I’m pleased to announce that my entry in Spoonflower’s “Grandma’s Kitchen” tea towel design challenge made the top 10 this week! This was such a fun theme to work on — starting with going through recipe cards with my mom to pick out a few family favorites.

We settled on my grandmother’s sugar cookie recipe, for which she was mildly famous (at least within our extended family). She used to press the cookies flat with the cut-glass bottom of a drinking glass before baking them, leaving a pretty flower pattern on the cookies. When she passed away, each of her kids got one of the glasses so they could carry on the tradition. Pretty cool.

Of course, my grandmother knew her recipes so well she never had to write anything down, so this recipe card is actually written in my mom’s handwriting, and carries the marks of many years of vanilla extract and buttery fingers.

I decided to play against the vintage scanned recipe card with more modern accents, like a stylized drinking glass and cookies and simplified lace doilies in the background.

You can buy the Grandma’s Sugar Cookies fabric at Spoonflower, or have Roostery sew up a set of their Orpington Tea Towels (it prints the right way round, even though the preview may be sideways).

If you’d like to give the recipe a try, here’s the slightly modified version (replacing shortening with butter) we made this week to celebrate:

Sugar Cookies
Makes: 6 dozen cookies

2 c. butter
1 c. granulated sugar
1 c. powdered sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cream of tartar
4 c. flour

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Sift together baking soda, cream of tartar and flour. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugars in mixing bowl.
4. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
5. Beat in flour mixture.
6. Chill in refrigerator (at least 1/2 hour or up to overnight). Or, if you’re lazy like me, skip this step entirely…
7. Roll dough into small balls. Place on greased or silicone-mat-lined cookie sheet.
8. Press dough balls flat with fork or bottom of glass, dipped in sugar.
9. Bake 8-10 minutes or until firm and golden.