I'm not a great cook, but I love to bake cookies. For many years, while my children were small, I collected different cookie cutters and tried out lots of recipes. Our favorites were sugar cookies (made with powdered confectioner's sugar, not granulated), spicy Wishing Cookies and the old stand-bys oatmeal/Rice Krispie cookies, spritz butter cookies, molasses cookies and, of course, peanut-butter blossoms (you know, the ones with Hershey Kisses in the middle).
Well, this year, I had promised to bake four dozen for our church's annual "cookie walk" and another dozen to give to the museum where my son volunteers ... and another dozen to the animal clinic where our beardie goes all too often ... and another dozen to a friend who had been particularly helpful ... so, I ended up with lots of promises and not lots of time.
SO, I spent an entire afternoon/evening baking the four dozen for church. I tried some new recipes and a few completely FLOPPED, but that story is better saved for another post! Anyhow, time was slipping away and I knew I just couldn't make all that dough. While I was in the grocery store, I spied the Pillsbury Sugar Cookie roll in the refrigerator section. YES! This was my answer! I rolled out the dough in flour and powdered sugar, cut out the cutest shapes, sprinkled them with sugar and baked them. They came out thin, crispy and quite delicious, I might add! I packaged them up in small, cellophane bags and handed them out.
When my son brought them into the museum, everyone loved them! One woman went wild over them and wanted the recipe! My son and I laughed at that! Imagine! Wanting the recipe! If she only she knew!
A couple of weeks after Christmas, when our beardie went back to the vet, one of the technicians stopped me and said, "Your cookies were fabulous! Absolutely fabulous! Now, I make a pretty good sugar cookie," she went on. "But yours ... well, yours are perfect! They are the perfect sugar cookie! I must have your recipe. Really, you have to give it to me!" she exclaimed.
Innocently, I said, "Well, do you use powdered sugar in yours?"
"Yes," she said, "I do."
There were lots of people paying and checking out with their pets, so I hesitated until the room had cleared. Then, I leaned over the counter and whispered, "Do you really want the recipe? Do you want to know my secret?"
"Yes! Yes!" she insisted.
"Well," I swallowed hard, wondering how she'd take it when she learned the truth ... "they are just the Pillsbury Sugar Cookie roll. You know, the blue rolls you find in the refrigerator section."
"NO!" she gasped in amazement. "You mean to tell me that I've been working hard all these years to find the perfect sugar cookie ... chilling the dough for hours ... and all the time ..."
"Yes," I interrupted. "They're Poppin' Fresh!"
She squinted her eyes conspiratorially. "You are good!" she whispered as she wrote the secret on a Post-It note and stuffed it into her pocket.
I have a sneaking suspicion her sugar cookies are going to be absolutely perfect next year!
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