"Paradise" Cookies

There is a bakery near my office, Paradise Bakery, and we recently had lunch catered at the office. There was a cookie on the tray that pretty much blew my mind. I am a HUGE fan of sprinkles. I love them on just about anything . So this cookie was loaded with sprinkles, crumbly and buttery, oh my. To put it plainly it was "slap yo mama" good. I attempted to recreate this at home and I came pretty close. One of this girls in my office called this cookie her "wedding dress saboteur."

"Paradise" Cookies
yields appx. 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 cups shortening
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 4 1/3 cups cake flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• sugar/sprinkles, for decorating

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugars and shortening on low speed for 30 seconds.
3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula then mix the sugar mixture until light and fluffy (3 minutes on speed setting 4 on my Kitchen Aid)
4. Slowly add the vanilla and beaten egg while mixing.
5. In a seperate bowl, combind the flour, baking soda, baking power and salt.  Gradually add the flour mixutre to the wet ingredeints on slow speed until just blended. Do NOT overmix.
6. Form heaping tablespoons of dough into balls and roll them in sprinkles.  Place directly on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and flatten slightly with palm of hand.
7. Bake for 9-10 minutes.  Cookies are done when small cracks appear on the top and are pale golden brown.  Ideally, you do not want the edges to brown.

Notes

• I love giant cookies, so I used a 1/4 c. ice cream scoop to form the cookies. I got about 20 giant cookies.
• Make sure to line your cookie sheet because these are very soft when they come out of the oven and if you tried to move them too soon they will crumble.  I usually slide the parchment paper onto the kitchen counter and let them cool before trying to take them off the paper.
• These cookies do not spread much at all, so make sure to flatten them almost completely to the size you want them.
• My first attempt at these I rolled the entire dough ball in the sprinkles. Big mistake. The sprinkles on the bottom melted and basically glued the cookie to the sheet. On the second batch I rolled just the top of ball in sprinkles and left the part that sits on the baking sheet naked. Much better.