Recipe - Holiday Sugar Cookies

The best way to get in the holiday mood is to bake! I love decorating cookies, as they can be as complex or fun as you can come up with!

I live in Denver area, and the King Super store had some really fun cookie cutters this year! SO I had to update my collection!

This makes about 15 decent sized cookies!


Ingredients
1-1/3 cups and 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons margarine
1 cup white sugar
1 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees(F)

Grease or line your pan, this is UBER important, as they will burn on too dark cook ware and may stick, ruining the effect of decorating! 

(Same as many recipes!)Combine dry items together. Mix wet ingredients until smooth in its own bowl. Once smooth, mix the wet in with the dry until just combined. Try not to over mix it, there should be some lumps but still well combined.

DO NOT OVER MIX these if you want good cookies! The more you mix them, the more fluffy the batter gets and it will expand from its shape when baked.

To make it easy to roll, toss the dough in the fridge or freezer for some time. Then roll out to make your shapes. 

Bake until golden edges, keep a close eye on them.

Be sure to let them cool completely before decorating or the icing will just melt off them like a bad horror movie. I love to decorating using butter cream, as its my favorite icing. We are lucky and have gel colors so I can make super vibrant colors of it. 

Basic Butter Cream - this will make enough for a basic cake
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup milk as needed

Optional - 1/2 cup shortening, for terrible for you but delicious icing.

Start by letting the butter get to room temp, then beat the heck out of it. The longer you beat it, the fluffier your icing will be. Add in the sugar/salt slowly, so it doesn't blow back at you. Thicken to desired way, then add in vanilla to taste. Add in more sugar to thicken or thin it out with milk. 

Separate into bowls and dye your icing with colors! If you use wet colors, you may need to add more sugar to make it stiffer. 

I like the use a stiff batter to line my cookies, then I flood fill them with a bit looser. Cookies will only need to be popped in the fridge if they last beyond 3 days. :9 if they last.