Christmas.. a Little Late

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This recipe is coming a little late because Christmas was over a month ago but I really wanted to share this because I am not lying whenever I say this is the best Christmas cookie you will ever taste. I think to most it probably tastes like an average sugar cookie covered in delicious frosting and topped with sprinkles or heath pieces or whatever delicious decoration is on top of the icing, but to my family they are magic. Every year we make these cookies as a family. What makes them taste so good is the tradition and the thought that we all made them together and decorated them with care. My brothers have both kind of grown out of this tradition, although they still do it for my mom’s sake. I however treasure this more than anything else we do on Christmas. For the 45 minutes my family is all sitting around a table. No yelling or fighting just decorating with icing. This is one of my grandmother’s recipes yet another reason why it is so special.

 

Rolled Butter Cookies

Ingredients

1 c. butter

1 ½ c. confectioners’ sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

2 ½ c. flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

¼ tsp. salt

Directions

Cream together butter and sugar. Add vanilla and egg. Beat well. Add dry ingredients and mix. Chill for 2 hours or overnight. Roll dough into ¼” or 1/8” slabs and cut into shapes using cookie cutters. Bake cookies at 350 degrees for minutes.

Frosting

1/3 c. butter

4 c. confectioners’ sugar

1 ½ tsp. vanilla

2 T milk

Directions

Cream butter. Beat in half the sugar. Add vanilla. Gradually add the remaining sugar and enough milk to make of spreading consistency.

Here is a video on how to roll out your dough!

 

Advice: My best advice is to make sure you watch your cookies in the oven. As I have mentioned before in the blog you need to be interactive with your food. You cannot just set the timer and walk away. Different ovens cook differently. My oven at home gets very hot very fast and I am constantly burning things. One thing you cannot burn is sugar cookies because everyone will be able to see it no matter how much frosting you put on it.

After we make the frosting we set up the table so that everyone has a piece of parchment paper to decorate on and then we have bowls filled with sprinkles and chocolate chips and coconut and heath pieces and all different kinds of delicious things to make your cookie even sweeter than it already is! We also die the icing different colors to help with the aesthetic appeal.

I usually double the recipe whenever I make this because we give some to neighbors and also everyone in my family loves to devour these cookies. Another tip is that if you have a picky eater leave a few plain. My dad likes his better that way!

As always.. Enjoy!

 

Links:

http://www.emme-magazine.com/2013/12/04/host-a-christmas-cookie-exchange-party/

 

 

 

 

 

3 thoughts on “Christmas.. a Little Late

  1. jgs5271

    Yum! You are seriously making me hungry. These look so delicious. I like how you incorporated little stories about your family into this. It made it so much more personal, and not simply just a recipe. I wish I had one right now. What color do you normally dye the icing? Does the food dye ever give the icing a weird taste because every time I use food dye it tastes so bad!

  2. nbg5058

    I’m a huge fan of Christmas cookies – they’re one of the best Christmas traditions, in my opinion. Your family’s tradition reminds me of one of my family’s: “Cookie Day.” Every year, the weekend before Christmas about 20 women and girls in my family come together to bake together for an entire day. Our output usually consists of around 15 different types of cookies, totaling somewhere around 200 cookies. So, an all around amazing day. I’m wondering – do your families cookies turn out as pretty as the ones in the picture? I know from experience it’s hard to achieve such perfection with iced cookies. I’ve certainly never come close! But hey, the Christmas spirit shows regardless.

  3. Abigail Louise Cosgrove

    Christmas cookies are such a big family tradition. I totally agree with you, my family also has our own traditions and to any other family they are just the average holiday traditions but to us they are everything. It doesn’t really matter what kind of tradition you have but that you are all doing it together as a family is what makes doing it over and over again worth it. The decorated christmas cookies sound and look absolutely delicious!

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