One a day, plus iron

Sand Tarts, a holiday cookie. NOT FOR BEGINNERS

1 1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter (real, best you can afford. Plugra is my favorite)
1 egg
1 egg yolk (reserve white for later)
1 t. vanilla
1 t. lemon rind, freshly grated
3 cups flour
1/4 t. salt

Cream sugar and butter, add egg & yolk & vanilla & lemon rind & salt. Finally add flour. Dough is VERY FIRM and you may need to use your hands and kinda knead to get it all mixed in. Make into 8 equal-size hamburger-style patties, put patties in ziplock baggies (two patties fit in a quart ziplock, they cannot touch or be stacked) overnight in the fridge. Patties will be FAR EASIER for you to roll out on the morrow, not even remotely kidding here.

Roll thin. (Cookies are translucent when made properly. You can see light through them.) Cut out into (ideally) spade shapes. Decorate each cookie with egg white glaze, sliver of sliced almond, sprinkle of sugar.

Bake until slightly brown around the edges. They cook fast. You are allowed to take them out, remove the brownest ones, and put the tray back in for more browning.

Bake at 400F for about six to eight minutes. Watch very carefully.

DO NOT MAKE THESE COOKIES IN THE SUMMERTIME, HUMIDITY WILL RUIN THEM. (I say this because I have done it. They lose crispyness in about thirty minutes. It is horrifying. DO NOT make these cookies in the summertime.)

I mixed up dough for sand tarts this morning. They're one of my more-favorite holiday cookies. There are others that I can make, but I don't like them as well. My very favoritest cookie is oatmeal-raisin-walnut, but they are not festive. I am also not amenable to suggestions like "So add colored sprinkles to them!" -- anyone who suggests such a thing will be soundly ignored and damn lucky I don't stone them. Heretics. I also kind of like moravian spice cookies, but they're a fair amount of work and there will be bitching if I don't make them in different shapes.

I am morally opposed to cookie shapes outside of the approved forms which are as follows:

• oatmeal -- round lumps
• sand tarts -- spade shaped
• currant cookies -- round with fluted edge
• brownies -- squares
• moravian spice cookies -- plain round, or the four suits of cards: diamond, spade, heart, and club. Make equal amounts of each suit.

As I do not make any other cookies, it doesn't matter what shape they are. Full disclosure: The thing with cookie shapes is not due to some sort of horrible childhood indoctrination. I was raised in a normal household with all manner of cookie cutters for the holidays. We were encouraged to be creative and to express ourselves with the cookie shapes. However, I have found that I'm happier when things match. Multiple styles of cookie drive me batshit. I like ONE style of cookie so that at the end of the day I have forty-eight (or whatever) absolutely identical, look-like-they've-been-mass-produced 100% uniform cookies... that, I like. It makes me happy.

(All ya'll who are now rolling your eyes, think for a minute -- every chef on the planet cooks like this. If a chef is plating a hundred servings of the main entree, he or she should produce a hundred absolutely identical plates. There is nothing wrong with this. The only people who slam uniformity in cooking are the ones who can't fucking manage it.)

Anyway. Sand tarts.

Cream 3/4 cup of butter and 1 1/4 cup sugar.
Add 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest, 1/4 teaspoon salt, one egg, one egg yolk (reserve white for later)
Mix.
Add 3 cups of flour, one cup at a time, mixing with a sturdy spoon. Most mixers won't handle this. You may have to sort of knead the last cup in with your hands.

Divide dough into four balls and shape each ball into a flattened hamburger-patty shape. Put the patties (laid flat) in a gallon ziplock and set them in the fridge overnight. (The reason you are dividing the dough now is that it will harden up solid like a rock by tomorrow morning and you will not be able to divide it then. Just divide the dough now. I've made these before, and I know how it works. Take my word for it. This step is WORTH YOUR TIME.)

Preheat oven to 400. Roll out one patty of dough pretty damn thin. Do not overflour. Work quickly in a cool setting. Chill leftover bits while you work through the other fresh patties. You can reroll the dough twice before cookie quality is adversely affected. When cutting out cookies, place cutters carefully to maximize dough use so that you can avoid rerolling. (Spade shapes do not tile well. This is unfortunate, but life is like that sometimes.)

Cut cookies into shapes. The world will not end if you make some other shape, but spades are proper. Put cookies on cookie sheet. They don't move much, so you can put them pretty close together. I do not suggest using the air-bake cookie sheets. With sand tarts, browning is essential so that they develop the full buttery flavor. Browning happens a lot better on regular old-style cookie sheets. Now, using the egg white from before, glaze top of each cookie. (Use your finger for this. Dip finger in egg white, smear egg white over cookie. You will not die of salmonella. One egg white is sufficient for one batch of cookies.) Put one sliver of slivered almond on each cookie and then sprinkle a pinch of sugar over that.

Cook at 400 for eight minutes or until nicely browned on the bottom. They burn fairly quickly, so keep a sharp eye on 'em. I only do one tray at a time because they are sort of fussy. These should be stored in an airtight thingie or else they get soggy. They're supposed to be crispity.

The doily project continues. The bookcase DVD shelving unit project had been put on hold until I located the paint, which I have now done. I have even opened the paint and it is still a liquid, so we're two for two, here. There will be painting tonight, I think. Possibly there will also be cookies. Cookies AND painting. I can see that.