Mashuganuts

This is my recipe for nutty sugar cookies (insert stupid pun here) ok, that wasn't fair, my name for these things is a stupid pun. Anyway, these are seriously the easiest cookies you'll ever make and if you don't care at all AT ALL about carbs or sugar, then you'll eat a whole plate full, and good luck with that food coma. Ok I'm really not selling this well, but let's just put it this way. Next time you're PMSing/hungover/dumped bake a batch of these, put on Dawson's Creek reruns and have a good cry, not on the cookies though, they are supposed to be crispy on the outside melt-in-your-mouth goodness on the inside. 

Since baking is like chemistry, you have to measure shit. Sorry. So here goes. 2 1/2 cups of white all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 cups of white sugar, (brown sugar is for chocolate chip cookies) 1 tablespoon of baking powder, 1 egg, 1 cup of butter (don't you dare substitute butter for anything, i'd rather have these not made at all than you using margarine!), 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 1 tablespoon of hazlenut extract. I like to use hazelnut because it contrasts with the almonds I put in, but really you can use any combo. Like almond extract with walnuts, I don't care go nuts. 

Mix the flour and baking powder, and melt the butter but just barely in the microwave (DO NOT NUKE IT)  just make it soft (again, insert pun if you must) and mix in with the sugar until creamy and smooth. OK there is just no way to make this not dirty is there? Then mix in the egg and the extract and then slowly add the dry ingredients incrementally until you have that wonderful cookie dough texture. Then, add a pinch of salt, just a tiny pinch seriously, and a few handfuls of nuts, I like to use as you know, almond slivers. It keeps me from eating them by the handful (I know, I'm weird). How do you make round cookies? Use two spoons. Keep transferring about a spoonful of the mixture from one to another until you have a damn near perfect ball (pun #4 woohoo!) then put on some wax paper or foil that has been greased or lubricated (my god this is really hard to do). Bake in an oven that has been preheated for 30 minutes at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes until the rounds of the cookies are dark and the cookie itself is flat. Then take out of the oven, let stand for about 10 minutes also and enjoy with milk...or wine. Now that I think about it, wine. Always wine. Just don't dunk.