Sugar Cookie Bars

Big news, the girls track team won conference championships yesterday! It was extremely rainy and gross out yesterday, but they ran/jumped/threw through it and came out with a victory. Standing to wait for the places to be called, our team thought we had come in second until another team was called for second place, and we finally figured out we had come in first. Though, because of my injury, I haven't been able to run this season, I still love coming to the meets to cheer all my teammates on and I was so proud of how they all preformed yesterday that I knew I needed to make them something to munch on while we celebrated the win at practice the next day.

I wanted to make something easy to serve and transport (as I knew we would be eating it out on the track) so I decided to turn the popular sugar cookie into a bar form, and decorate them using our team colors of blue and gold!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Bars-

1/2 cup softened butter

1 cups sugar


2 eggs


1 teaspoons vanilla extract


2 1/2 cups flour


1/2 teaspoon salt


1/4 teaspoons baking soda

 

Icing-


1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract


Dash of salt

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons milk

Food coloring

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 F and grease a 13 x 9 inch pan.

To make the bars, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy and then add in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the vanilla and in a separate bowl sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Slowly add this dry mixture into the butter and sugar mixture. Spread the dough evenly into your prepared baking pan(s). You may want to use your hands to pat it down more easily.

Place the bars in the oven for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden on the edges.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat together the butter, vanilla, and salt to create the frosting. Slowly add in the powdered sugar, and then add in drops of food coloring until the desired color is acquired.

Remove from the bars from the oven and let cool before icing.

After icing, you may decorate with sprinkles or other toppers.

Refrigerate the bars before cutting to make for easier slicing.

These bars would be great to make and have people decorate. You could either ice them before and buy a variety of candies and sprinkles for people to create their own little treats, or you could even divide the icing into several parts, coloring each differently so people may also ice their own bars as well (though the icing will not be cooled and hardened as well, it will still taste yummy!)

Maple Snickerdoodles

After making my snickerdoodle bars I received a request to make more snickerdoodles. Now it's been a while since then but I never fail to deliver a promise if it involves baking.

To make these snickerdoodles more unique I added some maple syrup which added flavor and sweetness.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

1 ½ teaspoons plus 1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ cup butter

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup real maple syrup

1 egg

1 cup plus ¼ cup white sugar

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in one bowl. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and 1 cup of white sugar until fluffy and then beat in the egg and maple syrup. Afterwards, gradually blend in the dry ingredients until mixed well.

Chill dough for one hour.

In a small bowl, combine the ¼ cup white sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Roll the chilled dough into 1 inch balls and then roll them into the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place cookies 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Remove from cookie sheets and immediately use a spoon to sprinkle some of the leftover cinnamon sugar on top.

Soft on the inside and a little crispier on the edges is the perfect consistency for a snickerdoodle.
When I told my friend I made these he was so excited you would have thought I bought him a new car. The next day when I gave them the cookies, he coveted them and wouldn't let anyone take one so he could save them for later.

Fortunately he does track so he can run off all that extra cookie he eats.

Snickerdoodle Bars

Tonight is Friday and also my friend’s birthday. She is having  big party and asked if I would bake for it, and obviously I said yes. I didn’t have a lot of time to bake though today so I wanted to make something that was quick but still tasted good. While cookies can be simple to make, I find the easiest think to make is bars. I still wanted to make something that wasn’t completely ordinary so I tried making regular snickerdoodles into a snickerdoodle bar recipe.

Ingredients:

2 1/3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup softened butter

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon plus 2 tablespoons white sugar

1/4 plus 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F and lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan. Sift together flour, baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, and salt and in a large bowl, beat together the butter, brown sugar, egg, 1 tablespoon sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until well blended. Spread the batter evenly into the lightly greased pan. Combine the extra 2 tablespoons white sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon in a little bowl. Evenly sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the batter. (I had a little left over but I would still recommend making this much because it is a good sugar to cinnamon ratio.)

Just sprinkling cinnamon sugar on top is even

easier than rolling each individual cookie in it.

Bake 25-30 minutes and cool slightly. While still warm, cut into bars with a sharp knife.