Emily! E - Recipe Content

A family sugar cookie recipe past down from generation to generation. These fluffy sugar cookies make for the perfect holiday treat - soft, fluffy, and not overly sweet. Making a whopping several dozen cookies, this recipe is great for an afternoon activity with family or friends. (Bonus points if you're using dinosaur cookie cutters.)

Recipe Source: Joanna Sasim (aka Grandma)

Link to Research Evaluation Doc

Equipment

This is just some suggestions, although you don't need anything fancy. I've made this with a stand mixer, electric hand mixer, and a good ol' normal whisk and big bowl they all turn out great

mixing thing. stand mixer, electric hand mixer, electric whisk, regular whisk. Basically use anything and it'll turn out good
utensils and measuring stuff
cookie cutters
cookie sheet
parchment paper
airtight containers or ziplocks for storage
cooling rack if you're feeling fancy

ingredients

Allergen info/contains: wheat, dairy, egg

makes about 10 dozen cookies depending on dough thickness and size of cookie cutters

prep/making dough: 15 minutes, rolling out/cutting: 5min/pan, baking: 6-7min

1 cup milk
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 tbsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup melted shortening or butter
4 3/4 cups flour
1 large Tbsp. baking powder

instructions

Beat baking soda in milk
add all but flour and baking powder, and beat well
add flour and baking powder beat well
roll out dough
bake at 375 until light brown underneath

note: the instructions as written (unaltered), however I will rewrite them to be more detailed/approachable

instructions (revised)

in mixing bowl, beat baking soda in milk
add sugar, eggs, vanilla, shortening/butter, salt and mix beat well.
slowly mix in flour and baking powder until fully incorportated

Note: the dough will be very sticky! This is ok! Don't panic! We will add more flour when kneading the dough. Speaking of...

separate dough into at least two parts (or more if working with less dough is easier). Place chunk of dough on a flour coated surface. Sprinkle some flour on top and knead until extra flour is fully incorporated. Add more flour as necessary until dough doesn't stick to your hands.
roll out dough to about 1/4 inch thick. (or whatever thickness you prefer. thicker means fluffier cookies and longer baking time, thinner means thinner and harder cookies and shorter baking)
cut out cookies with cookie cutters (or freehand some shapes with a knife if you're feeling wily) and place on baking sheet (with or without parchment, it doesn't actually matter, so whatever makes you feel good)
bake at 375 for about 6-7 minutes, or until lightly browned underneath
let cool compeltely before frosting (if you're into that sort of thing), or burn your mouth on some delicious cookies and devour them immediately.

Storing and Freezing

"Freezing Instructions: stack baked, unfrosted sugar cookies in an airtight container with parchment paper between the layers. To freeze frosted sugar cookies flash freeze them first on a parchment lined baking sheet for 30 minutes, then transfer to a freezer-safe airtight container with parchment paper between each layer. Freezer sugar cookies for up to 3 months. Freeze sugar cookie dough in a freezer safe airtight container for up to 3 months. Remove dough from freezer and let sit at room temp for 2 hours, or until soft enough to roll out." - Tastes Better From Scratch

"Storing dough: Cookie dough will keep in refrigerator for 2-3 days, or up to 3 months in the freezer. Storing cookies: Cookies will keep for up to 5 days in a tightly sealed container at room temperature or in the freezer for 3 months. Add a slice of bread to the cookie container to help keep cookies moist. Replace as needed (bread will dry out)." - The Toasty Kitchen

recipe websites

Food.com - The best part of this site is how it incorporates its images. Instead of a long stream of individual images that keeps you scrolling for ages (like I've done on this page), it presents the images in a little gallery where you can click on the next picture. A small feature I also enjoy: there is a button to convert units to metric/US. Specifically looking at this beef and broccoli recipe

Taste of Home - For many of the recipes on this site, it gets straight into the recipe without much preamble. I found this site a strong reference for its layout. Some sites give the ingredients and then the directions underneath, but this site has the ingredients and directions side-by-side, which is such a small thing but makes a noticeable improvement. One annoying part: the little banner of more recipes remains at the top of your screen as you scroll, which takes up too much space on your screen.

Tastes Better from Scratch - This site doesn't have the blog preamble, although it does start with a more detailed/in depth “how to make” instructions. I think it's useful to have more detailed instructions, hence this is a good reference, but maybe it can come after the full recipe. A couple small details I like: checkboxes next to the ingredients, list of equipment needed, recipe visually represented as a sort of recipe card (different color background), batch size feature.

non-recipe websites

AIGA Eye on Design - There are a few small features of this site I really enjoy. Visually, I'm a fan of color used sparingly, and this site does that well. The brand pink is sprinkled throughout for a variety of information, not too much, not too little, but it draws your attention. I also really enjoy the small detail of the side buttons. 1. They're a bit unordinary in their placement (and I like finding ways to break the mold) and 2. The text wiggles when you hover over it.

Oliver Jeffers - This is the website for an illustrator I like, so of course it is bursting with personality. In short: the interactions on this page are fun. Scrolling down to see how the text floats up with the images, or when it changes color makes you want to keep scrolling. Stylistically, I'm fond of the hand-lettered type he uses on the website (which he also uses in his works). It makes the website feel more human and less like a machine, which seems fitting since I am doing a beloved family recipe for this project.

mandomike - This site I've included mostly for its gentle visual language. It features text that is not black, and boxed information. It's fairly standard, but what I like most is that it comes across and modern and clean without being bubbly - I'm finding that I don't like rounded edges as much, even though that seems a common design feature nowadays. Clicking on the different tabs is also a fun interaction in the way the text changes. Even though a recipe site won't have a whole lot of interaction going on, I like discovering ways to make simple interactions fun.