What the crap is with sugar cookies. How come nobody told me they are the stupidest cookies ever and I shouldn’t ever try to make them? OR, why am I a moron who can’t figure them out.
For Mother’s Day we had plans to go to brunch with our moms, and zp’s dad and brother. I wanted to give the moms something special, so I planned to bake cookies that I could frost in fun ways and write “MOM” on them, and add sprinkles. And I’d wrap them in plastic and tie a ribbon on, and then also give them a little bag of star-shaped smaller cookies. It would be a glorious package of sugary gratitude.
I dug out my star-shaped cookie cutter, and boldly stated that I would just free-form cut the heart-shaped ones, because I’m awesome (apparently I’d already forgotten the dangers of bold statements).
Sugar cookies = sugar butter flour. Maybe a little vanilla and lemon zest to be fancy. Mix together. Chill. Roll out. Make fun shapes. Bake a few minutes. Cool. Frost. JOY. Right?
DEEP SIGH.
Not so much. I even followed the instructions of this helpful commenter (see first comment under recipe), for the so-super-easy way of rolling/cutting/baking sugar cookies. Maybe they meant wax paper, not parchment paper? Maybe they meant to tell me the magical way to keep the dough from STICKING TO EVERYTHING..?
I tried illustrating my feelings during this whole process, but Paint wasn’t cooperating with me today. So this is pretty much the series of faces I went through, on a loop, for about 2 hours:
top row, from left: "Oh I got this. I'm awesome."; "what the HALL you stupid @#$*%!!"; bottom row: "WAAHHHHH WHYYYYY"; "I need my mom."
And then I just ran out of time. So I felt a bit like a 10 year old presenting my moms with this very unceremonious sandwich baggy smeary mess of a heart shaped cookie. 
But they’re really sweet moms, so they accepted their gifts very graciously. Thanks Moms! Happy Mother’s Day!
Bananas, continued 
RAWR.
I was rolling cookies yesterday, too. Stupid roll-out cookies.
I wet down my counter and stick a peice of wax paper to it. (The water was essential … the first time I did this (sans water), the wax paper slipped and I threw the rolling pin across the room in one direction, and the cookie dough across the room in the other. THAT was a sight.) Then I put copius amounts of powered sugar on the wax paper (totally better than flour …. that just dries it out) and roll VEEEEEEERRRRY SLLLLLLOOOOOOOWLY.
Seems to work pretty well. It’s when I hurry that things go crazy.
Also … if your free-form cookie was anything near as good as the drawing of it, you totally win.
baaahahahahah oh goodness. well I didn’t throw the things across the room but I did get EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED with the paper sliding all over the table. water! amazing! IF I ever attempt sugar cookies again.. I will try that.
Oh, the throwing was unintentional. I was not about to lose the dough I spent 4 effing hours preparing (ok, so 2.5 of those are chilling it, but still an hour and a half of stirring is NOT CALLED FOR! Oh stand mixer, where are you?!). But slip-slip-slip went the wax paper, and everythign was gone. ::shakes head::
1.5 hours of stirring? what kind of cookies were you maaaking?
awww! ha. sugar cookies are the worst. :)
Break.
And.
Bake.
The end.
A) Those cookies were adorable, and 2) They TASTE delicious, with exactly the texture I like in a sugar cookie: dense and chewy!! (I hate it when they are hard as bricks and you end up wearing more crumbs than you actually consume.) As you know, I couldn’t wait to launch into mine, so I crumbled part of it into my YUMMY Red Mango (place, not flavor) yogurt, and it was SO GOOOOD! So :P
Having said all that, your post is HILARIOUS, and I feel your pain… I never got the sugar cookie gene, either, so my apologies for passing that on to you. I do agree with Sarah’s advice, above, re powdered sugar. It def works better than flour for de-stickifying. :-/ Srsly, that’s a word.
I also agree that your Paint representation of the final cookie is AWESOME. (You did a phenomenal job of conveying the plastic-i-ness of the baggy. Wth. I’m just making up words now.) Did the frosting run a little bit? OK, yeah. Does that affect the flavor or enjoyment of the cookie in any way? NO. They were beautiful and yummy, and it was such a sweet thing to do, so pffft.
Hahahaha…I don’t think there’s anything in the world that compares to the frustration of rolling out sugar cookie dough. And if there is something worse, I hope to never experience it because things will definitely get thrown out windows at that point. My secret weapon is a silpat mat coated with lots of flower (though after reading the comments, I’ll have to give powdered sugar a try next time!) Chilling the dough and rolling from the center toward the edges instead of back and forth across the whole dough round also help. But mostly, I’ve found that it gets slightly less painful each time I make them. Seriously, the first time I made cut-outs several years ago, I invented several new swear words, terrified my cats, and vowed to myself that I needed to keep trying so that someday I can make these cookies in the presence of my children. I’ve still got a ways to go on that last one, but I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ll get there someday!
Haha…I apparently left this tab open overnight and just re-read my comment. Please be assured that I dust the silpat mat with *flour*–I solemnly swear that rose petals or the like are not my secret weapon in making sugar cookies.
hahahha aww dang! that would be a pretty way to do it..
I actually roll them in plastic wrap, but you can only do a bit at a time. This reminds me that I need parchment paper!
Haha! I try to blame the messy crafts in our house on my kids (scapegoats is probably a better word for it), but, really, my stuff all comes out looking like your sugar cookie hearts. You should see my cakes. In fact, I have a picture of my failed attempt at making a cake for my son’s birthday last year on our facebook page. It was no fun scrubbing that oven.