I do not consider myself a baker. When I cook, I almost never use recipes. My best meals are usually whipped up impromptu, out of leftovers and whatever interesting things I can find. I do have a soft spot for (and a soft belly from) cookies. When I bake, however–which is rare–I have to hit the books, because baking is science more than it is art. You have to worry about acidity, salinity, hydration, protein content, humidity, and a whole host of things that don’t matter much on the stovetop.

When my wife and I decided to throw a “cookie party” for our friends, I decided that I should learn to bake sugar cookies, because it seemed like the simplest cookie to make.I found a great sugar cookie recipe from Alton Brown (which I rewrite below), which makes very nice sugar cookies. I tend to think sugar cookies, unadorned, are a little boring, however. Therefore, I came up with my own recipe for lemon icing, which elevates these sugar cookies to a tasty art form.

Sugar Cookies

Recipe from Alton Brown, rewritten by myself

Oven Temp: 375 degrees F

Cook Time: 9 min

Yield: about 3 dozen-2 1/2 inch

Dry Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tablespoon milk

Dough Preparation

1. Sift together dry ingredients. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar. Essentially, beat them with a mixer until the mixture is light in color.
3. Add the egg and milk, and beat to combine (about 1 minute).
4. Add the dry ingredients bit by bit to the wet ingredients, while beating them, until everything is combined.

This will yield a sugar cookie dough, which can prepare for baking in several ways. You can make drop cookies by dropping teaspoons of the dough on a cookie sheet, smashing it (because sugar cookie dough does not flatten itself while cookie), and baking. This is the fastest option, and can produce rough-looking, mostly round, but still tasty cookies. Alternatively, you may adopt the traditional method: split the dough in half, refrigerate for two hours, then roll and cut for “Christmas cookies.” Or, you may choose my favorite method: roll  the dough into a log, wrap it up in two sheets of plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to a week for “icebox cookies.” When the dough is firm, slice it with a serrated knife into uniform disks, then bake.

Baking

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place cookies at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.

Lemon Icing

This icing made my sugar cookies. The measurements below are not exact.

Ingredients

• zest of 1 lemon
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 cup or so of confectioner’s sugar

Technique

1. Zest the lemon. Add the zest to a small bowl.
2. Juice the lemon. Add the juice to a small bowl.
3. Add confectioner’s sugar to the bowl and mix (a whisk works best), until the icing thickens. The amount of sugar you use depends on the desired consistency of the icing. I prefer to add the confectioner’s sugar until the icing is thick and gooey.

This produces a delicious icing. It is white with little flecks of yellow in it. It tastes strongly of lemon and is very sweet. Only ice the cookies after they have cooled. You may paint the icing on with an offsett spatula, or you may drop the cookies face-down into the icing bowl, lift them out, and scraping off the excess icing. Let the cookies cool until the icing hardens. It will stay firm at room temperature after it sets.