A favourite of my daughters and wife. These cookies are delicious. Soft, crunchy and light.

Shamelessly stolen from King Arthur Baking. These cookies are really easy to mix, fun for the kids to roll in their hands and then in sugar.

This is a recipe that’s easy to double, which I find myself needing to do very often.

Most cookie recipes I have found use all-purpose/plain flour, but I generally just have self-raising in the house. Turns out that most recipes can be adapted around this alteration, and it isn’t the end of the world, yielding a cookie that can be both chewy and crunchy, without the addition of baking soda, baking powder, and cream cheese as in King Arthur Baking’s standard sugar cookie recipe.

Ingredients

  • 200 g granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 115 g softened butter
  • 1 large egg
  • 230 g self-raising flour
  • 50 g granulated sugar

Cookware

  • 1 oven
  • 1 large bowl

Steps

  1. If you're in a rush to get these baked, preheat the oven to 190°c now.
  2. Into a large bowl, beat together the granulated sugar, vanilla extract, and softened butter until fluffy.
  3. Mix in the egg, then mix in the self-raising flour. Scrape and mix until thoroughly combined.
  4. If you have time, chill the dough for at least 30 minutes. Preheat the oven towards the end of the chilling time. This makes it easier to work with the dough.
  5. Prep a baking sheet either by greasing it, or lining with parchment paper.
  6. Put the granulated sugar for garnish in a small bowl.
  7. Pick out a roughly round lump of dough, about 2/3cm wide, or use a tablespoon to scoop a ball of dough. Now roll it into a ball between the palms of your hands, then garnish with sugar. Dunk them and place sugar-side up on the baking sheet, or if you have a sweet tooth, roll the ball in the sugar before placing on the baking sheet. No need to pat it down, they will spread and flatten during baking, just be sure to leave about 5-6cm between the balls.
  8. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned. They're puffy and soft fresh out the oven, but fall slightly and become crunchier around the edges as they cool.
  9. After removing from the oven leave to cool on the tray for 5 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack. Alternatively, if you'd like one extra soft they're delicious when still warm.

Supposedly these cookies last a week if wrapped properly, but I'll have to take the original writer's word for that, because they have yet to last more than a day in my house.