Nutmeg Maple Butter Cookies

Nutmeg Maple Butter Cookies

Nutmeg Maple Butter Cookies
Nutmeg Maple Butter Cookies

Nutmeg Maple Butter Cookies

Last night I was like “It’s COOKIE TIME!!!!” I may or may not have a problem. Last week I was surfing Smitten Kitchen (like you do) and happened upon these delicious looking nutmeg maple butter cookies. If you still haven’t visited her website, Deb (the author of smittenkitchen.com) is pretty hilarious, and writes very informatively about the food she makes. It’s splendid. Check it out. Anyway, I wanted something easy but not so simple as just a sugar cookie, so I pulled up this recipe.

Nutmeg Maple Butter Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 large egg yolk
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg or 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (because it packs more tightly)
1 teaspoon table salt

Instructions

In an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar, mix together until light and fluffy. With the mixer still mixing, add yolk and slowly drizzle in maple syrup. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, nutmeg and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix until just combined. The dough will be in loose clumps. Gather them together into a tight packet with a large piece of plastic wrap and chill dough for at least two hours until firm. I’ll say that I had some trouble with this. My dough was moist in parts and really dry in others, and was really crumbly, making it difficult to pack it into a nice package and wrap up. Also, once I took it out of the fridge I had to wait for it to warm up a significant amount before I could roll it out without it crumbling all over the place. So be warned: mix VERY thoroughly.

Once you remove the dough from the fridge, preheat oven to 350 degrees and either butter a cookie sheet or cover with parchment paper. Jonah and I save the little papers our butter comes in and keep them in the fridge. They’re great for greasing pans, and they’re free with your butter, unlike parchment paper. Roll out 1/4 of the dough at a time, you’ll have plenty to work with (it’s a lot of dough). Roll to about 1/8 of an inch thick, and cut into whatever shapes you want! I just did circles because…well…I don’t have any other shapes.

Arrange the cookies on baking sheets and bake for 8-11 minutes. They don’t really spread, so they can be pretty close together. Here’s a word about baking time: If you want crunchier edges and harder, chewier cookies, bake closer to 10 or 11 minutes. If you want them a little bit softer and not crunchy edges and bottoms, bake closer to the 8 minute end. I liked them crunchier, Jonah liked them softer, so we did a few batches of each. Transfer to racks or a plate to cool. According to Deb, the cookies keep in an airtight container for a week, or in the freezer till…well, till they aren’t good anymore.

Jonah took some of these into work today, and they were a big hit. I am planning on bringing some to my rehearsal tonight, where I am quickly becoming the cookie lady (or will be after I bring these in). But whatever, everyone in the show is too skinny anyway. They need some butter and sugar.