This cookie dough is wonderful and will make a large variety of different cookies. It is guaranteed to impress your friends and family in every occasion. The best thing about this dough is that you can get seven different unique flavors all from one simple dough.
There is one main dough but to make four of the seven different variations you must add one ingredient. The dough will be divided in half. The first half will be for the first three variations. Then I will add the ingredient and make the last four.

Step 1: Making the Dough

If you are one of those people who calculates every 1/4 of a gram of fat that goes into your body, you might as well stop reading here before you finish reading the ingredients. For everybody else, this recipe is absolutely heavenly and, if your still worried about the fat, the treadmill beckons my friends.

-1 teaspoon of salt
-1 1/2 cups of warm water
-1 1/2 cups of sugar
-1 cup of vegetable oil
-1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) of instant yeast
-10 cups of all-purpose flour
lastly, dare I say it . . .
-9 sticks of butter (4 1/2 cups)
No, you did not read that wrong, that is nine sticks of butter or 4.5 cups or 1020.6 grams or 72 tablespoons. But it's all right, butter is good for your heart, it's been scientifically proven . . . . by me.

Before you exit this instructable and never dare to look at it again, I would like to reassure you and tell you this makes LOTS of cookies.
Anyways, to make the dough you must:

1. Melt all the butter but do not get it too hot, if it is, you should let it cool down before you add it so that it doesn't kill the yeast. Just keep it long enough to get it all melted.
2. Add yeast and water together in a small bowl or even a cup and stir. Then let it sit until it some bubbles appear on the surface.
3. Add flour, sugar, and salt in a very, very large bowl and whisk together.
4. Add the oil and butter into the dry ingredients and mix it until combined.
5. Add the water and yeast to the rest of the ingredients and mix with your hand or a wooden spoon. The dough will look watery at first which means it needs more mixing. After it is completely mixed it will look shiny, buttery. and will be much more cohesive. Oh, and it'll also smell delicious, so much that you might just be tempted to sneak a tiny little piece.

Step 2: Chewy Date Maamoul

These cookies are out of this world good, they just require a little bit of time and patience.

first for the date filling you will need
-baking dates (I will not specify how much because you may or may not have used as much dough as i did
-for every 8 oz. you will need 1 tablespoon of butter

1. melt the butter in a small pot and add the dates (if they are whole put them in a food processor)
2. roll the dates into little balls about 1 inch in diameter and them pat them down so they become about 1 1/2 to 1 1 3/4 inches in diameter
This is where it gets complicated:
3. take some dough and make it pancake like so it is a little thicker than a tortilla and about 3 1/2 inches in diameter.
4. place the ball of date in the middle and carefully fold up sides to make a ball of dough with a patty of date inside
5. put into a maamoul press, I got mine from Syria but there are websites you can buy them from like here

7. press and carefully place in a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper or foil, they should look translucent on the top and bottom and opaque on the sides

The cookies need to bake at 350 degrees until they are golden brown all over. Once again I will not specify a time because everyone's ovens work at differently

Step 3: Pecan Tea Cookies

Although these are called tea cookies they taste great without tea too. I ate them with my coffee because tea is my mortal enemy.

For these cookies you will need
- 1 cup of chopped pecans for every 2 cups of dough
-powdered sugar to dust on top of the cookies

1. take the dough and mix it with the pecans very thoroughly
2. take balls of dough and pat them down so they are about 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter and about 3/4" thick

Bake these cookies at 350 degrees until their bottoms are golden brown, but the top will not change color
This cookie is very simple, after baking the cookies, immediately dust with powdered sugar generously.

Step 4: Crunchy Walnut Surprise Cookies

These cookies are crunchy, nutty and not overly sweet. They definitely need a small dollop of marshmallow cream but they are absolutely divine. They're sophisticated enough for adults but are sweet and sticky enough for kids.

Ingredients:
1/6 of the original dough recipe
2 cups chopped walnuts
6 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons water
marshmallow cream, for serving

1. Place chopped walnuts in a medium sized bowl and add in the water, stirring to coat the walnuts.
2. Add sugar to the walnuts and stir to evenly coat.
3. Take a small ball of the dough and flatten it to a small pancake shape (just like the maamoul). Take a tablespoon of the walnut mixture and place it in the center of the small pancake of dough. Then, carefully wrap the dough around the walnut and close it off from the top. Press this ball of walnut and dough into a maamoul press. You can find one at this site: dough http://store.gourmetsleuth.com/mamoul-mold-pistachio-P863.aspx
4. Take the molded cookie out of the mold and place it on a greased or foiled cookie sheet. Bake these cookies at 350 degrees until they are pale golden-brown or light tan in color. Serve these with some marshmallow cream or, if you don't like marshmallow cream, some honey or agave nectar. They do, however, go best with marshmallow cream.

Step 5: Dough Part 2

By now, you've probably used about 1/2 of the dough. With the remaining half of the dough, take 2 cups of powdered sugar and stir it in. We will now use this dough for the remaining four cookies: toasted sesame cookies, the world's most basic cookie, cream filled cookies, and petit four.

Sorry there is not many things I can take pictures of

Step 6: Toasted Sesame Cookies

These cookies are really simple to make and delicious with the addition of sesame.

Ingredients:
1/3 of the cookie dough mentioned in step 5
1 cup untoasted sesame seeds

1.) In a wide frying pan, place the 1 cup of sesame seeds over medium high heat. Tossing occasionally, toast the seeds until they are light gold in color. Don't toast them too much because the oven will finish doing that for you.
2.)Take a small ball of dough and flatten it into a small, fairly thin pancake shape (about as thin as the maamoul dough) that is about 2" in diameter.
3.) Take the flattened out piece of and dip one side in the sesame seed until very well coated.
4.) Bake at 350 degrees or until the cookie itself is dark golden and the sesame seeds are fragrant and golden brown.

Step 7: S Cookies

These are a cinch to make and simple yet delicious.

Ingredients:
1/3 of the cookie dough from step 5
Pistachio halves, for pressing in the cookies

1. Take a ball of dough and roll into a long snake-like shape (just recall your play-doh days :) )
2. Shape this long strand into an different letters, but they are traditionally made into S's. This is where you can use the dough to make initials or involve little kids and make shapes.
3. If desired, press a pistachio half in the cookie or multiple pistachio halves.
4. Bake these cookies at 350 degrees or until very pale gold in color. These cookies don't change color that much, so you have to check the bottom. If the bottom is pale gold and firm, then they're done.

Step 8: Cream Filled Cookies

As if the cookies weren't rich enough, you fill these cookies with a traditional, delicious syrian cream, making the cookies soft and creamy.

To make the cream you will need
- 2 cups of whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons of cornstarch

1. start by putting the whipping cream into a pot and turning it on over med-high heat.
2. add the cornstarch and stir in thoroughly until the mixture boils the consistency should be similar to mashed potatoes
3. chill the mixture in a fridge until it has reached a very rubbery texture
4. as in step two of this instructable you will need a press and will stuff the cookies the same way but with a slightly less amount of the cream to stuff it with

You should bake this at 350 degrees, do not place them close together, they will spread significantly. They should start to brown very quickly and do not need that much time, make sure to take them out of the oven on time because they do not taste good burnt......trust me.
If you do not find the cookie to be sweet enough for you, you can boil water over a stove and add sugar until it becomes syrup like and drizzle it over the filled cookies as it is done traditionally

Step 9: Flower Jam Cookies (Petit Four)

These cookies look cute for any occasion and are easy to make. They're great for entertaining, making any cookie platter festive, girly birthday parties, etc. or just great for snacking.

all you will need is
- your favorite jam or preserve (I used apricot)

1. roll out the dough to about 1/4 of an inch
2. use a cookie cutter to cut out cookies
3. find a small circular object with which you can cut out the center of only half of the cut cookies (I used a thimble)
4. bake all of the cookies at 350 degrees until they slightly brown
5. take out and put about 1/2 of a teaspoon on each bottom side of the cookie
6. with the top cookie (the one with the hole in it) gather the jam in the hole and press down, let it cool and the jam will act as an adhesive

Step 10: Your Done!!!

After reading such a long instructable, your done! These cookies are scrumptious so enjoy them. Just make sure to have that running suit, tennis shoes, or yoga pants out and at the ready as soon as your done. These are so much fun to make and the S cookies and petit four are perfect for little kids. These are also, in my case, tons of fun to make with your mom because they take a while and give you time to talk.