I have a confession to make, I’ve never done Christmas cookies with my children when they were younger. They are teenagers and this is the first year that I made Christmas cookies from scratch. It was a lot of fun for me to watch my daughter and her friend decorating the cookies, and decide on their own to spread the cheer and share some with the neighbours. Loved it!
I know my way around the kitchen but I’m not a baker, I’m good at a handful of baked goods but cookies were not among them. This year with COVID and all the restrictions I needed to make the season a little bit different create new traditions to replace the ones we can do anymore. So searched up a few recipes, here is a tip if you search up recipes online, compare a few to make sure the recipe is actually correct 🙂 I didn’t compare my recipe first and ended up improvising to make it work, which actually turned out to be great.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/8 cups unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 medium-size eggs (room temperature)
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
Direction:
In a large mixing bowl beat the butter and sugar first at low speed and then at high until it turns light and creamy. Beat the eggs at a low speed one at a time, add vanilla, beat at high speed until you get the creamy texture back. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour and mix with the baking powder, then add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Mix at a low speed until all ingredients mix and you have a soft dough.
Divide the dough into two or four pieces, roll them into a cylinder shape, wrap in plastic or place in an airtight container, leave in the fridge for an hour or so. If you are planning to leave it in the fridge for longer you need to wrap the dough in plastic to make sure it won’t dry and crack.
Preheat the oven to 350°F
Remove the dough from the fridge let it sit for about 15 minutes or so, on a clean and dry cutting board cut the cylinder into discs of 1/4 inch thick. Place them 2 inches apart on a non-stick baking sheet, bake in the middle rack in the oven for about 12 minutes or until the sides are slightly golden.
Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack, when cold decorate with icing.
This is the fun part there is no wrong way of decorating the cookies just have fun!
