Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies are such a tradition at our house.  They are the one item we sent our first son on his mission that were a real hit. He served stateside so didn't miss much but the email after we sent Christmas sugar cookies he wrote to tell us that they tasted just like 'home and Christmas'.  So what to do when our eating habits have changed?  I promised our children I wouldn't change tradition.  They can still choose what they want for dinner on their birthdays and I bite my tongue and make it.  So we must have traditional sugar cookies.  But I just can't help tweaking the recipe a bit and these really worked.

 We love the puffy sugar cookies.  I've cut the fat by half, cut the sugar by 25% and used half wheat flour.  It's not perfect but it's better than white flour, full fat sugar cookies, right?  Here is the recipe:

1/2 c. butter

1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce

1 1/2 c. organic sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

1 c. sour milk (milk plus 1 tbl vinegar or lemon juice)

3 c. wheat flour (I like ground soft white wheat)

3 c. white flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

Cream together butter, applesauce and sugar.  Add eggs, vanilla and salt and mix.  In separate bowl measure flour, soda and baking powder.  Alternately add flour mixture and milk.  The dough will be fairly sticky.  Wheat flour takes longer to absorb moisture.  Place dough in refrigerator for several hours.  You can roll these out using ample flour, or roll into balls and flatten.  You want the dough to be about 1/2 inch thick.

Bake at 400' for 10 minutes.

Wish I had a magic solution to frosting but we haven't found anything comparable to butter cream so in the name of tradition we are going to frost these with yummy butter cream, but it will be white since I just can't bring myself to add food dyes! UGH! Enjoy!