June Keys Sugar Cookies

It has been awhile since I posted a recipe.  Since I last posted so much has happened.

My Mini-Me has gotten her drivers license. My Mini Farmer has graduated from bicycle to dirt bike.  Both have raised calves from bottle to market and learned all kinds of skills. I graduated from Iowa State with my Masters Degree in Ag Education last May (2019) after a seven year odyssey of online and in-person classes.  I’m not the same person I was before I started that degree.  I am more tolerant of some things and far less tolerant of other things.  

Things my family said the day of my graduation just made me chuckle and were the perfect reflection of who we have grown to be as a family.  My husband as he tried to get all of us ducks in a row… “We may be red necks but we don’t have to look like hillbillies!” When the 10 year old boy was told to get back on the sidewalk, “but there were some really cool manhole covers I wanted to check out.” To my sassy 15 year daughter telling her dad he “better watch out, mom just got one degree hotter!”

When I graduated last spring, I didn’t think my degree was going to lead to what I had wanted… a teaching job. I had struggled to finish my degree.  We really didn’t have that kind of money to spend on something just for me and I was struggling to hear what God wanted me to do with it or even if He was going to bless it. I didn’t feel like I could hear Him or my family as I kept pushing toward that goal.

But as we headed into fair season with the kids, their calves and projects, the ag teaching job in our school district opened up and I was fortunate enough to be hired to teach there.  There wasn’t much time from my hired date, to the start of school and I continued to help at my old job of fundraising at the local community college the first few weeks of teaching.  I also had to overcome the issue of not being able to student teach through my masters degree before I could be in my own classroom. 

I investigated the rapid licensure program through our state’s regent universities. I found out they were unwilling to work with me and were going to require me to take the full two years of courses, even though I had taken similar if not identical courses through my masters program.  I then discovered Morningside College’s two year program and after evaluating my transcripts, they determined I could join the second year or the internship year of their program.

This first year has been a lot.  Taking two classes each semester, having six preps each day and being in two buildings was daunting… But I loved working with the kids and learning new things as I taught them to the students.  I hit several speed bumps through the year, learned how much I didn’t know and missed a lot of time with my family.  I know that the COVID19 pandemic has had some serious consequences for our family farm, agriculture and our community, but I can’t help but be thankful for some differently engaged time. I had been so sick in February and I was so grateful to be able to get some much needed sleep and recuperation from that.  Leaving school in mid March allowed me to work with two other more experienced teachers in online teaching and gave me a second to breathe in the classes that I was taking second semester. I can’t help but think it was a gift in some ways.

My house still isn’t clean though… I had such high hopes that I would get the office organized, my kitchen floor washed and laundry caught up and put away.  I’ve realized that maybe its not just that I don’t have time to do those things…maybe I just don’t want to do them.  I’m going to have to get better at wanting to do that stuff.

One thing I have traditionally avoided like the plague and washing dishes is making cookies.  Anyone who knows me very well, knows that cookies are just not my thing.  I avoid making them like I avoid washing my kitchen floor and folding socks. I have a hard time interpreting when they are done, to the point where they will still be chewy but fully cooked.  I usually error on the overdone side or get busy and don’t hear my oven timer and end up throwing away pans full of cookies just shades away from charcoal…

As I stand over my trash with my beloved SilPat nonstick cooking mats to help with the cookie mess, I can hear in my mind my mom quoting her mom.  “Grandma Fern would always say ‘Only one thing worse than a burnt cookie… a whole pan of them.’” You were so right Grandma Fern.

Cookies have been my nemesis. With social distancing, I decided that I would try to make ten batches of cookies with no burnt ones to try to redeem my lackluster cookie reputation.  I am nothing if not tenacious.  So far I’ve made triple chocolate, knock off hotel chocolate chip, and June Keys Sugar Cookies. I also made Amaretto Apple turnovers, but those were more like my beloved pie than cookies, because honestly I needed a break from my cookie pans.

The batch that was eaten the fastest was the June Keys Sugar Cookie. They are a favorite of my husband.  I’ve been making them for him since we were undergrads at ISU together.  It is one of the few cookies that if I pay attention to the timer, will turn out beautifully every time.  June was a gracious and sweet lady from my hometown who welcomed my mom to her new community as a newly wed.  June’s cookie recipe was shared with my mom and they were known by their original bakers name in our home. I hope that I can some day share a cookie or recipe with a friend and it gains that kind of name permanence. 

June passed away several years ago, but her cookie recipe lives on in my kitchen. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

June Keys Sugar Cookies

The groceries:

1 C Powdered Sugar

1 C Granulated Sugar

1 C Vegetable Oil

1 C Margarine

2 Eggs

(optional 1 generous teaspoon vanilla extract)

4 C All Purpose Flour

1 t Baking Soda

1 t Cream of Tartar

½ t Salt

The process:

Cream together the sugars, oil, margarine, eggs and flavoring if you use it.

Whisk together the dry ingredients.

Blend the dry and wet ingredients together just until everything is moist.

Use a cookie scoop to make balls of dough on a cookie sheet.

Squish the balls lightly with a sugar dipped glass bottom. (I use my smallest jelly jars)

Bake at 350 for 9-12 minutes depending on your oven.  Do not let get browned!

Cool on a rack and store in a covered container. 

These freeze well after being baked.