Dark Brown Sugar Cookies

Nick's work is having a bake sale today and they asked me to contribute something. I didn't want to buy any expensive ingredients, but I wanted the cookies to be delicious. Delicious and simple. So I switched brown sugar for white sugar in a simple sugar cookie recipe, used the salted butter that was in the fridge; and the result is something that tastes rich and complex like salted caramel. 

The only extravagant thing about these is the turbinado sugar ("sugar in the raw"), which I already had on hand from a different batch of cookies, cookies for some people on whom I desperately wanted to make a good impression, oh! And the cinnamon in my cupboard was from Penzey's Spices in Chicago - a precious gift, from a very dear friend! 

2 sticks softened salted butter

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 cups sifted flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon, or to taste

3/4 tsp vanilla extract, or to taste

Turbinado sugar

Mix the sugar with the butter, then add the spices, then incorporate the flour. The dough will be dry-ish and crumbly-ish, but moldable. Divide it into 32nds, and form the portions into balls. Smash them into a plate of turbinado sugar, so that they become thick discs half covered with turbinado sugar; place them sugar-side up on a baking pan lined with parchment, and bake for ten to fifteen minutes in a 350-ish oven, until puffed in the center and just barely brown around the edges. 

These cookies will be crunchy if you leave them exposed to air, or chewy if you store them in a plastic bag.