For the month of DECEMBER we’re making:
One recipe every month. Bake it. Share it. Savor it.
Melt Hearts and win Prizes.
For December, we’re making Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies.
Take a photo of your recipe using your phone, camera, iPad, or other device.
• Leave a star recipe review and comment on the recipe post using the same name and email address.
• Receive an automatic bonus entry if you’ve participated in any previous baking challenge before using the widget. You must be logged into the widget to receive this bonus.
THREE Amazon.com $75 gift cards
Winners are picked randomly by our picker generator.
Here at Handle the Heat, we believe in spreading joy in all the ways we can, and making the world a better place one day at a time.
For each valid entry, Handle the Heat will donate $1 to St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital.
Your photos may be put on display to share with my entire audience – that’s hundreds of thousands of people!
Tip 1: How to Make SOFT Sugar Cookies
The extra egg yolk helps to add more moisture and richness for a soft and chewy texture. The other trick is found in the size of the dough ball…. a whole 3 tablespoons in each!
This creates larger cookies that spread out perfectly with ultra-soft centers. Whatever you do, don’t overbake your cookies. They should still look ever so slightly ‘wet’ in the center when you pull them from the oven.
Tip 2: How to Get A Crinkly Top In Cookies
Baking powder is one ingredient that gives these cookies their characteristic cracks, so make sure your baking powder is fresh. Check out my Baking Soda vs Baking Powder article for more details.
You also want to make sure that your butter is at a cool room temperature (67°F) as that can affect the appearance of these cookies as well.
PLUS, rolling the cookies in granulated sugar is important! The sugar helps to draw moisture out from the surface of the cookies while they bake, which dries out the tops before the interior sets, resulting in cracks.
Tip 3: Use the Right Baking Pan!
A light colored aluminum half sheet pan is my favorite for baking cookies. Avoid dark nonstick pans altogether, they brown too much and may burn the bottoms of your cookies.
Check out my Baking Pans 101 post for all the surprising details. Or, just click here to score my favorite baking pans for cookies (and everything else!).
Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookie Variations
If you want to make your cookies festive and pretty without extra work, roll the balls of dough in colored sugar before baking. I like to have one bowl filled with green colored sanding sugar and a separate with red for easy Christmas sugar cookies!
I love my Best Buttercream recipe for these cookies. It’s perfect because you can get creative with the flavor suggestions in that recipe post or even with gel food coloring for a festive flair.
Another favorite is my Best Cream Cheese Frosting recipe!
Winners are selected at random using a name picker generator from among all eligible entries received.
Winner will be notified and must reply with an Amazon account email address. If there’s no response within 2 business days, a new winner will be chosen. We personally contact each winner to confirm their win, so it sometimes take a few days if we don’t receive a response.
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Control (PC) / Command (Mac) + Shift + Delete on your keyboard will clear the cache on most browsers. If you need any help with this, please email support@handletheheat.com and we’ll get you taken care of.
No! This isn’t a beauty contest. A photo snapped on your phone is perfectly fine to submit. Take a photo of your recipe with whatever technology is available to you.
The prize is available to anyone in the world who can shop with Amazon. We will buy your gift card from your country’s Amazon website in the current market value equivalent to U.S. dollars.
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