One bite into these sugar cookies and I was transported to my Grandma's kitchen. By the second bite, I had tears in my eyes. The flavor is all its own and unlike any other sugar cookie.
The recipe actually belonged to my Great-Grandmother and came to me via one of my uncles, the real chef in the family, Stevie. Remember his pancakes? I can not thank him enough for sending this my way.
After years of attempting other sugar cookie recipes to capture the taste of his childhood, Steve asked his mother for the recipe. The secret ingredient: lard.
The recipe was written very much in shorthand - a list of ingredients with no other instructions. After all, a good farm wife would just automatically know the amount of flour and how to handle the dough. Grandma provided some notes to Steve whom graciously provided them to me. The instructions below are hers along with my modifications.
These can be rolled and cutout if you want. Steve remembers his mother rolling them out thinner than normal, cutting half as circles and the second half with the doughnut cutter so there was a little hole in the middle. Then adding a spoon of homemade jam to the first, topping with the second for a filled cookie with a window. By the time I came around, the grandkids simply had dropped sugar cookies (she was done rolling out dough by then).
It gives me much joy to watch my sons indulge on their great-great-grandmother's sugar cookie recipe.
SUGAR COOKIES
2 cups sugar
1 cup lard
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp soda
Flour to roll
Grandma's instructions: Cream the sugar and lard, then add eggs one at a time. Alternate adding flour and sour cream. Usually start with 2-3 cups flour. Chill dough and then knead in more flour, less flour for softer cookies.
Notes: The cookies in photo above had 4 cups of flour. An earlier recipe made with less flour resulted in very flat, homely cookies. Delicious but very delicate. By adding more flour, I was able to skip the kneading process after the dough had chilled. I pre-scooped the balls of dough, sprinkled with sugar and laid on a parchment-paper lined sheet pan to chill. When it was time to bake, I moved the chilled balls to lined cookie sheets and baked at 350 for ~14 minutes.