Cookie Disaster

The weekend before Christmas I attempted to make some sugar cookies. Growing up, I remember several years in a row where I made the delicious cookies that everybody loved. Along the way, I lost the recipe & I've been determined to try recipes until I find something that produces these soft, fluffy and slightly chewy delights.
I found this recipe that looked like a good place to start, but it just went downhill and kept going. With my utter lack of a baking gene, I forgot that most sugar cookies are the roll-out flat & use cookie cutter kind. Either I did something wrong or these really weren't supposed to be the type that start out as rolled balls. My first batch is on the right, minus one bite I took out of a cookie. Then I read the line where I was instructed to roll the dough in sugar to coat the outside, and that batch on the left.

Then I became too interested in my wine or the movie and burned a batch.

I thought perhaps the cookies could be salvaged with some great icing, but this was just another tumble down the baking hill. I was really surprised the amount of shortening (pure fat!) that the cookie recipe and the icing recipe indicated.

As you can see even the icing came out much more like paste and not very "spreadable" onto the cookies. H & I ate a few, but threw most of the very fattening cookies away. Anybody have any good cookie suggestions? Almost the same consistency as the famous Wal-mart sugar cookies with the pink icing.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Hopefully this time next week, I will be home from running a great marathon & packing our stuff for DC.