Sugar Star & Flag Cookies -- The Ones Amber Didn't Have to Say Anything About

Hot week. Ninety-eight on Thursday, ninety-six Friday, the kind of heat where the horizon ripples and the air feels like something you are chewing rather than breathing. The truck's air conditioning is fine, but the truck stops are not — every rest area a sauna, every gas station sign sagging in the glare — and I drank four bottles of water between Grand Island and Omaha Tuesday and still came home with a headache. This is how Nebraska summer reminds you it is not joking.

The Fourth of July is next weekend and Josie has opinions. She wants sparklers, she wants fireworks, she wants a flag cake, she wants all of us home. She is eleven and still believes in the family dinner as a geometric theorem — if every chair is filled, the proof holds; if a chair is empty, the whole thing collapses. I used to believe that too. I still believe that, mostly, which is why I rearranged my routes so I will be home Friday through Monday. Amber offered to help with the cake. This is the first time Amber has offered to help with a cake since Darla died. I said, "Sure, honey," and then I went into the truck and sat there for ten minutes with the door closed because I am Brenda and that is how I react to small tender moments.

Dave's mother, June, is 78 and declining. She lives in Hastings in a ranch house with Dave's brother Steve checking on her daily. She has dementia — the slow kind, the kind that takes years — and Dave drove over Saturday to have lunch with her. He came back quieter than he left. I made him meatloaf. I did not ask how it went. He said, "She knew me today." I said, "Good." We ate meatloaf and watched a Cornhuskers replay on the couch and held hands during the second quarter, which is what Dave and I do instead of talking about things that hurt.

The cookbook hit thirty-two thousand words. I wrote an entire chapter on slow-cooker chili this week — variations, road adjustments, what to do if you only have a Pilot truck stop pantry — and I read it back Sunday morning in the sunroom with coffee and it sounded like me. That is the thing I was worried about. A book is a long thing. Over thirty thousand words you could start to sound like someone else, some writer version of yourself, some cleaned-up Brenda who does not exist. I do not want to publish a book by a person who does not exist. I read the chili chapter and it was me — the grain of my voice, the truck diesel smell of my sentences — and I closed the laptop and let myself feel proud for a full minute before I got up to start breakfast.

Amber baked the flag cake Saturday — sheet cake, strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream stars. It was beautiful. She cut the first slice for me. She did not say anything. She did not have to. Seventeen years old and she knows exactly how to tell her mother she loves her without using the word love. That is Amber. That has always been Amber.

Josie wanted the flag cake and she got it — Amber made it beautiful, strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream, and I will remember the look on her face when she handed me the first slice for the rest of my life. But the cookies are mine, the ones I’ll bring to the table alongside everything else, because some years you need more than one thing to feel festive, and this year is one of those years. Sugar Star & Flag Cookies are simple enough that the girls can help, sturdy enough to survive a Nebraska July, and exactly the kind of thing that fills a table the way Josie needs it filled — every chair occupied, every plate full, proof that we are all still here.

Sugar Star & Flag Cookies

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 35 min (plus chilling) | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• 3–4 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (for icing)
• Red, white, and blue gel food coloring
• Red, white, and blue sprinkles or sanding sugar, for decorating

Instructions

1. Make the dough. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla and almond extracts.
2. Combine. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture, mixing just until the dough comes together. Do not overmix.
3. Chill. Divide dough in half, flatten each half into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.
4. Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Lightly flour your work surface.
5. Roll and cut. Working with one disc at a time, roll dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with star-shaped and flag-shaped cookie cutters. Transfer to prepared baking sheets, spacing about 1 inch apart.
6. Bake. Bake 8–10 minutes, until edges are just barely golden. Do not overbake — the centers should look slightly underdone when you pull them. Cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.
7. Make the icing. Whisk powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla together until smooth and pourable. Divide into three bowls and tint one red, one blue, and leave one white. Add more milk by the teaspoon if needed to reach a spreadable consistency.
8. Decorate. Spread or pipe icing onto cooled cookies. Decorate with red, white, and blue sanding sugar or sprinkles while the icing is still wet. Allow icing to set fully, about 30 minutes, before stacking or storing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 118 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 5g | Carbs: 17g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 55mg