Merry Christmas Cookies

Cutout Cookies

There are lots of recipes for Christmas sugar cookies out there.  But my family’s recipe for “Merry Christmas Cutout Cookies,” now being made by a fourth generation of Walsh descendants, is superior. Here’s why:

• This recipe actually tastes good. Despite being decorated with colored sugar, they’re not too sweet. They’re buttery and smooth, and the almond extract adds just enough ‘interest’ to the flavor.

• They’re a great group activity. Just like my mother taught me, I make the dough the night before. The next day, the elves gather around the table—with a lazy-Susan of colored sugars in small dishes in ramekins in the center. I stand at the counter and roll the dough—each decorator receives one tray to decorate, and Christmas spirit is in abundance. (PS—if you want it to be a G-rated activity, don’t invite my brother John to the party. Each year, he insists on using pink sprinkles to create an anatomically correct Santa, and dubs him Old Saint Dick. The Pegster highly disapproves of this tradition.)

• They’re easy to store. Unlike sugar cookies decorated with icing, these cookies are decorated before you bake them, resulting in an easily-stored, stackable cookie. After cooling, throw ‘em all in a tin, and they still look beautiful when you display them on your cookie plate, for serving or gift giving.

• Santa may eat everybody else’s cookies on Christmas eve to be polite, but these are unequivocally his favorite.

Point #3 is important to the women in my family.  The originator of this recipe, my Grammy (Dorothea) Walsh, always thought that food should look pretty—that you eat with your eyes before the food crosses your lips.  My mother and I are disciples of this philosophy as well.  The Pegster tells a cute story.  When she was a young married, her younger sister in law, my Aunt Jill (then a college student), came for a visit the week before Christmas.  My mom had made and stored this cookie dough in the morning before she went to work, with plans decorate and bake them with my aunt that evening.  Unaware of these plans, my aunt saw the cookie dough in the fridge, and thought she was being helpful while my mother was at work by forming them into balls and baking them, perfectly plain.  My mother managed not to cry when she got home.

Now in her 70s, my Aunt Jill is a retired neonatal heart surgeon, a regular reader of this blog, and one of the best cooks I know.  These days, she’d never make such a ‘rookie mistake,’ especially not on something as important as a Christmas cookie.

I hope you’ll make these cookies with your children and grandchildren.  In our family, they announce “Christmas is here,” priapic Santas notwitstanding.

(Make dough the night before!)
Makes about 3 dozen cookies

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Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

• 1 cup butter
  at room temperature

• 1 egg

• 1 t. vanilla extract

• 1/2 t. almond extract

• 2 1/2 cups flour

• 1 t. baking soda

• 1 t. cream of tartar

• 1 egg white

• Colored sugars, sprinkles, etc. for decorating

Print

Directions

• Using electric mixer, cream butter and powdered sugar.  Add egg, vanilla and almond extracts. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.  Mixing on medium, add dry ingredients to butter mixture one cup at a time, until combined. 
• Transfer dough to a large Ziploc bag (or wrap tightly in plastic wrap) and store in refrigerator overnight, or up to 5 days.
• When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Remove about 1 cup of dough at a time (you may need to slice it off from the ‘mother chunk’ of dough).
• Roll out.  I like to just use a clean counter, plenty of flour, and top the dough with a sheet of parchment paper to keep from sticking to my rolling pin.  Roll to about 1/8” thickness.
• Cut out with cookie cutters, and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets.  You can combine and “re-roll” scraps one time, maybe two—but it will get sticky and hard to work with beyond this.
• Wisk egg white until frothy.  Using a pastry brush, apply lightly to unbaked cookies.
• Decorate with colored sugars/decorations.
• Bake about 8 minutes, until lightly brown.  Allow to cool on cookie sheet for a couple of minutes, and then transfer to wire racks until completely cool.

RECIPE FOR PRINT

Merry Christmas Cutout Cookies

Recipe by Betsy OwensCourse: Desserts, HolidaysDifficulty: Easy

Servings

36

servings

Prep time

45

minutes

Cooking time

8

minutes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

• 1 cup butter
  at room temperature

• 1 egg

• 1 t. vanilla extract

• 1/2 t. almond extract

• 2 1/2 cups flour

• 1 t. baking soda

• 1 t. cream of tartar

• 1 egg white

• Colored sugars, sprinkles, etc. for decorating

Directions

• Using electric mixer, cream butter and powdered sugar.  Add egg, vanilla and almond extracts. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.  Mixing on medium, add dry ingredients to butter mixture one cup at a time, until combined. 
• Transfer dough to a large Ziploc bag (or wrap tightly in plastic wrap) and store in refrigerator overnight, or up to 5 days.
• When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Remove about 1 cup of dough at a time (you may need to slice it off from the ‘mother chunk’ of dough).
• Roll out. I like to just use a clean counter, plenty of flour, and top the dough with a sheet of parchment paper to keep from sticking to my rolling pin.  Roll to about 1/8” thickness.
• Cut out with cookie cutters, and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets.  You can combine and “re-roll” scraps one time, maybe two—but it will get sticky and hard to work with beyond this.
• Wisk egg white until frothy.  Using a pastry brush, apply lightly to unbaked cookies.
• Decorate with colored sugars/decorations.
• Bake about 8 minutes, until lightly brown.  Allow to cool on cookie sheet for a couple of minutes, and then transfer to wire racks until completely cool.

Notes

• Make dough the night before!
• Makes about 3 dozen cookies