who don't have a lot of baking staples in their pantry but I'm not one of them. I always have flour, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, leavenings, butter, etc on hand. No mixes here. Or at least rarely.

And lastly, not chilling dough is not my thing. After decades of working high pressure jobs in the tech industry, I rarely have time to make dough, bake the cookies, cool them and package them up in one block of time. So it's easy enough to take 15 minutes (or less) to make the dough, portion them into dough balls and chill or freeze them. Another 15-30 minutes on a different day to bake and cool them for packaging. So I always chill dough because I rarely intend to make, bake and eat on the same day. I get that's not the case for everyone and some people just want a cookie NOW. Hence why if you just take the time once to make dough and portion into dough balls, stick them in your freezer then warm, freshly baked cookies will only ever be 10-15 minutes away from your grasp.

The other reasons for chilling dough first are 1) to let it firm up and spread less when being baked and 2) as the dough chills, it dries out and the flavors get more concentrated. You don't want it too dry but an extra few hours or overnight chilling doesn't hurt the dough and makes your cookies more flavorful. So yeah, "3-ingredient" baked goods, no chilling time required and so on don't do it for me.