Wowie these are delicious cookies. Or are they a pastry? They are honestly a wonderful combination! These lovely little things come from a 1950s edition of Pillsbury’s Best Butter Cookies. with the name “Starlight Sugar Crisps.” I wanted something fun and different to make for Valentine’s Day this year and these cookies hit the mark. I found the original Pillsbury cookbook in my grandma’s collection and when I saw these I knew I had to try them.
Ingredients you will need
- Active Dry Yeast
- Hot water (120-130 Degrees)
- Flour
- Salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- Eggs
- Sour Cream (or whole-fat yogurt)
- Vanilla Extract & Vanilla Beans
- Sugar: for this recipe, you will make vanilla sugar, I added a few more steps and made Vanilla Bean sugar. It is just as simple, you will just need vanilla beans. if you make your own vanilla extract, those beans work best!
Recipe Tips & Tricks
Yeast – I use red star platinum baking yeast and I always get amazing results. This is the yeast you just add to the flour, then add the hot liquid later. I have never had this yeast mess up, and I love that I don’t have to “bloom” any yeast!
The recipe calls for sour cream, however, you can substitute that for whole-fat plain yogurt. I used Nancy’s plain whole-fat yogurt and they turned out great! I would imagine other fat percentages of yogurt would work the same, however I haven’t tried it!
Twisting the dough – The easiest way to twist the dough was to place the cut strips onto a baking mat and use one finger to hold down one end, while you twist the other end.
Baking tools I used
How to make Starlight Sugar Crisps
How to make starlight sugar crisps: Combine the flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add Red Star Premimum yeast to the flower. On low speed, cut in butter until no sizes larger than small peas remain.
Add eggs, sour cream (or yogurt if you choose), and 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and the hot water to the bowl. Mix until a sticky dough forms. Form dough into a disk and wrap it in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees—line baking sheets with parchment and set aside. Combine the sugar and remaining vanilla to make vanilla sugar.
Cut the dough disk in half. Sprinkle the work surface with the vanilla sugar mixture and begin rolling half of the dough in an 8×16 rectangle.
Fold the dough over three times, sprinkling sugar on the dough each time. Roll once more into an 8×16 rectangle. Cut into 32 4×1 strips. Repeat the process with the second half of the dough.
Twist cookies (2-3 times) and place on prepared baking sheets.
Bake in preheated oven for 10 – 12 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden brown. Remove from oven and immediately transfer to cooling rack.
Store cookies in an airtight container for no more than two days.
Starlight Sugar Crisp video tutorial
Starlight Sugar Crisps
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 pkg yeast
- 1/4 cups Water (warm)
- 3 1/2 cups Flour
- 1 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 cup Butter
- 2 Eggs (beaten)
- 1/2 cup Sour cream
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
Vanilla Sugar
- 1 ½ cups Sugar
- 3 Vanilla Beans
Instructions
- Sift together flour and salt in large mixing bowl.
- Cut in the butter until particles are the size of small peas.
- Blend in beaten eggs, sour cream, and vanilla
- Add the softened yeast.
- Mix thoroughly and cover. Chill at least 2 hours.
Preparing dough
- Combine 1 ½ c. sugar and 2 tsp. Vanilla in a small bowl. Mix well.
- Roll out half of chilled dough on board that has been sprinkled with about ½ c. of the vanilla sugar.
- Roll out to a 16 x 8 inch rectangle. Sprinkle with about 1 Tbsp. more vanilla sugar.
- Fold one end of dough over center.
- Fold other end over to make three layers.
- Turn ¼ way around and repeat rolling and folding twice, sprinkle board with additional vanilla sugar as necessary.
- Roll out to a 16 x 8 inch rectangle ¼-inch think.
- Cut into 4 x 1 inch strips.
- Twist each strip 2 or 3 times.
- Place on ungreased baking sheets.
- Repeat entire process with remaining dough.
- Bake at 375℉ for 10-12 minutes until light golden brown.
- Remove from baking sheet at once.
If you like Starlight Sugar Crips, check out cookie recipes
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