The Mother Of All Butter Cookies (with Endless Variations)

Total Time: 21 mins Preparation Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 11 mins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into bits
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk, approximately

Recipe

• 1 preheat oven to 375 degrees. combine flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt in a food processor, and pulse once or twice. add butter, and pulse 10 or 20 times, until butter and flour are well combined. add vanilla and egg and pulse 3 or 4 times. add about half the milk and pulse 2 or 3 times. add the remaining milk a little at a time, pulsing once or twice after each addition, until the dough holds together in a sticky mass.
• 2 remove the dough from the machine to one or more bowls. make cookies as described in step 3, or make any of the variations below.
• 3 to make cookies, drop rounded teaspoons of dough (you can make the cookies larger or smaller, if you like) onto a nonstick baking sheet, a sheet lined with parchment paper or a lightly buttered sheet. if you want flat cookies, press the balls down a bit with your fingers or the back of a spatula or wooden spoon. bake 11 minutes, or until the cookies are done as you like them. cool on a rack, then store, if necessary, in a covered container.
• 4 variations on the flavor of these butter cookies are limitless. here are a few suggestions:.
• 5 butterscotch cookies: substitute brown sugar for half or more of the sugar, or simply add 1 tablespoon of molasses along with the egg.
• 6 citrus cookies: omit the vanilla, and add 1 tablespoon of lemon or orange juice and 2 teaspoons grated lemon or orange rind along with the egg. a couple of tablespoons of poppy seeds can also be added.
• 7 chocolate chip cookies: stir in about 1 cup of chocolate chips. (the butterscotch variation is good with chocolate chips.).
• 8 other chunky cookies: to the finished batter, add about 1 cup of m& m's (or similar candy), roughly chopped walnuts, pecans or cashews, slivered almonds, raisins, coconut, dried cherries or cranberries. or combine any chunky ingredients you like.
• 9 ginger cookies: add 1 tablespoon ground dried ginger to the dry ingredients. for even better flavor, add 1/4 cup minced crystallized ginger to the batter by hand (this works well in addition to or in place of the ground ginger).
• 10 spice cookies: add 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon each ground allspice and ground ginger and 1 pinch ground cloves and mace or nutmeg to the dry ingredients.
• 11 or you can make rolled cookies by freezing the dough for 15 minutes or refrigerating it for at least 1 hour. working half the dough at a time, roll it out on a lightly floured surface; the dough will absorb some flour at first but will soon become less sticky. do not add more flour than necessary. roll about 1/4 inch thick, and cut with cookie cutters; decorate as you like. bake as above, reducing the cooking time to 8 to 10 minutes.