Stars and "The Juice"

Let's get back to some normalcy, shall we, my regular crew of readers? Usually my stat chart resembles gently rolling hills: 200 one day, 230 the next, etc. When my mighty sister links to me, that line graph becomes the Grand Tetons for a few days. Then when Roger Ebert linked to me on Sunday, and that is still completely surreal to think about, it was as though Mt. Everest had plopped itself into my stats. Four thousand readers in 24 hours.

You might ask me, "What did you do during that crazy day?" Well, I set my laptop on a kitchen counter and monitored the situation while doing a lot of baking, including the cookies you see above. A reporter from the Champaign newspaper had asked me if she could come to my studio and interview me for a sort of "artist of the week" feature. We set that up last week, a few days before the Ebertsplosion, as I'm calling it. Anyway, what kind of gracious, Nigella-like hostess would I be if I didn't provide the cute snacks?

So I made these chocolate cut-outs. The recipe is from Martha Stewart's Cookies. I make her regular sugar cookies so often that now the book naturally opens to that page. This recipe is on the page before that one, and I've wondered about them for a year and a half. Powdered sugar instead of granulated? No leavening at all? Are they any good?

Like Martha would put up with anything but perfection. They're delectable. During the split second it takes to eat them, right before they melt away, if you listen carefully you can hear the cookies cry out their dying wish: "Please put another one just like me in your mouth immediately!"

The dough is harder to deal with than that of regular sugar cookies, and you will not like the fact that you'll have to work quickly. Crank up the air conditioning, too, because it will become limp and floppy in a hurry. Martha claims that you can wad the dough up and roll it out again and again "without any compromise in texture or flavor," and this is true, but it's not for beginners.

Still with me? Let's give these a shot. New readers: my notes are in italics. If you're not into cookies for whatever screwed up reason, please scroll down if you'd like to see the start of my new painting. And after that I have another hilarious Martha video.

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 C flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 C plus 2 T Dutch-process cocoa powder <-- Which I used; if you only have regular cocoa, you're on your own here. I think the Dutch c.p. must contain special properties that make leavening unnecessary, but that's just a theory. I do not know what it does.
1/8 t salt
1/4 t cinnamon <-- I skipped this. I kind of dislike the combination of chocolate and cinnamon. It just seems wrong to me.
3/4 C (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 C powdered sugar
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla

DIRECTIONS

Sift flour, cocoa powder, salt, and cinnamon into a bowl. Nah, just dump them all in and whisk.

Put butter and powdered sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Gradually mix in flour mixture. Wrap dough in plastic wrap. I made multiple disks; that worked well. Refrigerate until firm, 1 hour or overnight.

Check your email. Oh look, your art website is crashing!

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to 1/8" thick. They're also good maybe a tiny bit thicker than that. Transfer rolled-out dough disks to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Have fun with that one! Chill in freezer 15 minutes.

Check your email. Dude, he tweeted about the blog you wrote about his tweet! And people are reading it!

Preheat oven to 350.

Using a 3-inch cookie cutter (sure, Martha), quickly cut out shapes from dough (if dough begins to soften, chill it in freezer for 3 to 5 minutes). Reroll and cut scraps. Transfer shapes to prepared baking sheets (parchment paper), spacing them 2 inches apart. Entirely unnecessary. They do not spread out.

Brush flour from shapes. Sprinkle with nonpariels, if using. Chill in freezer until firm, about 15 minutes.

Check your email. WTF, Roger Ebert is following you on Twitter now!

Bake cookies until crisp, about 8 minutes. I like mine a little less crisp, so I baked them for 7 minutes. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks.

Makes about 4 dozen; impossible to know for sure because I couldn't stop eating them.

You don't need to ice them, but I wanted to, using a standard royal icing recipe (1 pound powdered sugar, 5 T meringue powder, scant 1/2 C water, mix like crazy). I made the muted colors above by adding tiny amounts of brown to standard pastel colors. "I'm adding brown because of cocoa," I found myself thinking over and over again and nodding like some crazy woman grappling with the demands of instant superstardom. I mean, there's a reason I made all of them stars.

Kidding. You guys do realize that you can buy my paintings any time, right? They won't bite. No, in fact they will love you!

Above: a little boy nicknamed The Juice. This is part of a much larger painting wherein The Juice is getting a haircut in a barbershop surrounded by taxidermy (deer, fish). In the painting, his entire head is much smaller than what you see here--it's more like three inches tall. The painting was very difficult (6 hours on this part alone!) and I'm still not done with the face. I need to do a couple of minor things to make him look pudgier, I think. I've always maintained that blonds have the toughest coloring to paint, and children are the toughest age to paint...so blond children are exhausting. But awfully cute.