Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Cut-Out Cookies for Tanya

As we have a new baby, Elijah, who was born November 5th, I don't know if I'll manage cut-out cookies this year. Perhaps! I did manage some chocolate rum balls yesterday, so who knows? But, my friend, Tanya, asked if I happen to have a recipe for them and I do. I've never had a problem with it and it tastes quite yummy! This is the recipe I always use when I make cut-outs:

Cut-Out Cookies
4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2 sticks butter, room temperature
2 c. sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. vanilla (you can use other flavors, too---I like a mix of citrus fruit juice, especially at Easter)

Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Cream the butter and sugar until light yellow and fluffy. Beat in eggs. Add flour, with speed set on low, and mix until well-combined. Add vanilla. Form into 2 disks and wrap in plastic. Chill half an hour. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Roll dough out to about 1/8" thick, on a floured surface, one disk at a time. Cut out with cookie cutters and place on ungreased baking sheets. Chill about 15 minutes, so they're nice & firm. You can decorate them with sanding sugar before baking, if you want. Otherwise, use your favorite icing once they're baked. I like royal icing for these, but plain old powdered sugar icing is great, too. Anyway, bake these until the edges just start to brown, 8-10 minutes. Cool on wire racks before decorating. These are also good without any icing, sanding sugar, or anything. Makes about 30 2 1/2" cookies---or 15 larger ones. 

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I also have a tried and true sugar cookie recipe that I got through a cookie exchange. I agree that royal icing is the best!. Since I notoriously do not have my act together, my son and I have a tradition of making New Year's cookies. :-) There's less rush, the Christmas goodies are (mostly gone) and we use numbers to represent the year. Plus we get to use whatever cookie cutter shapes we love but don't always have a specific reason to use.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Daria Schaffnit said...

I really like that tradition!