A ROYAL BAKER

 

Saturday was about baking. The Mistress was left to her own devices. Since I had sent everybody and the help away, I reserved the day to make a treat. My good friends and sister Mame, aka David Dust, and Kailyn will tell you, these treat are like crack!!!!! They both over dosed once!

 

 They are the Mistress 's Mother's famous Sand tarts!

 

 Sand tarts are a very thin sugar cookie that has been a tradition in our family since my great grandmother. When I was little, my mother and I spent the two weeks after Thanksgiving making JUST sand tarts. My mother still does. So far she has over 4,000 made to give away in addition to the other varieties she makes, and she even made some dough this year selling them. I usually make mine the week before Christmas for friends and work cronies at my abode. The recipe is very easy. It should be made the night before and kept in the refrig overnight. The recipe calls for:

Sand tarts
2 1/2 cups of sugar
2 cups of butter (1lb)
2 eggs
4 cups of flour

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and mix. Add flour working it in well. Mix thoroughly with no lumps. Chill overnight. Have some lovely G&T'S in the meantime!!! There always time for a cock-a-tail!  When you go to bake the cookies pull the dough out and let soften before you start to cut the dough into balls. After the dough is softened, I cut the dough off in pieces and into medium size balls, which I love to handle. Who doesn't like to handle balls!

Place wax paper over the dough ball and roll till very thin. This is my mother's trick to getting them soooo thin. Pull off the top layer of wax paper and use for the bottom piece on the next roll-out. Select your cookie cutter of choice. This year I used snowmen, bells ,trees ,and  a star. Every couple of cuts with the cookie cutter I'll dip it in flour so the cutter won't pull the dough up.

Once the dough is rolled out very flat and the design has been pressed ,you remove the extra dough from around the design and place back in the dough bowl for the next batch to be made. This is the time consuming part. The last thing to do is sugar the cookies with a dusting of the colored sugar before sending off to the oven. If you don't care for the sugar you can take a pastry brush and dip in egg white and brush the cookie with it and then garnish with crushed nuts, or a almond.

Once they are in the oven for anywhere for 6-8 minutes the little gems can come out. After 6 minutes I check on them .Everyone's oven is different, so when they look a little golden I take them out. Sometimes I 'll keep them in a little longer for a darker color. The crispy dark ones some people like too, so I will do light and dark ones, just like my men! Once they come out of the oven, they will look like this.

Then it is off to the cooling table. on cooling racks .On the wax paper. You can slide the whole sheet of wax paper off the sheet to the table. Once cooled ,you can pop them off and cool them awhile longer.The finished product......

 This tray was going to be for later after dinner, when we come back for a nightcap. When I have a party here, or at work,  I sometime garnish the platter with mixed nuts or sometimes frame the platter with pine boughs. If you have the time, these cookies really are a hit. But I warn you they are very time consuming to make ,so I hope you have at least a day set aside. Whew! After all the baking was done, the Mistress was bushed! Buster was just waiting all night for a cookie to drop..... he watched like a hawk the whole time....

 

 But in the end it was all worth it. 

Can I help you to a old fashioned of egg nog anyone????

 

 

 I had myself a nice strong glass of egg nog, when done, and then took a nice couple hours nap before going out to dinner. Tootles!