Farm House Cookies

Farm House Cookies

from my Grandma Betty

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon soda

4 teaspoons baking powder

4 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar together.  Add eggs one at a time, continuing to beat.  Add sour cream and vanilla.  Sift dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.  Roll on canvas or floured surface fairly thick.  Cut with large round cutter.  Bake at 350 for 15 to 18 minutes.  These cookies should be large, soft and thick.

Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

from Gale Gand

3 cups confectioner's sugar

1 cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 to 2 tablespoons whipping cream

In a standing mixer fitted with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter.  Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes.  Add vanilla and cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more cream if needed for spreading consistency.

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{cooks note}

These cookies are similar to sugar cookies.  They are extremely soft because of the sour cream.  I have never tried them with low-fat sour cream, so try at your own risk.  I say, if you are making sweets, go all the way baby.  I rolled my dough out to be pretty thick. You can experiment and see what thickness you prefer, but these cookies are better thick.  I chilled my dough for about a half hour since it was pretty sticky just after mixing.  Don't be afraid to use a lot of flour when rolling these out if you decide not to chill them.  I've done it before and it works out just great if you use enough flour.  I lay my cookies on parchment paper to cook.  I also add some lemon extract to the frosting for a hint of lemon flavor. 

The ingredients.  I realize this is a fuzzy picture.  Sorry.

Creamed butter and sugar using my Bosch cookie paddles.

I add all of the ingredients that need to be sifted in my sifter and place the sifter on top of a plate so the flour doesn't fall out onto my counter everywhere.  Just a little tip I thought you might like to know.

After adding all the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.

I used flour and a rolling pin to roll my cookies out.  I cut them out using two different sizes of heart cookie cutters which were fairly large.

As you can see, you want to use plenty of flour.

Ready for the oven.

See how thick they are?  That is what you want.  

For the buttercream frosting, I used my wire whips.

Frosting bowl number 1 ready for yellow food coloring.

Frosting bowl number 2 ready for pink food coloring.  Doesn't that look like the mountain on The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?  I couldn't resist.

The cookies all gussied up.

The frosting really is delicious.

This would be a fun Valentine's Day activity for your children.  If your children are like mine, they like to push the cookie cutter down in the dough a few times and then call it quits.  I guess it's much cleaner that way, right?