Sugar cookie recipe: A cup of love, a pinch of madness

Even though it would be clear to even the most casual connoisseur at a single glance, I still felt it necessary to give my colleagues a heads-up that the cutout cookies I’d set on the breakroom table were less than professionally made. A sticky note on the lid of the tin softened any lofty expectations. “They may not look like much,” I wrote, “but they’re pretty tasty.”

I could have continued on with some sort of “they were made with love” missive, but I figured once the sugar and vanilla aroma hit the beholder, the cookies would sell themselves — no matter how ugly they might be. The point was to get the things out of my life before I hogged them all down myself, or worse, my grandsons had another shot at them.

In an honest effort to perpetuate a time-honored family tradition, Auntie Sylvia suggested we pass one of the evenings during our weekend-long babysitting gig by introducing Max and James (2 and 4 years old, respectively) to the magical wonders of baked flour, butter and sugar topped with an amalgam of sugar, food coloring and even more sugar. What could possibly go wrong?

Step No. 1 went as well as could be expected with little hands happily aiding in the measuring of ingredients and beating of batter. Soon we had a thick, sticky dough. Step No. 2 went less well. Even as a grown man with an abundance of patience and a reasonable ration of fine motor skills, rolling dough into a thin sheet plays like elusive high art. It only stands to reason that a rolling pin in the paws of my preschool progeny would do little to improve our lot.

The boys and I ended up pounding the dough flat on the tabletop with our floured palms. This actually served the purpose well enough for the cutout stencils. In the oven, however, the inconstant thickness of the dough grew Santas with grotesquely swollen heads and reindeer that looked as if they were about to give birth to full-grown bison. The boys were undeterred. We pressed on to the final step.

Explaining to a preschooler that we are about to hold delicious cookies in our hands, swab them with a layer of drippy sweetness and then gently sprinkle tiny niblets of straight-up candy — all while being careful not to eat any of these things — is all but impossible. Chaos reigned.

James, as the older brother, worked carefully to set an example while carefully decorating his first cookie before falling to temptation. Max didn’t get nearly as far. I now have video of him wringing an entire tube of bright blue icing into a mountain on a single cookie and then immediately diving in, tongue first. His face remains purple to this day.

The battle was lost in the first few minutes of the icing operation as the kids spiraled off into glucose-fueled madness.

Adults were left to hastily ice cookies while alternatively breaking up wrestling matches, righting knocked-over furniture and peeling children off the ceiling. I’m having second thoughts about declaring this a time-honored family tradition. The cookies were, however, made with love.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John atjlorson@alonovus.com.