Christmas Countdown: Day 18 Family Tradition
Today’s family tradition is Sugar Cookies!!!!!!!!! I think pretty much everyone has their own favorite recipe and tradition. I actually don’t have a favorite, per se, I like to try different recipes every year.
Do you sprinkle sugar on your cookies and then bake them? Or do you bake and the frost and maybe sprinkle sugar on the frosting? I grew up always sprinkling sugar on and then baking so this is also how my kids do it. We’ve done the frosting thing a few times and it has its own charm but the cookies are SO hard to store and keep fresh, I think. So we stick with sugar-then-bake.
I inherited all our childhood cookie cutters, which I love. I have also added to the collection. Last year I invested in some really good gingerbread men - a huge one that measures about 9 inches tall and a smaller version. If your kids don’t like gingerbread (and many don’t!) they can still have fun decorating gingerbread-style men made out of sugar cookie dough!
Here is the sugar cookie recipe I plan to use this year (which I used the last few years as well) passed along from my friend, Joy (skipping the frosting part):
Ingredients:1 c sugar
1 c marg or butter softened
3 oz cream cheese softened
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg yolk
2 c (generous) flour
Cream all but flour together, then stir in flour. Refrigerate two hours until firm. Heat oven to 350. Roll out 1/4 inch thick on well floured surface, cut out and bake for 7-10 minutes until lightly brown on bottoms. Cool and frost with vanilla frosting. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.
This dough also works really well to make jelly thumbprint cookies–just drop globs and press thumb in middle and add a touch of jelly in the middle–yum!
Do you have a favorite sugar cookie recipe or tradition? If so, share it with me in the comments!
December 10th, 2007 at 10:53 am
I have such bad luck with rolled dough. We have resorted to the pre-rolled sheets, b/c even though it goes against everything I believe, again I know my limits, haha! And for the kids the fun part is decorating them anyway! I tried Martha Stewart’s ginger bread dough one year and it worked great, the next year, it was impossible–I was on the phone with the hotel pastry chef for tips and it didn’t help!
BTW–they made a giant gingerbread pirate ship (our island has a history of pirates so they are always big around here, there is always a pirate ship in the parades etc.)–it is so cool!
[Reply]