Mildred and the Sand Tarts

Mildred was a beagle.  She was our family pet in the late 70's and early 80's.

Mildred was a great dog.  She was smart, and loyal, and the only one of our beagles who managed to not get herself run over and killed by a car.  She loved all of us, but especially my mother - she refused to sleep anywhere else except under Mom's bed.

Mildred was not aware that she was not human.  She fully thought of herself as one of the family.

She also had a sweet tooth.  Mildred dearly loved candy.  At Christmas time, Mom would always have little dishes of hard candies on coffee tables and other places around the house.  If you were sitting in a chair next to a dish of candy, Mildred would sit in front of you, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, and whimper softly.  She was entirely irresistible, and she would pester you until you gave in and fed her a piece of candy.  However, we could leave the house with her alone in it, and she would not steal the candy while we were away.  She only ever once tried to steal candy, and that was when there was a dish of candy sitting on top of the piano.  We were all in the kitchen when suddenly we heard a loud note from the piano.  We went into the living room, and there was Mildred.  Her hind legs were on the piano bench, her left leg was poised motionless in mid-air, and her right leg was on the piano key which had told on her.  She was looking in our direction, and had an expression on her face that said, "Uh-oh.  I got caught."  Of course, we all laughed hysterically.

Every year at Christmas, Mom would let us help make sand tarts.  Sand tarts are the absolutely tastiest sugar cookies in the entire world.  Mom got the recipe from my paternal grandmother, and I'm sure it has been handed down for many generations.  I don't know why they are called sand tarts.  I suspect it's a bastardization of some German word, but I don't really know.  All I know is that they're simple and crisp and buttery and my favorite cookies ever.

So every year, Mom would mix up a batch of sand tarts, roll them out, cut them with cookie cutters, and place them on cookie sheets (or on sheets of aluminum foil, which would later go on the cookie sheets).  Then it was our job to brush them with an egg wash and sprinkle them with colored sugar.  Then she would bake them, and remove them to a rack to cool.  Often, she would make sand tarts (and other Christmas cookies) ahead of time, and put them in the freezer.  I got pretty adept at opening the freezer noiselessly and stealing cookies!  (Actually, I was a little too good at it - once, I did it so often that Mom ended up not having enough cookies, and I got in trouble.)

So one year, when we were making sand tarts, we thought they would make lovely decorations for the Christmas tree.  So we poked little holes in the cookie dough before they were baked, and then when they were cooled, we put ornament hangers in the holes, and decorated the Christmas tree with sand tarts.  The tree looked very pretty.

And then, one day, we noticed that there were only sand tarts on the top half of the tree!  Mildred had been unable to resist the temptation of the low-hanging cookies, and had eaten them all up.

Here's the recipe for sand tarts.  I'm a little hesitant to give it.  It seems so easy, but one year I made a batch and took them into the office.  Everyone wanted the recipe, and two women actually tried to make them.  One of them had cookies that looked perfect, but had absolutely no taste.  She vowed that she had used real butter and pure vanilla extract, but I suspect she substituted something somewhere.  The other one made cookies that tasted good, but which she had not rolled out very thin, and they were as hard as hockey pucks.  So just remember this:  use only real butter (I always use salted butter) and pure vanilla extract.  And roll them as thinly as you can, less than 1/8 of an inch.

Sand tarts

1 lb. confectioner's (icing) sugar (about 3 3/4 cups, or a little less than 1/2 kg.)
1/2 lb. butter (I use salted butter.  If using unsalted butter, you would need to add a little salt to the dough.)
2 eggs
1 lb. flour (3-4 cups)
2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg, beaten with 1 T. water
Colored sugar for decoration (you can buy colored sugar, or just add some food coloring to granulated sugar)

If you have a stand mixer, it is perfect for making sand tarts.  Otherwise, you can make the dough by hand, but it will take a little longer.

Cream the butter and sugar together until they are light and fluffy.  Add the eggs and vanilla, and mix until they are well incorporated.  Add the flour a cup at a time, and mix until the dough has a consistency similar to pie dough, and can be easily rolled out.

Roll out the dough paper-thin - less than 1/8 of an inch thick.  Cut them out with cookie cutters or with a glass turned upside-down, and transfer them to cookie sheets.  (Because I only have two cookie sheets, I cut all the cookies out and put them onto aluminum foil.  I then just transfer the foil to the cookie sheets as each batch comes out of the oven.)

Brush each cookie with the egg wash, and sprinkle with colored sugar.  You can also use other decorations such as colored sprinkles or cinnamon hearts.

Bake at 400° for about 8 minutes, or until golden brown.  Because they are so thin, sand tarts burn easily, so don't wait for 8 minutes before checking on them.  You should check on them at 6 minutes, to ensure they don't burn.

Remove them to a cooling rack.  Cookies will crisp up as they cool.

This recipe makes A LOT of cookies - probably 12 dozen or so.  I've developed my own tradition living alone - one December Saturday, I put my recording of The Messiah on the CD player, and make sand tarts.  By the time The Messiah is finished, so are the sand tarts.