Holiday Sugar Cookies

It is the holiday season! There is Christmas music and decorations everywhere. Everybody is in the Holiday spirit. It doesn't matter whether you celebrate Christmas or not, it is hard to be oblivious to the festive cheer around you, especially if you have little children at home. I do not celebrate Christmas, but I do celebrate the Holiday spirit! My three-year old told me the other day in his little voice: "mummy, it is soon going to be kissmass! It is going to shnow & Shanta Claus is going to come on the sled with presents for us! Did you know that??" How can I disillusion him?? One of the key elements for the holiday celebration are the holiday cookies: the classic sugar cookies with decoration. My kids love to potter around me in the kitchen. I therefore figured that making and decorating Holiday cookies would be a fun activity for them. I therefore set-out looking for an easy, fool-proof sugar-cookie recipe. Funnily, nothing caught my fancy! Finally, I found a very nice and easy recipe in a place we would least expect! I took it from the back of the Domino sugar package!! I was apprehensive about trying out a recipe that none of my friends/ blogger friends could vouch for! Then, I remembered that I had once made these lovely bars from a recipe from the back of a package and they came out great. With this in mind, I bravely tried out the recipe. I must say: the recipe kept it's promise: it was super-easy and super-simple with no need to freeze the dough before using. Also, the cookies didn't fall flat on baking. If held it's shape!! They looked beautiful when they came out of the oven and the kids had a great time decorating it. Even the neighbor's kids joined in the fun! The end result is far from perfect but the pride my kids demonstrated in the cookies they made is unexplainable! Do give this recipe a try: you will never go looking for another one!

Servings: makes around 23-25 cookies.

Ingredients:

Butter: 6 tbsp ( at room temperature)
Sugar: 3/4 cup
Egg: 1
Vanilla essence: 1 tsp
Flour: 2 cups, sifted
Baking powder: 1 tsp
Salt: 1/2 tsp

For Royal icing:

Confectioner's sugar ( powdered sugar): 3 & 3/4 cups
Egg whites: from 2 eggs
Vinegar: 1 tbsp

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.

In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

Add one egg and vanilla essence am beat well.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and keep aside.

Mix the flour mixture to the egg mixture, little at a time until all the flour is used and a nice dough is formed. Do not over mix.

Using a waxed paper, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness.

Using the cookie cutters, cut out the desired shapes.

Line them on a cookies sheet. Do this until all the dough has been used up.

Place the cookie sheet on the center rack of the oven and bake at 350 deg for 8-10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cookie.Note: these cookies don't brown ( may be slightly at the bottom), they stay nicely white.

Cool it completely on the cooling rack before decorating it.

Royal icing:

Beat the egg whites for few seconds until frothy. Add the vinegar and beat for 10 more seconds. Now add the powdered sugar one cup at a time beating in between to mix well. Once all the sugar powder has been added, beat on medium for 7-10 minutes or until stiff peaks are seen.

Divide the royal icing in 3 bowls. Add red food coloring to one bowl and green to the other. The third one stays white. Ideally gel colors are preferred as they give deeper colors. I was out of it so I used regular food colors hence they are lighter and more pastel.

Add the frosting to the piping bags. I used Wilton tip# 3 & 5. Decorate the cookies as you wish. You can use edible decoration, candies, pretty much anything you want!!

Let it dry completely, preferably overnight before storing in airtight container.

These cookies may not be the prettiest or professional looking but they were decorated by my kids and when we were having a fun time as a family. To me, these cookies are the most precious ones in this world! Enjoy making these adorable cookies with your kids and sharing them with your loved ones! After all Holidays is about families and this is what makes for wonderful memories!

Happy Holidays Everyone!!

I am bringing this to Throwback Thursday, Fiesta Friday #99 and Saucy Saturday! Caroline @ Caroline’s Cooking and Linda @ La Petite Paniere are co-hosting Angie's Fiesta Friday this week.

Cooking made easy:

If you don't have icing bags, just add it to a ziplock bag and cut a small edge and pipe away!

One trick to keep cookies soft is to store them with a slice of bread.