My husband Tom thoughtfully bought me a copy of Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan and once it arrived I couldn't wait to start baking my way through it. I decided to start with a simple recipe for "Vanilla Polka Dots" -- a vanilla butter cookie rolled in Swedish pearl sugar. The base batter for these cookies is Dorie's "Do-Almost-Anything Vanilla Cookie Dough," which can be scooped or rolled, and serves as the foundation for several cookies in the book.
The cookie dough is a mixture of butter creamed with sugar and salt, egg whites, vanilla, and flour. You scoop out the dough (I used a #40 scoop), roll the cookies in Swedish pearl sugar, flatten them slightly, and bake. I used the entire batch of the base vanilla cookie dough and got 39 cookies.
The recipe instructs you to bake the cookies until they are golden brown
around the edges. I baked mine for 20 minutes, when my cookies had
developed a very distinct dark brown circle around the edges. It was
only after I was halfway through baking the cookies that I realized that
the lowball glass I was using to flatten the cookies had a concave bottom, so the edges of my cookies were much
thinner than the centers. I think that's why the golden ring around the
edges was so well demarcated, and I really liked the visual effect.
These cookies were crisp, buttery, and delicious. The pearl sugar is definitely what makes them stand out, giving them a marvelous sweet crunch. Although the cookies are quite simple, they are delicate and lovely. They definitely highlight how pearl sugar can make a plain cookie special.
Recipes: "Vanilla Polka Dots" and "Do-Almost-Anything Vanilla Cookie Dough" from Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan, recipes available here from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The cookie dough is a mixture of butter creamed with sugar and salt, egg whites, vanilla, and flour. You scoop out the dough (I used a #40 scoop), roll the cookies in Swedish pearl sugar, flatten them slightly, and bake. I used the entire batch of the base vanilla cookie dough and got 39 cookies.
These cookies were crisp, buttery, and delicious. The pearl sugar is definitely what makes them stand out, giving them a marvelous sweet crunch. Although the cookies are quite simple, they are delicate and lovely. They definitely highlight how pearl sugar can make a plain cookie special.
Recipes: "Vanilla Polka Dots" and "Do-Almost-Anything Vanilla Cookie Dough" from Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan, recipes available here from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
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