Cookie Test # 2 - Sugar Cookies

Since my Longhorn football team has been cheated by the BCS, who feels an OU team we beat head to head should be ranked ahead of us, I am shifting my focus to things slightly more enjoyable, COOKIES! (And yes, I'm wishing that by some stroke of sheer luck Mizzou will stun OU - but since that game is currently going on and the score is not looking like an OU shocker I'm probably not going to get that wish!)

Peppercorn Press posted an excellent sugar cookie recipe; it inspired my second "test" cookie of the season (I will continue to call these "test" as saying I wanted to make cookies makes me feel slightly bad about it...who really needs cookies after all?). The recipe originally calls for orange oil and orange zest but since I didn't want to leave the house, I pulled items I had and used lemon zest and lemon oil -- it made a good substitution.

Here is the recipe with my substitution:

Ingredients:
¼ cup butter
½ cup butter flavor shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon lemon oil
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
2 ½ cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preparation:

In a large mixing bowl cream together butter, shortening, eggs, vanilla, orange oil and orange peel. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in small amounts until blended well. Refrigerate 1 hour or over night.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with cutters. Baked on an ungreased cookie sheet for 7-10 minutes or until cookies a lightly brown on the edges. Makes approximately 24 cookies.

I used my new snowflake cookie cutters and some colored sugar I had in the pantry to decorate....my next "test" is yet to be determined but for now I'll sure enjoy these!