Dirty Sugar Cookies - the recipe!

To-ni-ight's the night......izzzzzgonna bee-ee alllllllright......

Keep it in your tartan, Rod, I meant the final Dirty Sugar Cookie Swap and Reading of the 2006 Holiday Season. With special (and shy!) musical guest, Reticent Devils, and a possibly ill-advised unveiling of my just completed, available to be published children's book, Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo.



WHAT: Author Reading, Signing and Dirty Sugar Cookie Swap

WHEN: Saturday, December 16, 2006, 7pm

WHERE: Vox Pop
1022 Cortelyou Rd.
Brooklyn, NY
718 940 2084

Each Dirty Sugar Cookie purchase will earn you a free Six Points Craft ale, courtesy of Vox Pop! Sweet! Score a six-pack's worth, why don't you?

And don't forget to bring cookies! It really is a cookie swap...

When I get home from aikido (don't ask) I'm going to rustle up some bittersweet chocolate chipotle something or others, and if they work out I'll post the recipe here tomorrow, but just in case you're at a loss as to what to bring, here's my grandmother's Dirty Sugar Cookie recipe, straight from the pages of book of the same name.



Dirty Sugar Cookies
Preheat the oven to 350˚ except not yet, because the dough's going to have to chill for at least an hour.

Put your Bromwell's Measuring-Sifter (Pat. No 1,753,995) onto a salad plate then pour in:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup sugar

Position the sifter over a big mixing bowl, lose the salad plate and crank away.

Alternatively you may chuck your dry ingredients directly into the mixing bowl and give them a couple of twirls with a meat fork.

Add 1 cup of shortening (or 2 sticks of butter if you're some sort of health nut)

Next, crack 3 eggs directly into the bowl. Do not beat them first. This is how my grandmother did it and quite possibly how they did it in Colonial Williamsburg, as well.

Then add 1 teaspoon vanilla. Knock yourself out with the aforementioned meat fork.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. If you want to pretend it's Pillsbury Slice and Bake, you can roll it into a cylinder before you wrap it up.

At some point, cover your work surface with wax paper. Sprinkle some flour on both the wax paper and your rolling pin. Roll out the dough. Dip the cookie cutters in some flour. Line the unbaked cookies up on a metal baking sheet. Preheat the oven you forgot to preheat earlier. If you want to go for the minimalist raisin eye look, now's the time to press them into the dough. You can also festoon them with colored sugars.

Bake each batch for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool. Transfer carefully so as to avoid limb loss.

Ice as you dare.